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I smile inwardly, clenching my jaw in pain so tightly, I feel like my teeth are sinking into my jawbone.
“Okay, pay attention,” he says. “Right now, you’ll have to do the best you can, because we’ll have to dive.”
His words pulsate through the dark, and my mushy brain can’t process them.
A sharp slap on my face jostles me awake.
“Crone! Stay with me!” he barks.
“So loving,” I murmur and finally do smile.
“Crone, just hold on for several minutes. We need to do this, yeah?”
I think I nod, but my eyelids are heavy.
“Okay.” Droga’s voice is coming in and out like there’s a bad connection. “On three, you hold your breath and do your best to push through the water. I’ll guide you. But you need to stay awake for this,” he says, his voice drowning out. “Crone! Open your eyes!”
He slaps me again on the face.
I try to focus.
“We only need to get under this one passage. They’re waiting for us, yeah? Kat and the guards.” He motions somewhere but I don’t see anything but his face. “Take a deep breath?” Summoning all my strength, I do as he tells me. “One. Two. Three.”
He pulls me down, underwater, and forward.
His strong hand is the only thing I feel. I follow him like seaweed, trying to stay focused, fighting through the water. My head is spinning. The feel of water warping around me is comforting, except, this time, I don’t want comforting darkness. I want light. Her. I want to see Kat again.
And that’s when I finally slip into darkness.
59
KAT
The hollownessof the Devil’s Caverns is too eerie as we softly rock on a speedboat in the center of it.
The strobe lights point at one of the walls, dark murky water lapping at the slimy stone. One of the guards talks on the walkie, the beeping of the radio and his voice echoing through the large hollow dark dome of the cave. I feel like I’m in someone’s giant mouth, and I never liked horror movies.
I stare at the brown patch of water, lit up by the light, murky amongst the blackness around.
And I wait.
And wait.
My heartbeat seems to slow down, my body so tense I can’t move.
I stare at that brown patch of water like it’s the most beautiful thing I’ve seen.
That’s when the first bubbles come to the surface.
“There!” I jump up to my feet.
“Throttle closer,” a guard orders.
There’s a bigger bubble, something moves underwater, then Kai and Archer’s heads appear above it, Kai’s sharp gasping echoing through the cave.
“They made it!” I shout, then my stomach lurches, because Archer’s eyes are closed, his face is motionless, his head tilted backward onto Droga’s shoulder.
“He’s out!” Droga shouts. “Take him. He needs CPR. Fast!”
