Chapter 9
My heart boomed in my ears as I kicked as hard as possible, desperate to return to the other cave. Tears swam across my eyes, fogging my mask and blurring my vision. As I used my hands to guide me along the tunnel walls, the image of Ethan’s bloody body flooded my mind.
He’s dead. Ethan is dead. Is that because I tripped that wire?
I swam out of the tunnel and waited for Colton.
He gripped my arm, and we kicked for the surface.
I pushed through to fresh air and spat my breather out.
“Ethan’s dead.”
He unclipped his diving gear and shoved it onto the rocks. “I know. Get out of the water.”
A thundering noise echoed about the cavern, and I yanked my fogged goggles down to my neck. The noise was torrential rain pouring in through the holes in the cavern roof.
Shit. Shit!
He launched up onto the ledge at the side of the pool, and I unclipped out of my gear and guided them to him.
I climbed out, and hot tears spilled down my cheeks. “Did they shoot him because I tripped that wire?”
“I don’t know.” Colton peered up at the holes in the cave roof.
“It has to be. I tripped an alarm, and they came after us like you said, and now Ethan is dead because of me.”
“Hey.” Colton wrapped his arms around me and squeezed our wet bodies together. “This isn’t your fault.”
“It is. I tripped that wire.” A knot wedged in my throat that was so big I could barely breathe.
He cupped the back of my head, hugging me tighter. “It’s not your fault. We don’t know what happened. Maybe it was thieves.”
Rain pouring through the holes in the roof grew heavier, and the thundering roar was like standing inside a waterfall.
“What about the others? Are they okay?” I yelled over the noise.
“I don’t know.”
“What are we going to do?”
“Listen. You stay here, and I’ll go?—”
“No,” I shoved back from him. “Dive buddies stick together.”
He groaned. “Kat. We don’t know what happened.”
“Exactly. That’s why we stick together.”
A faint tune added to the roaring water.
“Do you hear that music?” I asked.
“Shit!” Colton raced to his scuba vest and tugged a waterproof pouch from the pocket. He pulled out the phone and held it to his ear. “Pedro, is that you?”
As he listened, he blinked at me.
“Who the fuck are you?” Colton looked right through me as he listened. “What do you want? Put Pedro on.”
My chest tightened as I tried to make sense of the fragments of conversation.
“Fuck you!” Colton shouted into the phone. “Put Pedro on.”
“Oh, Jesus, did they shoot him too?” I asked.
A breath escaped Colton’s throat. “Pedro, thank Christ. Are you okay?”
“What about the others?” I asked.
“What do they want?” he demanded, and I strained to listen to the other side of the conversation, but I couldn’t make out anything.
My breath shot in and out as I tried to understand what was happening.
“You fucking asshole. I’m going to rip your head off.”
Laugher boomed so loud from the phone that I heard it over the thundering water.
“Fuck!” Colton lowered the phone.
“What happened? Are the others okay? What do they want?” My questions tumbled out.
“Ethan was killed when he tried to escape, but they’re holding the others hostage until we come out.”
“Why? Who are they? What do they want?”
“They want us.”
“Then we have to go. To save the others.”
“No, Kat. We can’t.”
“Why?”
“They’ll kill us.”
“What?” I cried. “Oh, God. Is that what they said?”
He shook his head. “He didn’t need to. He knows we’ve seen that truck, so he needs to stop us from telling anyone else. As soon as we surface, they’ll kill all of us.”
“Jesus. What are we going to do?”
“Call in the cavalry, that’s what.” He pressed a few buttons on his phone and held it to his ear.
As he listened, his gaze flitted from my lips to my eyes.
“Hunter, it’s Colton. Listen up, I have a situation. Put me on speaker, record this call, and tell anyone who is there to listen in.”
Colton nodded at me, and as he portrayed professionalism, a sense of calm washed over me.
“Guys, it’s Colton. I’m in the Las Cuevas de los Susurros cave, which is an eighty-minute drive from San Cavernas in Yucatan, Mexico.”
As Colton detailed our situation, the thundering rain grew heavier, and darkness filtered over the cave like a demon. Picturing a massive black cloud hovering overhead, I peered up to the cave roof.
Colton told them about Ethan. “I need you here, ASAP. Four hostages and yes, that’s?—”
A boom sounded, and a spark pinged off a rock two feet away.
“Fuck!” Colton tackled me and drove us off the rocks into the pool.
My back slammed into the water. Bubbles swirled around me.
A vice wrapped around my wrist, and Colton pulled me toward him underwater. The terror in his eyes nearly cracked my mind in two.
Something speared into the water a foot away.
A bullet! Shit! They’re shooting at us.
Colton yanked my arm, dragging me toward the rocky edge.
Kicking like crazy, I swam with him, and bullets pierced the water around us.
