Page 62 of Lawless
“What?”
His bottom lip trembled. “I’m stuck.”
“What?” I’d heard it that time, but it didn’t make any sense.
His chest rose and fell rapidly. “I’m stuck!” He swallowed. “My foot. It’s caught.”
“Okay,” I said, reaching out to him. And shit, yeah, my foot slipped too, knocking hard against the rocks. I almost stumbled, but I caught myself, and steadied. I put my hands on his shoulders, and he was so cold. I rubbed some warmth into him. “Okay, we’ll get you out.”
How bad could it be, right?
By the look on his face, I should have known my optimism was misplaced.
“Which foot?”
“My right.”
I held my breath, ducked under the water, and felt my way down his leg. I hit rock before I hit his ankle. I couldn’t see a bloody thing, even with my torch. Natty’s ankle vanished into the gap between two rocks. I stuck my fingers down there too, carefully feeling my way, but I couldn’t see exactly how he was caught. And I didn’t want to wrench him too hard in case he’d broken the ankle or something.
I came up for breath, standing up and shaking water from my face. “Can you move it at all?”
The torchlight glanced off his cheek as he shook his head. “I’ve been here...” His voice shook, and I didn’t think it was just from the cold. “I’ve been here for hours.”
“Hey.” I wrapped my arms around him. Nudged my nose against his, and ignored the black pit of worry that opened up in my gut, as dark as the cave we were standing in. “It’s okay. We’re working on it, alright?”
His cold fingers brushed against my jaw. “Tide’s still coming in, Dominic.”
And just like that, the bottom of the pit in my stomach opened, and fear came screaming out. I refused to let it show on my face. I angled the torch towards the wall. Barnacles. Slime. Seaweed. Button John had said there was a chamber at the top—presumably at the end of the path Natty had been taking when he’d become trapped—but this part of the cave? This was below the high-water mark, by at least a metre or two.
“Okay,” I said. “Tide’s still coming in? When is high tide?”
“What time is it now?”
“I think it’s about eleven?”
Natty closed his eyes. “Then high tide’s in about an hour. But I reckon I’ve got about half that before it’s over my head.”
Half an hour.
That was barely enough time to get to the village and back and it sure as shit wasn’t enough time to get a rescue team from the mainland. My panicked brain whirled. Young Harry Barnes’s house was just up the beach, and from the glimpse I’d got of the place, the guy was a pack rat. He had to have something lying around. A snorkel, some scuba gear, hell, even a length of garden hose would do—just something to buy us some time until we could get Natty free.
“Okay, here’s the plan.” I wedged the torch under my arm so I could rub his cold shoulders again. “I’d say stay here, but you don’t have a lot of choice, huh?”
Natty gave me a shaky smile.
“I’m going to go to Young Harry Barnes’s house and?—”
“You can’t,” Natty said. He shook his head.
“What do you mean?”
“The waves are too strong. That’s—that’s why we wait it out up top.” His expression crumpled, and mine sure as hell did the same as he spelled out the bleeding obvious for a dumbfuck mainlander like me. “Dominic, you can’t get out of here when the tide’s still coming in.”
And then he began to cry.
Chapter 18
NATTY
