Damn, what she'd give for an upgraded mask now to simply talk to Bill, if no one else. It felt like floating in space down here in a place devoid of any life where down could be mistaken as up and the silence crushed a person's rationale.
She felt the tremor through the vibration in the water and witnessed its effect with cascading chunks of rock the size of her fist rolling down to the abyss.
Kick. Focus. A glance above showed her that the water went to the ceiling. No headroom here, no option but to go forward. Steady. Calm.
Just keep swimming, Savannah, she coached herself. Ignore the falling rocks, focus on the light.
She gripped her flashlight tighter, hating that she'd lost her headlamp in the waterfall tumble. Even though it had a strap that went over her wrist, she knew her hand trembled almost as much as the cave walls.
If only she knew everyone else waited at the end of this, she'd be more invigorated. At this point, she couldn't shake the idea that they'd left friends behind, something she would never intentionally do.
When the rope connecting Bill to her suddenly yanked her backward. She spun around. A large stalactite had fallen in between them, trapping the rope against the wall and cutting off her view of him.
The glow of his headlamp illuminated the shape of the limestone formation. It must have barely missed her legs. She twisted, the rope making it hard to move. Water literally shook in front of her face, the vibration stacking up like rising heat from pavement...only in liquid form. The rumble from the dark echoed in her heart.
She pressed her face against the mask to see if Bill were crushed, too, but he had pressed against the wall. They made eye contact through the shadows created by their lights, separated by a massive piece of stone.
She knew she needed to cut the rope so she could maneuver enough to fight with the stone. He wouldn't be able to help her, not with his broken arm or wrist or whatever else he'd injured. He seemed to understand that, too, as they stared silently through the opening at one another. He nodded and used his right hand to motion that he would go back to the cave they'd just left.
No! She shook her head, reached for the knife strapped to her leg, and sliced the rope. In his condition he'd never be able to fight against the current to get back there, and even if he did, there hadn't been a ledge or any place for him to get out of the water. Keeping an eye on the flashlight dangling from her wrist to make sure it didn't fall, she slipped the knife back in place.
Suddenly free of his weight and in the dark, she took a minute to close her eyes and wait for the trembling of the earth to subside. She reached through the small opening. He laced his fingers through hers.
The push of the current from the underground river lifted her feet behind her, but she refused to let him go.
Now would be the perfect time for that upgraded equipment, guys! The thought shouted through her mind.
Determined to free him, she shimmied to the right and looked at him again through the opening. His eyes looked defeated. She knew then that he'd injured more than his arm and hadn't wanted to worry her. She glared at him, knowing he would get the message that she was beyond pissed off. Partners needed to be upfront about all things, no matter how scary or humiliating.
She lifted her hand in front of her face and used the dive signal for "stay there."
He flashed her the hand sign for "something's wrong."
Really? I hadn't quite figured that one out. She rolled her eyes and shook her head before signaling back, "watch me."
After securing her flashlight back to her vest and using only the glow from his headlight on the opposite side of the stalactite, she maneuvered herself into a position best suited to jarring the blockage loose. The force of the current could work to her advantage if she could pry it free from the top. Of course, that could also bring down another set of problems, but she didn't have time to weigh all the contingencies.
She trailed her hands over the edges until she pressed her back against the top of the cave ceiling, conscious of the tank and regulator tubes, knowing that any equipment damage at this point would be fatal.
Don't think, just do.
She closed her eyes for a second before clawing at the top of the rock and pulling it toward her as hard as she could. The current pushed from the other side and, if Bill had any ability to do so, she knew he'd be pushing as well. Her fingertips bloodied at the effort, but she kept at it, knowing their air supply diminished with every second wasted in this tunnel.
She clawed away at it, unwilling to surrender. She thought of his hand signal about something being wrong and knew he'd been trying to tell her that he hurt badly. Bill never did that, he never got hurt, he never admitted defeat...but that look in his eyes had scared her more than this earthquake.
So she clawed and beat the rock with her fist until she felt some movement. With the force of bullet, it shot against her, hit her in the chest, and sent her rolling with it. Down and down, into the dark in a spiral where her body ricocheted off the walls before finally breaking free and pressing against the side to get her bearings.
Nothing but blackness met her gaze. No matter where she looked—up, down, left, right, sideways—all black.
She fumbled for the flashlight on her vest and whimpered with relief when her hands found it.
Where are you, Bill?
She didn't see the glow of his lamp anywhere.
What is up, what is down?
Panic could kill a diver, she knew this so did her best to shove the stirrings of anxiety to the recesses of her soul.
Pick a direction and swim, Savannah.
Chapter Six
His vision blurred, the entire left side of his body felt useless but he couldn't understand why. Where had she gone? It had all happened so fast—in one instant he'd been shoved forward in a surge of water while she's simply vanished.
He swam, using his right hand to guide him along the wall, keeping his head down to cast a light he hoped she could see, and allowed the current to propel him forward.
