It wasn’t long before water started spouting over the lip of the door. First it was a steady pour from one corner, but then it was half-a-dozen waterfalls all around the rim. The icy froth swilled to my knees. I kept looking up, hoping the strap would lie unmoving on the ice and not slide into the truck. I checked the knot around my waist with my good hand. My plan was simple: let the water do most of the work raising me as close to the truck’s exit as possible, and then, once the truck was filled, all I had to do was swim straight up, as the truck sank away from me. I had to remember to use the floor to guide myself through the gap in the shutter door so I didn’t get trapped. And to not pass out due to the shock of the ice water. Or pull on the strap. But even if I did: up, up, up. Simple enough. Sure. I felt the strap pull upwards against my waist. It felt like a tug.

The water reached my chest. Nothing left but the roar of water in my ears. I could only see a small patch of sky flecked with spray and foam, ever narrowing. Everything below my neck constricted with the cold. I thought about the sturgeon fish. It was comforting to think that if my heart stopped from the shock, at least I wouldn’t have to know I was drowning.

Up, up, up, I chanted in my mind. Then the sky was gone. I took a deep breath. Up. Up. Up.

CHAPTER 26

I woke up naked.

My brain tried to piece together whether someone had dragged me across the ice and onto the bank, but, as more of my senses came back, I realised I wasn’t cold enough to be outside. I was in a bed. The sheets were tucked up around my neck as if I were a nightmare-prone child, tight enough to be in an asylum. I blinked away the fog.