Chapter 46
No.
Not yet.
Allie Merritt was underwater, wedged inside a ten-inch crawlspace, but she was not dead. She still had her empty water bottle. With numb fingers she popped the cap and brought the plastic to her lips. Then
she pinched her nose and inhaled.
Most of it escaped as bubbles. She gagged, fighting the water leaking down her throat—but it was a final breath for her oxygen-starved
lungs, a few more seconds of consciousness to solve this life-and-death problem. She knew she’d never survive trying to swim
back feetfirst, but she remembered passing a gap in the ceiling five, maybe ten feet back. There might be an air pocket somewhere
up there, if she could fit. It was her only chance. She braced her elbows against rock to push herself backward—and to her
horror, it shifted.
The entire tunnel rearranged itself.
She felt boulders moving around her, an undertow of displaced water, loose gravel peppering her face. A heavy block slammed
down beside her head. Another crushed her glowstick, and the green chemical light dimmed into ribbons of dying color.
Blackness now.
The rocks kept compacting from all sides, crushing her body even further.
There was no way forward. Was there even a way back?
She was so hopelessly disoriented she didn’t even know which way was up.
She pushed again with her elbows—delicately, this time—but she couldn’t move backward.
The dimensions of her body wouldn’t allow it.
Her right knee was pinned, her ankle trapped.
She let the water bottle float away, its air now depleted. That had been her last breath. Her mouth and nose were full of
frigid water now, barely held back by the muscles of her clenched throat. She’d exhausted every option. It was over.
But . . .
A deeper part of Allie’s brain knew this wasn’t true. She was pushing a thought away, refusing to look at it.
Not every option was spent.
No matter how hard she pushed, her right foot held her wedged in place. It refused to budge, as surely as a square peg in
a round hole. Her body’s natural range of motion locked her in, because a human ankle simply cannot bend in that direction.
Unless . . .
Unless I make it.
If she broke or dislocated the bone, Allie knew, she might be able to rotate her limp foot a few more degrees and twist free.
It was desperate.
It would hurt.
It wasn’t even sure to work.
God, she wished there were another option.
Anything else. She couldn’t reach her right foot, so she would need to use her own body weight to break her ankle.
Underwater, this would be difficult, maybe even impossible.
She would need to leverage her entire body and push hard—without triggering another deadly collapse.
With her lungs burning and the synapses fading in her brain, she pivoted onto her knee and positioned her ankle.
Every pound of Allie Merritt, everything she ever was and ever could be, concentrated on a single bone.
She pushed hard.
A sickening live-wire jolt exploded up her shinbone. Maybe the worst pain she’d ever felt in her life, even worse than the
fer-de-lance bite. She screamed underwater, losing her last breath to a flurry of racing bubbles.
It wasn’t enough. The bone hadn’t broken.
I can’t.
I can’t do this.
I-can’t-do-this-I-can’t-do-this-I-can’t-fucking-do-this—
She had to.
Her lungs were empty now. Out of air, out of time. She knew she had to keep trying, and she did, but every attempt was weaker
than the last. Her ankle screamed with pain, the bone aching inside rubbery ligament, the skin torn to bloody hamburger.
It wasn’t enough. Allie was only mauling herself, shearing off her flesh and exposing her tendons and filling the water with
blood. All this agony for no purpose at all. She couldn’t create enough torque to break her ankle. Not here, underwater and
weightless, no matter how hard she pushed. And she was fading, sinking inside her own skull. She forced her body to try again,
to subject herself to more pointless pain, but this time she couldn’t.
Her muscles went limp.
Her senses faded.
Allie lost consciousness.
I’m sorry, sesame seed.
I’m so sorry.