He continues shuffling, but only for a few paces.

“Come on, man,” he says, and turns, and he’s so fast I don’t even see the drop kick coming.

He jumps with both feet and crashes into my stomach.

The wind is knocked out of me and the gun goes flying. Both of us go down onto the ice with a crash. He falls on me, his thighs crunching against my ribs.

Water and a big fissure forming under my back.

He pivots on top of me, and although his hands are still cuffed he’s trying to bite my face.

His teeth snag on the ski mask at my chin, his breath reeking of booze and fear.

I make a fist and thump him so hard the first blow probably breaks his nose. The next gets him in his left eye, and the sideways kick to the crotch is the clincher. He doubles up in agony and I push the writhing mass of naked flesh away from me.

I get to my feet, retrieve the gun, suck O₂.

I look nervously at the crack under my feet. I stand there for a few beats but it doesn’t widen.

“Jesus,” he says.

Jesus is right. That was really something.

We both could easily have gone right through the surface. The hammer in my backpack would have taken me down to the lake bottom and if the shock hadn’t sent me into cardiac arrest, the current would probably have taken me away from the crack and up under unbroken ice. And if I hadn’t been able to break through I would have drowned. Shit, even if I’d gotten through somehow, I’d have been too exhausted to get out of the water. I’d have frozen to death in about half an hour. Mary, Mother of God, that would have been too perfect. It almost would have been worth it, just for that. What a wonderful, circular, karmic joke on me.

Yes.

I underestimated you, friend. And if I was a better person I’d let you go.

More deep breaths, hard, until I feel that I’m balanced again, poised between fight and flight.

Behind me the startled ravens stop squawking and resume their perches.