Page 27 of Us in Ruins
As soon as Van lifted the shard off the nymph’s palm, the currents shifted. Wild as a riptide, a jet stream shot out of the niche and jerked Margot into the center of the sanctuary. Her arms struggled against the current. The harder she pushed, the stronger the pull.
Margot tumbled upside down, completely losing her sense of gravity. The pearlescent shells shimmered and streaked through her vision. Panic slithered between Margot’s ribs, squeezing, squeezing. Begging for her to find air.
A hand—Van’s, of course—grabbed Margot by the arm and hauled her out of the whirling tide. He kicked them upward, and Margot clung tightly to his grip, afraid to let go, to sink and never be seen again.
They broke the surface, heads ramming against the ceiling. Margot had never tasted air sweeter. Flattening her palms on Van’s shoulders and wrapping her legs around his waist, she fought to hold herself above the waterline.
Bubbles streamed out of Van’s mouth. He kicked furiously beneath the water to keep them afloat. Finally, he managed to say, “Watch it. Your knee’s in my spleen.”
“Did you get it?” Margot asked. “The shard, is it safe?”
He lifted the shard, and momentary relief flooded Margot. Emphasis on the momentary. As the jet pushed gallons of water into the Nymphaeum, their already measly oxygen levels were quickly depleting.
“What do we do?” she asked.
Van bobbed below the surface. When he pushed back up, he said, “That stone I showed you. It’s the shutoff. We have to release it.”
Stretching for the last drops of air, Margot’s hand slipped, limbs all knotted with Van’s. His grip faltered. Waves wrenched the shard from his hand.
The sound of Margot’s shriek was muffled as the undertow jerked her beneath the surface. A current wove through the nymphs, and a riptide wound around Margot’s legs, begging her to join their dance.
No, no, no.
Van dove after the shard, but Margot zeroed in on the jet stream and the stone trigger behind it that engaged the drain valve. With hands clawing at the carved facade, Margot climbed downward. The tide fought every inch, but her focus was solitary. She wouldn’t screw this up.
She slammed her palm against the stones until one sank into the wall. The niche slid open like a door, and a rush of water dragged Margot and Van inward, their arms and legs pretzeling together.
A flash of gold shot past them. The shard.
Van swam after it with renewed energy. Margot, on the other hand, didn’t move with quite as much control.
The chute whipped her around sharp corners like some kind of hellish amusement park waterslide. She kicked harder, trying desperately to catch up with Van as he sped toward the shard. One tunnel turned into two, and she was pretty sure Van propelled down the left side. Margot placed her bet, heading left with heavy arms and legs.
Here, the light from the shells had faded, leaving only darkness. Margot could barely see her hands in front of her face, let alone the fragment of the Vase.
For a terrifying, heart-stopping moment, she was certain she was alone, that Van had left her, and she was going to be sucked into this whirlpool forever. The panic lasted until she rammed into Van, propelled by the blasting current. There was nowhere else she could be. The walls curled around them, too close, and the water hadn’t relented. They’d reached a dead end. Trapped.
Margot banged fists against the walls, panicked. She’d lost the shard, and now she was going to drown, all for nothing.
There had to be another hidden valve around here somewhere. There just had to be. The grit of unpolished stones tore at her skin with every impact. Van joined, each slam of their fists resulting in a dull thud.
Until. A gloriously un-thuddy noise followed as Margot smacked the ceiling again and again. Her hands searched the round grooves, the bumps of words she couldn’t parse by touch alone. It felt like a metal plate, similar to the one that covered the manhole.
Margot’s lungs were going to burst if she didn’t do something. She braced herself against the wall and kicked upward. The plate shot off, and water spewed toward the opening. Margot clawed her way out onto solid ground. A wet cough rattled her chest as Nymphaeum water expelled from her mouth onto beige linoleum tiles. She flopped onto her back, eyes stinging against fluorescent lights.
Van hoisted himself out of the watery depths and lay next to Margot, breathing equally ragged. Sour, he said, “Nice work sticking to the plan.”
“You knew,” Margot sputtered. Each breath was a wet wheeze. She couldn’t convince her lungs to work in the right rhythm again.
“I gave you one task. One.” Van wrung out his shirt, annoyance dripping off every word. “Yes, Van, I can swim. No, Van, I won’t nearly drown us both and make you drop the shard.”
Margot wasn’t sure if she gasped in outrage or just gasped because her body was dying. “You knew!” she spat. “You knew”—another gasp cut through her—“That was going to happen. And—and you didn’t warn me!” Her lungs interrupted again, faster now, like the air was slippery and they couldn’t get traction. “All you said was stay. Stay. We almost drowned. I could have, I could have—”
“Hey,” Van said. Then, firmer: “Hey. You’re hyperventilating.”
She heard him, but his words didn’t sink in. Her hands, feet, face tingled, like every nerve ending was deep-fried and sizzling. Margot was vaguely aware that her chest was rising and falling—fast, too fast—but the edges of her vision blurred, blackened.
Van’s hands grasped her shoulders, leaning so close that Margot stopped breathing entirely. Her central nervous system zapped back to reality. It was like the world came into twenty-twenty vision, the saturation rising and clarity all coming back into focus at once. All she saw, all she cared about, was the green and gold webbing of his irises, the constellation of freckles on his cheeks, and the strong tenor of his voice saying, “Margot, count backwards from one hundred.”