Page 158 of Risky Obsession
And fuck this shit!
I clenched my fists, digging my nails into my water-soaked palms.
But my grip on hope was slipping, and despair consumed me as I shivered in the cold darkness.
I wasn’t sure how much longer I could cling to hope. I turned my focus to my breathing again. In. Out. In.
An eruption of bubbles swirled around me, snapping me to attention. My heart raced as I blindly reached up into the shaft. I wrapped my hand around a fist-sized object, and as I pulled it toward me, bubbles swirled, and the water seemed to hiss.
My mind jumped for joy. A scuba breathing mask.
My trembling hands fumbled with the breather as I shoved it into my mouth and inhaled the sweetest air I’d ever tasted.
Banging the pipe back and forth in the chute above me, I cheered through the breather.
Lacey, you’re a fucking miracle worker.
My chest heaved with a renewed sense of hope. Someone grabbed the pipe at the other end and as we seesawed back and forward a few times, I pictured Lacey grinning her gorgeous smile.
Dropping the pipe, I rolled my neck forward for the first time in what seemed like hours.
Maybe it was.
As my lungs filled with fresh air, something prodded the top of my head. Blindly reaching up, I found a scuba mask had been pushed down to me. I just about wept at the prospect of being able to open my eyes. Not that I would be able to see anything down here.
Grateful that Archer had taught me how to scuba dive several years ago, I used the air from the breather to clear the water from the mask. Sighing with relief, I blinked away the sting of salt water.
Someone positioned a light over the shaft, so the beam penetrated my liquid world. It was incredible just to see my hands. They were wrinkled and pale, and I tried to calculate how long I’d been down here.
And more importantly, how much longer.
I peered into the murky water that had rushed into this space soquickly. Hopefully, the hole that created that torrent was big enough for someone to get to me. If not, I could be down here for a lot longer.
The minutes slithered by, and the icy grip of hopelessness tightened its hold on me again.
Cold dread churned in my stomach as I began counting my breaths, but I lost track sometime before I reached a hundred and my thoughts drifted to a question that was impossible to answer. How many scuba cylinders did they have with them?
If my memory served me right, the average scuba tank lasted about an hour.
Each breath depleted my air.
I could still be fucked.
Get a grip. Or you will die.
Trying to push down another wave of panic, I slowed my breathing, taking long deep breaths rather than shallow ones.
My thoughts tumbled to the last time I’d thought I was fucked. I’d been twelve years old, and my life had become pure hell. But I had survived, and I’d become stronger because of it.
That moment had shaped me.
This one would shape me, too. And I would never take breathing for granted again.
A faint glow appeared in the dark tunnel to my right, casting eerie shadows on the walls around me.
Yes! Someone is coming.
My heart thundered as the light grew brighter. The glow from a flashlight appeared, and I squinted against the glare, trying to work out who was swimming toward me.