The rope that had connected them dangled loosely around his hips. The water pushed him into an opening. Seeing the headroom, he raised his face and was relieved to see a sinkhole at least ten feet by ten feet in the ceiling of the cave. Late afternoon sunlight illuminated the space. More bats stirred in the shadows, but there were also birds that had flown in from above. A large flat area above the water line looked inviting, but he couldn't leave the water without Savannah.
Worn out from the exertion and his injuries, he rested his elbow on the formation to stop the push of the water and dropped the regulator from his mouth. He just needed a moment. One minute maybe.
He closed his eyes.
Why had he waited until this trip to reveal his feelings for her? Then again, he hadn't said the words 'I love you.' No, he'd been too much of a coward for that. He'd simply pressed the physical and threatened to leave her if she didn't come around to his way of thinking.
All the women in his past had been right when they'd labeled him a selfish asshole. He'd basically extorted the woman he'd loved for years into sleeping with him—in a cave no less. Nothing had gone as planned, not one damn thing.
Then again, when he'd boarded the plane in Dallas, confessing his love hadn't been on his mind. He'd been looking forward to some down time with his buddies.
And now look where he'd washed up...beneath a sinkhole at least sixty feet beneath the earth...alone. His heart physically ached at the idea that they hadn't survived.
"There you are," Savannah said from behind him, sounding out of breath and relieved. "You look like hell. Get out of the water."
Without raising his head, he smiled against the cold rock. "I can't. I was about to go rescue you."
"Okay, Superman, you can put away your cape. I'm fine." She swam over to him, grabbed him around the hips, placed her thigh beneath his butt, and pushed until he fell against the surface like a dying seal.
"We're not diving anymore," she said once she'd situat
ion herself next to him. "In this cave, I mean. I can climb up—"
"Hold my hand for a minute." He knew he sounded pitiful with his slurred speech, but he needed her to stop talking. He could feel the anxiety rolling off her like a force field. Energy snapped and sizzled around her. "Don't leave me here."
"You can't dive any longer." She peeled him free of his gear and rolled him over. Her attempt at a grin looked more like a grimace.
"Stop moving for a minute. What happened to you?" He grabbed her hand, noticing for the first time that all the skin had been stripped from her fingertips and fingernails barely hung in place.
"I guess I need a manicure." She yanked her hands a way and sat cross-legged next to him.
"Tell me what happened after you dislodged that rock."
"I went down deep, had to guess which way was up again, looks like I made the right choice." She looked away from him and he knew she wiped away a tear. "I think I'm going to check cave diving off my to-do list. Give me the Caribbean any day."
"I could use some rum punch and a hammock right about now," he answered.
She grinned over her shoulder. "Me, too. A bon fire also sounds nice. It's cold."
"The guys are fine, Savannah. They must be. We missed something back at the cave where we—"
"Maybe or maybe not." She shrugged and looked away. "Right now we need to focus on getting out of here. Do you think the aftershocks are over?"
"I'm no earthquake expert."
"For a future California resident, you should probably study up." She held her hands out in front of her, clenched and unclenched her fingers before glancing up at the roots and vines dangling across the walls. "I'm climbing up, Billy Boy, whether you want me to or not. I'm going to get us out of here. We may not find another opening this close and there's no way you can dive again. Too dangerous."
"Don't leave me." He didn't want to die alone, not in some unnamed cave beneath the jungle floor with bat guano lining the rocks beneath his head. Despite all their close calls with death and the adrenaline rush they'd presented, nothing had been this real. He'd tasted doom in that passage. He'd felt in sink into his bones and lay a claim. He wanted to be her hero—the man who swept her off her feet, spoiled her rotten, bought her roses on the way home simply because she deserved them, talked to her until they both fell asleep in that big king bed of hers overlooking the lake while their kids dreamed in the other room.
When pain shot through his chest, he called out despite himself. The intensity matched a Charlie Horse amplified by one hundred. "Damn it!"
She stood abruptly and arranged what looked like the semblance of a bed as far from the water's edge as she could find. Saying nothing, she grabbed him under the shoulders and pulled him toward it before leaning over him.
"You stay here and don't dare think about doing anything stupid, do you hear me?" She folded her hands over his and nodded. Another tear escaped the edge of her eye.
"You should rest, too. Stay with me a little longer. Your hands are a mess."
"I can't waste any time. We've been down here too long and I have no idea what's wrong with you." Her gaze traveled over his left arm. "Your wrist is obviously broken, but you're very pale and your eyes are glassy. You cannot dive any longer. It simply isn't possible, do you understand what I'm saying to you?"
He nodded, deciding not tell her that there were now two images of her leaning over him. "I love you, Savannah."
"Can you stop all of that for right now, please?"
"I do, though. You're the reason why it never worked out with anyone else. They were all right when they said I was hung up on you. I have been since the first moment I saw you."
"Stop saying these things," she whispered.
"Why?"
"Because it sounds like you're saying goodbye." She brushed more tears away before leaning over and kissing him softly. "I'm going to go now before it gets late. It's going to take me awhile to get up there so don't worry, okay? I'll bring back help."
