Chapter Five #2
We’d all agreed to give him the best chance of recovery by sitting in a row and hauling Peter’s dead weight onto our laps to protect him from the wet stone.
With his head and shoulders on my legs, his torso on Mollie’s, and his thighs on Rachel’s, we’d done the best we could to stop him from dying any faster than he already was.
“Do you feel that?” I kicked my feet. The faintest splash answered. “Where’s the water coming from?”
Mollie shifted beside me, removing some of her body heat. “Victor did say some of the caves fill up with water at high tide.”
“I’m guessing the tide is coming in.” Rachel sighed and upturned her hand to squeeze mine. She sounded exhausted and deflated and at the edge of her limits.
I blinked, willing the absolute darkness to fade. No glow worms like some of the other caves. No luminescent algae or light sources of any kind. We were blind. Completely and utterly blind and we needed to run.
Rocking Peter on my lap, I stole my hand back from Rachel’s and raked my fingers through his sweat-wet hair. “Peter. Time to wake up, okay? We need to leave.”
We’d been smart.
The game wouldn’t be entirely over, but at least we were one hour closer to dusk. By the time we found our way out, Emerald Bruises would be finished and Victor’s rules firmly back in place.
Giving Peter a few seconds to rally, I looked in Mollie’s direction. “Did you mean what you said, Mollie?” I chewed on rising panic. “You sure you remember the way we came?”
A rustle as she nodded. “I’ve gone through the turns twice with you. I kept track of every direction we took. I can get us out, even without a torch.”
“Mols has a bachelor in quantum physics,” Rachel said with a stronger tone. “She’s beyond smart.”
“Didn’t stop me from being snatched at a party, though, did it?” Mollie huffed. “I know how one particle can be in two locations at the same time, yet I couldn’t see the pill dropped into my drink.”
Rachel continued as if Mollie hadn’t spoken. “Mols and I became friends through our shared love of science. I’m a research chemist turned war chemist, but Mols? She’s on a whole other level. She can get us out. I have no doubt.”
Mollie scoffed. “If I could get my hands on some household cleaning products, I could make a bomb big enough to blow up Victor’s beloved Joyero. Then we’d really be out. We’d be free...”
Even with the tide creeping over my feet.
Even with Peter unconscious and barely alive on my lap...sheer blinding hope found me all over again.
“Wait. You could do that?” I asked on a sharp inhale. “Y-You have those skills?”
“Rachel does too.” Mollie laughed sadly. “Between the two of us, we could destroy this entire island, but...knowledge is worthless without ingredients and action.”
“Speaking of action, I agree with Ily,” Rachel said. “The water is rising quickly. It’s time to go.”
It took some organisation and a lot of achy, chilly bones, but we managed to clamber to our feet and bring Peter with us. Among the three of us, we held him dangling in our shaking embrace.
Slipping the knife Caishen had given me into the back of my underwear, I hoped to God I wouldn’t have to use it.
“Should we be worried that he’s not waking up?” Rachel whispered.
“His system has shut down. A person can only survive in shock for so long.” Mollie shifted her hold on him. “He might rally, he might not. I hope you girls are feeling strong.”
“We need to talk about blowing up this island,” I said, refusing to think about a scenario where Peter never woke up.
Rachel snickered. “Yeah, okay. Can we get out of the caves first?”
“The caves might be the best place to plan an uprising.”
“Not if we drown, it isn’t,” she snapped.
“Everyone ready?” Mollie asked. “Focus.”
Her voice seemed too loud in the pitch black, but her strength bolstered me.
We were moving. Finally.
We would be safe. Hopefully.
Today is almost over.
And tomorrow...we’ll build a bomb.
“Lead the way.” Rachel sniffed. “I’m so ready for a hot shower. I don’t even care if I get raped for the privilege.”
“Let’s go.” Mollie tugged on her part of Peter, guiding us toward the crack where the others had vanished.
We walked slowly, gingerly, blindly.
It took an age.
It took all our waning strength to half-carry, half-drag Peter, but we would make it.
None of us would give up.
I’d been lucky enough to find two of the strongest girls I’d ever met and—
“Oh shit.” Mollie slammed to a stop, sending a ripple down our chain.
“Oh shit, what?” Rachel asked. “You know I don’t like it when you say things like that, Mols. Makes my imagination go into overdrive.”
I shivered as water lapped up my ankles, freezing my toes with insidious frostbite.
“The water is coming from the direction we need to go in,” Mollie muttered. “And it’s coming in fast.”
“So...what does that mean?” Rachel asked.
“It means...we can’t go that way.”
“But that’s the only way out.” I did my best to stay calm. “If we hurry, surely we can make it. The tide doesn’t come in that quickly.”
