An hour ago the sky was clean and Adam Crain was holding Willem's hand in line, whispering that he loved him, waiting for the swinging doors of the frontier saloon ride to let them in. Adam had picked this park. He had picked this Tuesday. He had spent a week on a spreadsheet to make sure the day would be easy, because nothing else in their life was easy right now, and they needed one afternoon that wasn't about the thing they were trying not to think about. Then the clouds turned black over the roofline, and someone behind them said rain wasn't in the forecast. They came out of the ride into a river. The midway was gone. Brown water climbed past Adam's knees and pulled at his sandals. A food cart painted with cartoon dumplings tore loose from its anchor and sailed past them sideways, spilling fryer oil in a slick that shone under the storm light. Adam grabbed for Willem's wrist. Willem already had him. "Panda," Willem said, and pointed. At the far end of the walkway a giant fiberglass panda sat on a concrete platform, hugging its bamboo, three feet above the flood. Between them and the panda, the whole crowd was trying to squeeze through one place: the narrow gap beside the saloon ride, the only way off the midway. Adam saw a woman go down. He saw the people behind her keep moving. His sandal came off again and floated. He understood, without thinking it in words, that if he got pulled into that gap he was going to die there. "Not the exit," Adam said. His voice came out thin. "Willem. Not the exit. The panda." Willem looked at the chokepoint, then at the statue, then at Adam. He nodded once. He locked his fingers into Adam's belt loop from behind and shoved him sideways, out of the current of bodies, into the slower water along the ride's outer wall. They waded against the pull. A man's shoulder clipped Adam's ribs and spun him. Willem caught him by the back of the polo and set him upright again, the way you'd right a lamp. They reached the platform. Adam put his hands on the panda's cold flank and climbed. His bare foot slipped on the wet concrete lip and his whole weight dropped. He heard himself make a sound. Willem's hand closed around his forearm, hard enough to bruise, and hauled him up onto the ledge beside the statue. Adam sat with his back against the bamboo, breathing. Below them the crowd was still funneling into the gap. Someone was screaming. Adam looked at Willem's hand on his arm, still holding on, and understood that he had never once, in four years, been the one doing the catching.