He didn't want her to leave him, but knew that he needed to let her go. He didn't have much choice. He couldn't dive, couldn't climb. "I'm letting you down."
She released his hand and turned her back on him. "You could never let me down, Bill. It's not possible."
Without looking at him, she donned a pair of water shoes she'd stuffed in her dive bag, rubbed her cheeks with her fists, and looked up at the hole.
He pushed himself onto his right shoulder and attempted a smile. "Come here."
"I need to go."
"Savannah, stop. Please."
She looked over her shoulder, her eyes hidden in shadow. "I won't let you die here. I promise you."
"Partners shouldn't split up."
"Sometimes they need to if that's what's best." She shrugged. Still wearing the wetsuit, her long, tight body looked almost mystical in the light flickering down from the hole. "Maybe the other guys will wash into this place, too. Tell them to stay put if they do. The last thing I need to do is be traipsing all over the jungle looking for a bunch of morons. Our GPS units are transmitting, I'm sure of it."
He settled back onto the heap of dive vests. "I won't mention snakes."
She grinned before lifting her ankle and rolling back the wetsuit enough to showcase the tattoo she'd gotten after her snakebite in Belize. "I swear this now wards them off. It's like a talisman. Don't worry about me."
He dropped his head back onto the vests, the effort to keep his eyes open too much to bear. Maybe he'd hallucinated that entire conversation; perhaps she wasn't standing over him looking like a sea warrior ready to kick anyone's ass to save his. He squeezed his eyes shut when another burst of pain overshadowed every other thought.
When her lips touched his, he reached up with his one good arm and pulled on her braid. The salty taste of tears stirred the fear in his heart.
"I am not letting you die, do you hear me?" She whispered against his mouth. "We haven't finished our bet yet. I can't win by default."
"Not bailing," he whispered, opening his eyes a fraction to look into hers. "I don't plan on dying any time soon either."
"I need to go."
He held onto her braid, keeping her in place. "Take the rope that you cut, use it to mark the hole."
"I got it. And my knife is strapped to my leg like usual."
"Aren't you tired? You've nearly drowned twice now."
"I'm not the one lying on a pile of vests looking like a washed up jelly fish." With a wink, she wiggled away from him and jumped back into the water to swim to the other side of the cave that sloped gently upward.
He twisted his head to watch her grab a tree root and lift herself up. Slowly, without hesitation, she used those long legs to her advantage to reach for nearly impossible footholds. He had no idea where she found her strength, but with every foot she gained, his heart soared.
She'd make it. She'd walk in the sun again. That's all that mattered. She'd be safe.
Now he could rest.
He couldn't keep his eyes open anymore. The pain had taken a toll. He blinked open one more time just as she'd reached the top, clinging to vines, her long body so far away from him while the taste of her tears remained on his lips.
* * *
"You had to bring up snakes, didn't you, Billy Boy?" Savannah muttered as she pulled herself onto the floor of the jungle, her eyes adjusting to the sunlight after being immersed in darkness.
The smell of grass had never smelled this good. She flattened her hands against her eyes. Her body shook as suppressed emotions raced through her. A sob choked from her throat.
She'd never been so terrified in her life. Not even nightmares had come close to duplicating the horror of being lodged beneath the water in a narrow space surrounded by darkness and not knowing which way would lead to death or salvation.
The intensity of the release rolled her over on the ground. Alone with the jungle creatures as the only witnesses to her breakdown, she let it all out. She sobbed, cursed, and fought the ur
ge to throw up. Body vibrating with emotion, she curled her torn up fingers into the muddy earth, pushed herself up, sank back onto her knees, lifted her head to the sky, and wiped away her tears.
Her body ached from the abuse she'd put it through. Her legs quaked at learning to stand on the earth again. She squinted against the sun and noticed its low position above the swaying trees.
The jungle had gone silent. The birds weren't singing and the monkeys weren't chattering. The quake had terrified them all as well. It was as if nature herself mourned the destruction.
She tied the red cord that had connected her to Bill onto the tallest fern she could see that rested near the cenote. Deciding not to look down for fear that she'd be knocked back in by some unseen force, she blew out a long breath and backed away. A glance at the compass on her dive watch paired with the memory of where the caves had been beneath the surface gave her an idea of what direction to go.
With one hand resting on the handle of the knife still attached to her thigh, she walked away from the hole.
The reality of the day took hold. Not only had Bill said he loved her, they'd had sex in a cave. It had been amazing, more intense than anything she'd ever experienced, but then being true to the curse she carried with her, he'd nearly died.
And so had she.
She paused, leaned over, squeezed her knees, and took several deep breaths.
What had he said about her being able to watch him marry someone else? She'd honestly never thought about the possibility. He'd always been so cavalier with his girlfriends and confided in her about his misgivings. The idea of him married to another woman had never crossed her mind.
But when he'd been trapped in that passageway...no way out...him signaling that something was wrong...the defeat in his eyes through the mask...the memory took her breath away.
"It's over now. Bill is safe. I'm safe. It's all going to be okay," she whispered to herself.