Page 114 of Ricochet

Water had climbed to my shins, and I patted around for the pipe. Bitter cold steel met my fingertips, and I followed it to the angry pulse of water pouring from the mouth of the pipe. Nothing. No way to stop it. Placing my hands over the mouth of it only succeeded in kicking me backward onto my ass.

My heart raced. Pulse pounded. My head felt light, and I struggled to suck in air between rapid, panicked breaths.

“Help me!” I stood from the water suddenly at my knees, and pounded at the walls. “Somebody! Help me!”

In a matter of minutes, the vault would be filled. Concrete scratched my fingertips as I patted the walls, and I whimpered a sound of relief on finding a bolted ladder.

Taking each step easy, in spite of my trembling limbs, I climbed to the top and pushed on the hatch. It wouldn’t move. Wouldn’t budge.

I thumped my fist against it. “Somebody help me!”

Screwing my eyes shut brought flashes of my past, the light at the surface, the struggle for breath, the pressure at the top of my head.

I pounded with both fists against the hatch. “Help me! Open the door! Open the door!”

Frantic thrashing of my limbs knocked me backward, and I slid down the ladder, my foot catching between the wall and the ladder. Reaching for the rungs above me, I pushed up on my good foot, but my leg merely twisted in painful contortion, as water splashed around my chest.

“Oh, God! Help me!” Branches of terror shot through my veins, threatened to pull me into blackness

Using every ounce of energy I had, I pushed upward and yanked on the rungs. As the water reached my chin, I reached out to the darkness above me, the echo of my scream falling into silence.

CHAPTER 51

Nick

Crouched in the darkness of the basement, I peered down the tunnel, where the figure moved through the shadows, getting closer. I already knew that the tunnel ended at the dead end construction site, where the adjacent building had been torn down. Only when he neared, did I notice Aubree was nowhere in sight.

Lurching from my hiding spot, I wrapped my arm around Culling’s throat and squeezed. Wetness slid against my fingertips. His kicks and punches struck me from all angles, as he fought for his life, but still I held tight, not letting go until I yanked him to the ground and pointed my gun in his face. “Where is she?”

“It seems my head is swimming. I can’t recall.” At the angling of his chin, I noticed a streak of blood across his throat.

Flipping the gun, I clocked him in the face with the stock and had his lips kissing the barrel once more. “Where. Is. She?” The words hardly pushed past my clenched teeth. I glanced up, toward the mouth of the tunnel, from where he’d come.

A click brought my attention back to Culling, and the gun he’d pulled. He brought a finger to his lips. “Shhhh. Is that … water I hear?” His thin eyebrows winged up with his laughter. ““I wish I hadn't cried so much!” said Alice, as she swam about, trying to find her way out. “I shall be punished for it now, I suppose, by being drowned in my own tears!””

Find a way out. Drowned. He had her trapped somewhere. I steadied the gun against his forehead.

“You shoot me. I shoot you. She dies.” Only the faint outline of his movement could be seen by the light from the end of the tunnel, as he scrambled from beneath me and rose to a stand, the barrel of his gun pointed at me the whole time. “Who’s faster? Seems you’re not quick on the draw anymore friend.”

In spite of the destruction to my hand, I flipped the safety on the other side of the gun, gripped the stock, and leveled the barrel. “I wouldn’t chance it.”

“Hands in the air, Culling!” The shout came from a shadowed figure beyond him.

“I called for backup” I told Culling. DeMarcus, to be exact. “This place will be swarming with police and FBI any minute.”

“We got Brandon Malone in custody,” DeMarcus continued. “He confessed everything. We also received an anonymous chip of Julius Malone implicating you. You’re done. It’s over.”

I didn’t need to hear anymore. Backing away from Culling, I bolted back through the tunnel from where he’d had come, blowing off the shouts at my back.

At the tunnel’s exit, my heart kicked up with the frantic sweep for any sign of Aubree. She couldn’t have escaped over the barbed wire at the top of the fence. A staircase led to a large concrete structure, and I dashed that way and up the stairs to a small door at the top. Flipping it open, I peeked inside to darkness and what sounded like water rising toward me.

“Aubree!” I shouted. “Aubree!”

After shrugging out of my coat and kicking off my shoes, I climbed inside the vault. I’d descended no more than a couple of stairs, something hit my leg.

Jesus. No.

Slipping beneath the ice-cold water, I patted around. Limbs, an arm I presumed, floated outward, and I hooked my good arm beneath it, pushing upward, toward the surface. The body didn’t budge. I tried again, but no go.