“You have to help me,” I say quickly, speaking faster than I’ve ever spoken in my life. “Ryan is trapped. I can’t get him loose and he’s going to die. I’m giving him air but he’s stuck.”
Trent nods quickly then dives under the water without a word. I take another large breath and dive under after him. While Trent works to free Ryan, I press my mouth to his again. I do this several more times, more times than I can count. Trent has to come to the surface twice for more air, but he keeps diving back down. He doesn’t quit. I’m starting to feel dizzy when I go down again and press my mouth to Ryan’s. I barely notice that he doesn’t grab onto me. But then it strikes me that he doesn’t respond at all and when I pull away, I watch in horror as bubbles of air escape his lips, passing over his closed eyes.
“Ryan!” I shout, knowing he can’t hear me and that I’m wasting my own air. But I can’t hold it in.
Finally Trent has him free and his body floats upward. We both grab onto him and yank him toward the surface, kicking as hard as we can as we pull his dead weight with us.
When we have our heads above water in the hull, Trent turns Ryan around in his arms. He puts Ryan’s back to his front and wraps his arms around him like he’s giving him a weird hug. Then they both sink slightly as Trent puts all his strength into squeezing hard and fast on Ryan’s stomach. Ryan lurches forward, his face falling in the water. I reach out to steady them, to try to help Trent keep him afloat.
“What are you doing?” I ask him, my voice shaking.
“I’m getting the water out of his lungs,” Trent grunts, then he jerks on Ryan again. Nothing. Trent’s calm face is pinched in concentration and anxiety. “Come on, come on.”
I hold onto Ryan’s face with both my hands as I tread water with my feet. I carefully brush his hair out of his closed eyes, willing them to open. To be brown and beautiful and alive.
“Come on,” I whisper, chanting with Trent. The sound of our low voices fills the hull of the boat, rebounding off the water and echoing around us. “Come on, Ryan. Please.”
Trent sinks again, jerks hard on Ryan and I get a face full of water when Ryan suddenly spurts and sputters. He chokes violently for several seconds then vomits into the darkness. I don’t even care. He’s fighting for breath, breathing in and out, no matter how raggedly, and I start crying my eyes out when his own eyes flutter open and he looks at me.
“Ryan,” I breathe, my voice coated in tears.
He coughs, more water spurting out of his mouth violently. He reaches out blindly to grab onto the hull and hold himself up but his hands slip off the smooth sides. Trent and I hold onto him tightly, both of us giving up our arms to keep him afloat as he tries to get his bearings.
He takes several ragged breaths before saying hoarsely, “I can’t swim.”
I laugh despite my tears, taking his face in my hands again and staring into his open eyes. At his mouth pulling in air and blowing it out forcefully. His pulse throbbing at his throat, beating with his heart, moving through my veins.
Chapter Eighteen
Ryan isn’t kidding. He seriously can’t swim.
That’s going to be a problem. It’s one we solve by finding a piece of floating debris, a task that is disturbingly easy with almost all of the Colony boats blown up and burning in the water. A couple are heading for the hills, back up the Sound as fast as their hobbled ships can carry them, but most of the boats are burned beyond salvage. It didn’t take long. The Vashons laid their armada to waste in no time. Almost like they had planned for years for such an attack.
As we swim/paddle toward the opposite shore, I wonder what this night means for the Vashons ‘uneasy treaty’ with the Colonists.
I also wonder what provoked the Colonists to attack.
When we make it to shore all three of us lay on the ground breathing heavily and shivering. The water was cold, but being out in the open while wet feels colder. We need to make camp somewhere nearby soon and start a fire or we’ll all get pneumonia and die.
“We need to get moving,” I groan, sitting up. I feel weighed down by exhaustion and wet clothes.
When I look over at the boys I find both of their eyes closed.
“Hey!” I shout, clapping my hands hard. They both startle, their eyes shooting open. “No sleeping, not here. Especially you, Trent. The last thing we need is you dying in your sleep.”
He sits up slowly. “I don’t have a concussion.”
“Good news. Unless you want hypothermia, it’s time to move.”
“It’s not cold enough for that,” Ryan protests. He’s still lying down.
I lean over him, my face near his and my hair hanging around him. “It’s cold enough to get sick. Get your ass up.”
He reaches up to run his hand over my cheek, back into my hair. “You saved my life.”
“Don’t get mushy on me. Get up.”
He pulls my face down farther and kisses me soundly on the mouth. I don’t fight it because it’s warm, it’s him and he’s alive. I can’t stop to think about how happy I am that he didn’t die out there. I can’t think about what would happen to me if I lost him. Where my heartbeats would go without his to follow.
I pull away. “Move. Now.”
“So bossy,” he grumbles, but he gets up.
We’ve come ashore in an old industrial area. This is good and bad. Good because it’s probably abandoned. Bad because there won’t be much to make a fire with and we absolutely have to have a fire.
“Where do you think we are?” I ask quietly as we slowly make our way through the rusted rubble.
“Judging by the light in that direction,” Trent says, pointing to our left, “I’d say we’re just south of the stadiums.”
“Perfect. So we have to get by the Colonies to get home.”
“We have to go through the valley,” Ryan says.
“The what?”
“On Crenshaw’s map. Remember the valley between the stadiums and the dark shadowy area. He said the space between was the Valley of the Shadow of Death.”
“And the black area was the portal to Hell,” I say, remembering it suddenly.
Ryan cocks an eyebrow at me. “He told us not to go there.”
“He also told us not to go to The Hive.”
“My point exactly.”
“We can’t avoid it,” I protest, feeling frustrated.
Trent stops short suddenly, looking around with his wicked hawk eyes. “We’ll make camp here.”
“Okay, why here?”
“Because over there,” he says, pointing ahead and to the left of us, “are the Colonies, just two blocks away. And over there,” he points to our right, “another two blocks away are the cannibals.”
“Are you kidding me?” I hiss, immediately going tense. “We’re near the cannibals? How do you know that?”
He frowns at me like I’m stupid. “Because I’ve seen them.”
“Of course you have. We can’t stay here.”
“We can’t go back either and we definitely don’t want to go any farther forward. Not at night.”
“Why not at night? The Colonists won’t be able to see us as well.”
“I’m not worried about the Colonists. At night, you have to worry about the cannibals. They’re very territorial, they live underground and they only come out at night. Right now, they can see better than I can. A lot better.”
“Oh man,” I moan, wrapping my arms around myself. “So right now not only do we have to worry about zombies and pneumonia, we have to worry about being kidnapped by Colonists and being eaten alive by cannibals?”
“There are also a lot of mosquitos this close to the water.”