Gunnar yelled to the other guy. “Hold her or she’ll get away.”
Big, meaty arms wrapped around, holding her back from the edge as they got further and further away from the dock with the houseboat and Simon, lying at the bottom of the bayou.
“Why are you doing this?” she demanded.
“We need your parents,” Gunnar said. “You’re the bait.”
“They died in a boating accident.”
“Wrong,” he smirked. “Try again. When they learn we have their daughter, they’ll suddenly come back to life.”
“But you don’t understand. They’re dead,” she said. “They’re not coming back to life.”
“If they don’t come for you, we’ll have no reason to keep you. At that point, you can join your boyfriend.”
Her dead boyfriend, lying at the bottom of the bayou.
“No, please, no,” she prayed. Please be okay. Please. Lissette, please help Simon.
* * *
As soon as Simon hit the water, he fought to turn himself upright so that his feet hit bottom first. If he could do that, he might be able to bounce to the surface for air. Failure wasn’t an option. They had Holly. He had to get out of the water and go after her.
As much as he twisted and turned, he couldn’t get his feet to hit bottom first. He went all the way down on his side, sinking into the silt. There, he bunched his legs and tried to get them beneath him. Already, his lungs burned for air. If he stayed down much longer...
The more he tried, the more silt he stirred.
His chest hurt with the need to breathe. Much longer and he’d suck water in, instead of air.
Something bumped against him. His first thought was that it was an alligator. When a hand grabbed his arm, he realized it was a human. That human was holding onto him at the same time as they kicked, sending them upward.
When his head cleared the surface, he sucked in a breath and then sank beneath the surface. God, he felt helpless. Again, the hand dragged him up.
“Hold on,” a breathless, female voice called out. “I’ve got you.”
Then her hand slipped, and he went under again.
This time, she grabbed hold of his hair and dragged him upward.
He did his best to kick his bound legs to keep coming up for air.
“Holly?”
“No. Lissette,” she said. “They took Holly. I have a knife, but I can’t hold onto the ladder at the same time as I saw at the zip ties. We’ll go under for a moment.”
“Just do it.”
With one hand, she felt her way around to the zip tie at his back. “Okay. Deep breath.”
Simon drew in a breath.
Lissette let go of the ladder on the pier. They sank together, her hands working to place the knife between his wrists. Once there, she sawed at the plastic as they continued to descend, all the way to the bottom, where their feet sank into the silt.
Then the knife broke through the plastic zip tie, and his hands were free.
Simon pushed off the bottom, kicked his bound feet and pushed at the water with his hands until he broke the surface, filling his lungs with precious air.
Lissette came up beside him, gasping.
