“You’re next,” Carter said to me. “You can voluntarily join your friend, or you can do it the hard way.”
I lowered myself through the trapdoor and dropped into waist-high water. The second man splashed in after me. In the dim light I saw Glo chained by her wrists to the rough plank wall. There were several more sets of wrist chains. One of the sets of chains had a partial skeleton attached. The water in the hold was black, and the footing was treacherous. A man had me by my arm, guiding me to a set of chains, keeping me upright. The cuffs were snapped around my wrists and a second man tugged on the chains to make sure they were strong. The men sloshed away without a word, hoisted themselves out of the water, and disappeared through the trapdoor. The door slammed shut, and Glo and I were alone in the hold. It took a moment for my eyes to adjust to the dark. A small amount of light filtered through cracks in the captain’s quarters’ floorboards, and further down, in the bowels of the ship, I could see a gash in the side of the boat. Water and light flowed through the gash.
“I really hate this,” Glo said. “The water is ruining my vintage skirt. It’s not like these skirts grow on trees. And I don’t know what happened to Broom. He’s probably terrified. They just threw him down here.”
As if on cue, Broom floated past us, without so much as a backward glance, and disappeared through the hole in the hold.
“He’s probably going for help,” Glo said.
“No doubt. I’m sure we’ll be rescued any minute now.”
A rat swam by, climbed onto a timber about three feet from me, and scurried away. I heard myself whimper, and I pulled against my chains.
“I’m starting to feel a little hysterical,” Glo said. “I think I peed myself when the rat swam by.”
“That could be good,” I said. “It could drive him away. Can you wiggle your chains?”
“No. Can you?”
“No.”
I looked down at the water. It was rising. It was now at chest level. The tide was coming in. The underground lake was a tidal pool, and somewhere on the island it became part of the sea.
“Either I’m getting shorter or the water is getting taller,” Glo said. “It’s almost up to my chin. And I’m c-c-cold.”
“Maybe we should sing a song to keep our spirits up,” I said.
“Row, row, row your boat…” Glo sang out.
I couldn’t see my watch, but it seemed to me we sang “Row, Row, Row Your Boat” for about ten minutes. My teeth were chattering and my nose was running from fear and cold. My hands were numb in the rusted iron cuffs. I knew eventually Diesel and Wulf would find us, but I worried they wouldn’t get to us in time.
“I’m getting tired,” Glo said. “I’m standing on my tiptoes, and the water is almost up to my mouth. I don’t want to die. I have stuff to do. I need to get my nails done. I need to punch Josh in the face. I haven’t tried all the Ben and Jerry’s ice cream flavors yet.”
I had a lot of unfinished business, too, but I didn’t want to think about it. It was too sad, too terrible, to go through the list.
“They’re coming to get me,” Glo said. “I’m done for. I hear the angels. They’re walking around on the deck.”
“I don’t think you can hear angels walking,” I said. “They have wings. They flutter.”
“Well, I hear something up there.”
We went still and listened.
Creak. Crrrrack.
Diesel fell through the rotted deck, splashed into the water, and resurfaced in front of me.
“C-c-crap on a cracker!” Glo said.
Diesel grabbed the iron bands on my wrists and the cuffs unlocked. He did the same for Glo. I swam to the trapdoor. Diesel shoved it open and boosted Glo through. A beat later I was on the dry slanted floor of the captain’s quarters, and Diesel was next to me. I had a disorienting feeling that I was still chained, that the rusted cuffs were still in place. I looked down and saw that it was Diesel’s hand I felt firmly wrapped around my wrist.
“I don’t scare easily,” Diesel said, “but these last couple hours were a ten when we couldn’t find you.”
I blinked away tears and took a deep breath. It was all okay. Glo hadn’t drowned. The rats hadn’t gotten to us. Diesel had been worried about me. And now I was safe beside him.
“I knew you would find me,” I said.
“Honey, it wasn’t easy. We had to swim to shore, towing Hatchet because he can’t swim. Then we had to steal a boat so we could locate Devereaux’s boat. Fortunately Josh found us just as we were shoving off, and he took us to the cove where Devereaux’s boat was beached. After that it was the blind leading the blind since none of us was born with the tracking gene. We saw the helicopter land, and started to climb toward the helicopter, but it took off before we reached it. I stepped out onto a rock ledge, looked down at the water, and saw something floating. My first fear was that it was a body, but it turned out to be Broom.”