At the edge, Colton dragged me to the rocks and let go of my wrist. Tiny bubbles clung to his cheeks as he indicated for me to keep still.
My heart thundered in my chest.
My lungs burned, desperate for air.
And my mind raced with impossible questions. Every one of them was as shocking as the last. But one carved through my mind like a machete.
Are we going to die?
My lungs screamed for breath, and unable to hold on a moment more, I clutched Colton’s wrist and pointed up.
He nodded, and together, we bobbed our heads above the surface.
As I sucked in a huge mouthful of air, stars danced across my eyes. Roaring water echoed about the chasm.
“Stay down,” Colton hissed in my ear.
Keeping my head below the rocks, I strained to listen. But the thundering water was the only sound.
Colton turned to me. “Stay here.”
“Where are you going?”
He pressed his finger to my lips. “Just stay here and keep your head down.”
He slipped below the water, and I glimpsed his neoprene boots before he swam away.
Clutching the rocks, rain streamed in from the only hole in the roof visible to me and bubbling rivers of rainwater ran across the rocks on the landing and poured into the pool.
My heart pounding in my ears added to the chaos.
Colton’s hand emerged from the water about ten feet away, and he searched along the rocky ledge.
He’s trying to find our gear.
As he latched onto my scuba vest and pulled it into the water, I realized the water level had risen at least six inches since we took off our gear.
A massive boom echoed about the cave, and my heart launched to my throat as I glared at the cave roof, and a blaze of light streaked across the hole above. The boom was thunder.
Jesus. We’re in trouble.
A rush of bubbles announced Colton’s return.
“Grab this,” he said. “Get your gear on.” His shoulders were rigid, and his muscles were taut.
I clutched my tank. “Where are we going?”
“Keep your head down.” He slid below the water again.
Working quickly, I pulled on my vest and tank, clipped it around my torso, and tugged my mask onto my face.
Below the surface, Colton yanked on my ankle. I peered at him through the water.
He had his scuba gear on and motioned for me to follow him.
I put my breather in my mouth. As I lowered into the water, a bullet shot past me, barely three inches from my face. Squealing through my breather, I dumped air from my vest and quickly sunk beneath the surface.
The water was no longer crystal clear. It was clouded with sediment and at least five degrees cooler. Colton frantically waved me toward him, and swimming like a maniac, I clawed the water to reach him.
He signaled for me to follow him, and we raced into the tunnel we’d explored earlier. This time, the tunnel had a current, pushing me along the tube much faster than I wanted. My tank banged along the roof, and my bare knees scraped along the rough rocks on the floor.
If my hose snagged on any rocks, it would be yanked out of my tank.
The tunnel seemed much narrower than our last dive and the rocky walls closed around me like a vice. Every second seemed to take a minute. Every breath burned.
We exited that tunnel, and Colton kept on going. Assuming he was heading to the tunnel where we found the truck, I swam right on his tail.
As I forced myself to take slow and steady breaths, a new horror hit me. Colton and I only had half a tank of air left and we’re heading the wrong way.
With the fierce current propelling us, we reached the narrow tunnel quickly. Rocks scraped across my bare arms, and as I tried to make myself as small as possible, I imagined Colton’s skin would be covered in gashes by the time we got out of there.
Colton stopped ahead of me, but the force of the water shot me over his legs, and I lowered my face before the top of my head slammed into his tank. My face pressed into the back of his thighs and surging water rushed past my ears.
Beneath me, Colton wriggled his legs, and the beam of his flashlight wobbled back and forth.
Through the water, his muffled cry reached me.
Oh, Jesus! He’s stuck.
I dragged my hands up from my sides and searched along his back to see where he was snagged.
The water pressure was battering me into Colton like a cork being wedged into a bottle.
I brushed his hand, and he squeezed my fingers. I squeezed back, trying to convey that we would be okay.
Water gushed past my ears, and bubbles and sediment flew across my mask.
I reached as far as I could but couldn’t find what pinned Colton in place. He wriggled more, growing more frantic.
The water pressure drove my head into his scuba tank. My backbone buckled. Pain ripped up my neck and pounded my temples.
Desperate to move before my neck cracked, I put my hands on the bottom of his tank and, clenching my teeth, I tried to push myself away.
Colton jolted and slid forward.
He’s free. Thank God.
We were tangled together for a few yards before his feet came out from under me. One of his neoprene boots was missing, and a nasty cut was over his ankle bone.
I shot into the open space of the next cavern and the glow above was a huge relief.
Colton grabbed my hand, and rather than swim for the surface, he angled us toward the side wall of the cave.
We reached the rock wall, and Colton indicated for me to keep quiet before we glided upward.
We slipped our heads above the surface, and as I pulled my breather from my mouth, I scanned the cave. Roaring water thundered around the cavern, confirming that the storm was still going. The cave was much darker than before, and a heavy mustiness filled the air. I pictured those poor skeletons being pounded by that cascading water.
