As they slide, his feet slip and skate on the ramp, but they won’t grab—it’s too slick. Rob revs and revs and the exhaust fumes cloud to steam in the icy air and make Shayne’s head spin a little, but it’s not doing any good: the tyres won’t grab either.

A ribbon of panic wraps around his throat and he makes himself take a deep breath.

Then another.

There’s no traction but it’s slow, he tells himself. At the moment, this is happening slowly; he has plenty of time to get out of the way. Plenty of time before the tyres grab or momentum gets the better of the situation.

Plenty of time.

No worries.

He takes another deep breath, then tries to pull himself from the motor to the edge of the boat. But, what with the movement of the boat and the uselessness of his legs throwing him off balance, he loses grip. His feet slip out completely and he falls back, into the path of the edging boat. Pain shocks in his wrists and shoots up his arms and he’s caught in a strange bulging pause—a pause that feels like he’s looking through a round fish tank except it’s not just how things look, it’s the entire fabric of the moment—and then he feels his guts hit the back of his throat and his hearing deadens and his vision explodes with sparks of black and gold. It doesn’t fade completely, it just dances strangely and he’s floating as he slides and the pain is pulsing in his arms somewhere far away. The wheel of the trailer forces itself up and onto his leg, but it can’t gain enough purchase to run it over properly. It grinds down and the bone splinters like a spray of sparks shooting out from fingernails scraping down a blackboard and he’s drifting in a haze of pain, dragged by his slowly shattering leg, pushed by the sliding trailer, and the wetness on his flopping hands and his pants is shot through with ice and he smells fish and chips and the fumes from the engine revving somewhere in the back of his head …

The splash of cold water on his face snaps him out of his daze and panic takes hold. His leg is trapped by the trailer, which is still sliding, still pushing him deeper into the water, which is rising to his chest, his neck, his chin. It’s so cold every breath squeezes out like he’s been punched in the guts, or it might be the pain, which is so textured, so varied: his arms ache fiercely, and hot jarring spikes jump rhythmically from his wrists up to his elbows and his leg groans as it splinters slowly beneath the grinding weight of the boat. And it’s all so slow.