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The crunch when the front end hit concrete was worse than I’d expected, but the air bags didn’t inflate. I grunted as I landed on my ribs on the steering wheel and stayed suspended there. Except for a hint of scraping slide, the car’s forward motion stopped on impact, with the nose end down and the back end still up above the retaining wall. If there was more than an inch or so of concrete between us and the water, I couldn’t see it. I reached for the door handle, but the angle was funny and my ears were ringing and somehow the handle just wasn’t where I’d left it. Through the ringing, I could make out a kind of roar next to me. I blinked a couple of times and realized it was Number Two screaming in frustration. He sat more or less upright, seat belt holding him back, hands pushing off