Colton leaned into my ear. “We can’t stay here.”
“Why not?”
“They found us in that last cave. They’ll look for us in this one, too.”
“But your friends will find us. Won’t they?”
He scowled. “I lost the fucking phone, so now I can’t tell them that we went deeper into the cave.”
“Shit.”
“Yeah, shit, all right. And if Pedro and the others can’t tell them where we are, we’ll never be found.”
“Why won’t Pedro tell—” I stopped. “Oh God. If they kill them . . .”
“Yeah. We need to figure out how to get out of here, Kat.”
“We could hide in this cave, and when the storm blows over we’ll make enough noise for them to find us.”
“Maybe. I’m more worried about those assholes finding us first.”
Frowning, I said, “Okay, where then?”
He swiveled around so he was next to my shoulder. “Before we left this cave last time, I saw another tunnel over there.” He pointed across the pool. “It’s our only chance.”
“But you don’t know where it leads, do you?”
“Nope.”
I studied the pool and could just make out the shape of a dark hole. “The water has a current, so it must be flowing somewhere, right? Maybe it will lead outside.”
“That’s one theory. In this region, subterranean rivers can run for miles. Hundreds of miles.” He turned to survey the cavern. From our position, we couldn’t see the truck or the cave opening above the truck.
The dread in his expression had my heart pounding so hard it hurt. “What?”
“Kat.” He placed his hand on my shoulder. “There’s no way to know what’s beyond that tunnel entrance. I want you to stay here.”
“Hell no,” I blurted. “I hired you to explore this cave. I’m coming with you.”
“I think our parameters have changed,” he said.
“Not to me they haven’t. I’m sticking with you.”
“We could be lost in this cave forever.” He peered right into my eyes. “Just like your father.”
I raised my chin to him. “No, we won’t.”
He cocked an eyebrow. “How can you be so sure?”
“Because I have you.”
His breath hitched, and all the air seemed to be sucked out of the cave as he captured me with his stunning eyes. His gaze darted from my eyes to my lips.
Is he going to kiss me?
I inched closer, letting him know I was all for that move. I would never instigate the first move with a man. The embarrassment would crush me if I did something so bold and it backfired.
He released a nervous chuckle and huffed. “Talk about pressure.”
“You love it.” I pressed my hand to his chest, wishing he had kissed me.
He grunted, and the moment between us vanished like an apparition as the concern in his gorgeous eyes swept me into his world.
As he studied me, I realized he wanted me to confirm that the tunnel was our only plan.
“Let’s do it then.”
A frown rippled his forehead. “You sure?”
“I said I wanted to explore the cave, remember? It’ll be fun.” I tried to make my tone upbeat.
“As long as I don’t get stuck again.”
“Yeah, that was no fun. Is your ankle okay?”
He nodded and raised his hand with the missing fingers. “I’ve had worse.”
I huffed. “I can see that. You want me to take the lead into the tunnel?”
“No. You’re my customer, remember?”
“Yeah. Remind me to give you a review when we get out of this mess.”
He winked at me. “That’s the spirit.” He glided his tongue over his bottom lip, and a hint of vulnerability crossed his eyes. But it was gone in a flash. “Okay, like before, you stay right behind me.”
“Like right behind . . . so I can crash into your ass again.”
He groaned. “This isn’t a game, Kat. This is deadly.”
“I know. Sorry.” I shrugged. “Sometimes, I use humor to hide my nerves.”
“That’s good.”
“That I use humor?” I frowned.
“No. That you’re nervous. . . it will keep you on your toes.”
“Believe me, I’m already there.”
He nodded, and under the water, he reached for my hand. “You’re incredibly brave. But don’t go doing anything crazy, okay?”
His sincerity stole my breath away.
He let go of my hand and tugged his mask on.
I did the same.
“Let’s go,” he said.
Together we put the breathers into our mouths and lowered below the surface into the murky water.
Following the beam of his flashlight, we headed toward the black hole in the cave wall. As we neared, a swirling current grabbed hold of me.
His arms flailed like he was trying to stop himself from entering the hole, then he vanished into the black void.
My heart thundered in my ears, and as I tried to make my body as streamlined as possible, I was sucked into the tunnel behind him.
As I careened through the darkness, my tank banged into the tunnel roof and rocks scraped my knees as I desperately fought to control my buoyancy.
Rotten thoughts screamed through my head. What if we run out of air? What if the tunnel gets too narrow and we both get stuck?
What if we die?
My flashlight lit up rocks, Colton, and a sea of bubbles and sediment.
The force of the current propelled me like a jet stream, driving me into the unknown and roaring in my ears like a demon.
The sound changed, deeper somehow, and fucking terrifying.
Then, I was airborne.
I screamed as I tumbled inside a million-gallon waterfall.
Squeezing my eyes shut, I braced for impact.