The van yaws toward open water as the river climbs the door seam.
"Right side's gone," Rick says, too calm.
"Small counter. One click," Gavin says.
He feathers left wheel, not more than a breath, and snicks the handbrake one click—just enough to drag the rear and check the yaw without throwing it. The right tires kiss nothing—then find a sliver of ramp lip with a bump that tries to be steering.
"Leverage," Madison says, reading him. "Bollard."
"Copy," Gavin says. The left bumper is already touching the painted bollard at the slit's edge. He leans into it, a deliberate scrape—metal on concrete—turning the bollard into a hinge. The handbrake click keeps the rear obedient; throttle loads the front. The van pivots a finger back toward dry like a door that remembered its pins.
"Hold that," Rick says, body pressed left to add ten unimportant pounds that somehow matter.
The river slaps the right sill again and falls as the tires finish their climb back onto ramp timber. The yaw dies. The curb returns under the left tread like an old friend's hand.
"Out," Madison says. "Go."
Gavin feeds throttle. The right-side hush of river becomes the hiss of bollard paint; the van threads the slit. The newspaper rack kisses the slider and leaves a black grin. A spike board waits just beyond—a two-by with nails, thrown panicked and smart.
"Straddle," Gavin says. He center-lines the two-by so the pumpkin splits the difference; the nails tick the crossmember harmlessly and clatter into the past.
"Red," Rick warns.
A laser dot flares on the hood and jumps as they break line behind the block. Two spare shots crack and go to unhelpful places—one spits chips from the dock-line knot where it sits at the latch loop. The knot twitches; the line hum climbs a hair and goes harsh.
"Inside tail?" Madison asks.
"Here," Rick says, already hauling the bitter end they dragged through the grille earlier. He wraps it twice around the seat base and snatches it tight. "Safety turn."
"Good," Gavin says. You love redundancy when the first love is lying. He pins the right tire to curb—ssss—the trustworthy tone under the fractured slit of sight. The lot drops behind: rope crew arguing physics with water; the pack learning how chairs don't help; the rifle losing line and choosing to be less loud.
They catch a bend between the restroom block and a row of dumpsters. The hoodline knot creaks with motion and holds. Heat from a burning sedan at the lot mouth licks their left side; fuel whoomphs in a lazy, hungry way. Someone is under the sedan, arm out, fingers all decision and no reach. Madison looks once, counts the impossible, and faces forward because forward is the only math she owns.
"Street seam," Rick says. "Patch lip up a finger."
"Square it," Gavin says. He gives a rag of throttle and bridges the lip without asking the pedal to admit anything. Tires land on street proper; the van roots in, low and honest.
"Industrial east," Madison says. "Left is the river wall; right is warehouses, fenced."
"Rope crew will migrate," Rick says. "They iterate fast."
"They love lanes," Gavin answers, and chooses one with cover: a service alley that snakes behind a tire shop and a welding bay. The alley's mouth wears a chain at shin height, padlock bright because new is what somebody had. He sets the angle. The bumper bullies the chain low. The anchor screw squeals out of tired wood. The chain slaps the cargo floor and becomes history.
"Cable," Madison says, three car lengths in—she heard it before she saw it. A steel line runs from a ladder rack to a bollard, chest-high across the alley, tight as memory.
"Header and seam," Gavin says. "Windows two. Fingers in."
He leans the A-pillar into the future bite, drops the right tires a finger off the curb so the van lists left. The cable rings the hood lip, skates the dock-line angle, and saw-saws at the header seam. The hood line sings higher but does not give. Madison lifts with the wrench under the cable at the pillar; Rick props the towel bar under the hood's inner rib. The cable rides the roof seam, peels a white ribbon of paint, and twangs free into chain-link that complains in a small voice.
"Clear," Madison says.
"Heat?" Rick asks, sniffing.
"Line's hot from friction," Madison says. "Hitch is good."
"Eyes ahead," Gavin says.
The alley spills onto a broader industrial spine—concrete slabs, a march of sodium poles, the glitter of weld sparks somewhere like lazy stars. Far end: a construction corridor—cone forest, steel plates laid like scales, and a wheeled excavator idling with its bucket hanging low over one lane like a thought someone didn't finish.
"Tow strap coiled at the cone base," Madison notes. "Bait."
"They'll pull when we're committed," Rick says.
"We don't give them the timing," Gavin says. He takes the left lane, curb-riding so the truck's tire becomes a potential lever if needed and the strap is on the wrong side for their plan.
"Sign brace at eleven o'clock," Madison says. "Low."
"That's our barber," Gavin says, feeling the roof dent's memory. Something lands on the roof and sticks—fingers searching gutter. He drifts left a finger; the low brace shaves the clinger off with a screech and a thump that does not send a complaint.
"Soft spot, plate seam," Rick says. "Right of center."
"Straight," Gavin says, and lets the tires step the steel with the patience of good ankles. The dock line hum is a thin light in his ear. You live right now because rope learned to be faith.
"Movement," Madison says. Two figures at the cones yank that coiled strap across the lane, hitching it to a hydrant shoe. At the same breath the excavator's cab shifts—a silhouette with a welding hood inside turns the stick with small, mean hands. The bucket rises a foot, swings a foot.
"They're bracketing," Rick says.
"We go now before their nouns get verbs," Gavin says. "Curb braille. Madison—lift if needed."
"Ready," she says, wrench braced.
Gavin pins the right tires on curb—ssss—leaning the van left so the strap will ride high if they're late and the bucket will swing under his terms, not theirs. He feeds throttle—a steady, no-panic line of voice.
The strap jumps tight behind them—late; it bites at empty air where their bumper was. They beat that hand by one breath.
But the bucket comes—hard across the lane, from right to left, a black half-moon of steel with teeth that have eaten rebar and won't mind glass. The excavator slews on its rubber, finding angle with cheerful malice. The operator over-corrects at the end of the swing—new at this or excited—and the bucket drops a finger lower than any of them wanted.
"Under or over?" Rick asks, knowing the answer and hating the options.
"Under is throat," Madison says, flat. "Over is glass."
"Middle," Gavin says, because sometimes there is a door where the wall thinks it's complete. He sets the nose for the hinge of the swing—where bucket speed is least and his steering matters most. He loads the left tire on the plate's edge so if he needs a finger of bounce, he's bought it already.
The bucket eclipses the windshield.