Page 377 of Hidden Depths

We had less than fifty-six minutes.

Maybe less than that before Calle and the others were taken.

Nathan stepped in front of the wounded guard.

“How many men went after them?”

“I don’t know.”

Nathan struck him once.

The man’s head snapped back against the stone.

Elanore caught Nathan’s arm.

“Nathan.”

“He knows.”

“He can’t answer if you kill him.”

Nathan looked toward her.

The fury inside him didn’t disappear, but he stepped back.

Elanore’s hand slid down his arm.

She left it there.

“Please,” she whispered.

One word.

Nathan obeyed.

I understood why.

I was beginning to think I would do anything Storm asked of me too.

That realization should have frightened me more than the rising water.

I crouched in front of the guard.

“Listen carefully. You’re trapped beneath a mountain with a flooded exit and an injured side. The men you work for left you here to die.”

“They’ll come back.”

“No, they won’t.”

“You don’t know that.”

“They activated a system that will flood every chamber beneath this mountain in less than an hour. Does that sound like a rescue plan?”

The man glanced at the timer.

00:54:31

For the first time, real fear entered his eyes.