“You obviously don’t have a lot of experience with the sea. It can rise fast, and I’m not willing to take that chance.” Mollie turned, taking us all with her. “Damn.”
“Well, we can’t stay here,” Rachel gasped. “If the water is coming in that quickly, then...”
“We’ll drown,” Mollie snapped. “Yes, I’m aware.”
“Well, what the hell are we going to do?!” Rachel shouted. “I can’t...we can’t just stand here and die!”
“Shut up and let me think!”
“We don’t have time to think! We have to run.”
“Run to where?”
“I don’t fucking know, but—”
“Quiet, Rach. Your screeching is not helping—”
“Screeching? We’re running out of time, and you’re telling me to calm down?!”
“Perhaps the caves won’t fill completely,” Mollie mused aloud. “We could swim—”
“Swim?” Rachel’s voice turned brittle with horror. “That’s your plan? You study the damn universe, and the best you can come up with is—”
I shut them out.
I couldn’t listen.
Their energy fed into mine, braiding our panic into a living, gnawing thing. My lungs threatened to stop working. Every fear, every terror, every horror, pain, despair, and loss strangled me like a monster.
My ears rang as they fought.
My arms ached as I held Peter.
I was so, so close to snapping.
So...I did the only thing I could.
I pressed my toes against cold stone.
I ignored the rapidly rising water level as it kissed my calves and travelled higher, higher, higher.
I begged that quiet, wiser part of my soul to take charge.
Images of us swimming and clawing at the ceiling as the ocean suffocated us played behind my closed eyes. Nightmares of us taking our last breath without ever seeing the sun again.
Focus.
I ordered every muscle to relax.
I went against every instinct and compelled my nervous system to choose calmness instead of adrenaline.
For a few moments, nothing happened.
The cave bounced Rachel and Mollie’s argument like a megaphone.
But slowly...thankfully...
My attention turned inward.
Light and sanctity, I found a pocket of peace.
I wasn’t this form.
This form could be cut, bled, raped, and drowned, but I was just the watcher within. Panic came from not accepting the situation. Suffering came from railing against certain fate.
But thanks to a lifetime of schooling my chaotic mind, I opened my eyes to a tranquil reality and smiled as the grounding cord of light that’d granted such salvation continued to glow up ahead.
Subtle.
Barely there.
But...
Wait.
I froze.
T-That’s not imaginary.
From this angle, I could see around the shadow of a stalagmite.
A shadow caused by the barest hint of deliverance.
“There’s another way out,” I whispered in shock, awe, disbelief.
Tugging Peter, I sloshed forward, sending water waking around our shins. The girls tripped with me.
“There’s light.” My arms shook with Peter’s weight. “The ground slopes up. It’s higher ground.”
Mollie and Rachel stopped fighting.
Rachel sniffed back tears. “W-What are you saying? I don’t see anything.”
A surge of energy filled me. I finally donned the mantel of leadership that Peter had always worn. “It’s faint. But trust me. It’s there. Come on.”
I expected Mollie to disagree. I tensed for Rachel to argue.
But...as I stepped into my role of guardian, they slipped into following.
Without a word, the two girls mirrored my steps.
We made a wet, slow procession through the small cave.
I bumped my toes multiple times, my heart pounded from carrying my share of a person.
Finally, we stopped outside the small chasm.
Peering inside, I willed the light to get brighter.
It didn’t.
It was just enough to see how hard this journey would be.
It veered up steeply, mimicking the longest tunnel I’d ever seen.
But...it was dry.
“It’s narrow to start with, but I think it widens.”
Rachel squished closer. “We can make it. We don’t have a choice.”
Mollie pressed her cheek to mine, looking at our unfortunate climb.
She sighed, but then...
...the faintest breeze.
A lick of cool.
A kiss of freshness.
I gasped on a sob.
Not dank and cave stagnant.
But alive.
Bracken and soil and trees.
We glanced at each other.
Without a word, we wriggled into the crack.
I went first and dragged Peter with me.
They went second and pushed.
Together, we inched our way into the light.
* * * * *
I’d endured some horrible things since Henri targeted me and brought me here.
I’d had to dig deep to stay sane and draw from strength I didn’t know I had.
But that journey...good God, it was hard.
Time lost all meaning as we climbed and crawled, tugged and dragged each other up and up and up. At one point, it felt as if we traversed a ladder made of rock and pebbles. The next we were in a chute made of stone.
Everything hurt.
Every muscle engaged to pull Peter behind me all while the two girls shoved him just a little each time.
The knife dug into my lower back, and cuts decorated every part of us.
Little slices as we travelled as if the cave demanded a cost in the currency of our blood.
Peter flickered in and out of consciousness.
At one point, he woke with a start and fought our hold.
The next, he woke up screaming.