“Go! Go!” I shouted, my words barely clearing the roar.
Above me, Libby climbed, fast and desperate. Her boots slipped on every other rung, the water surging up after her with patience and indifference. Her hands shook—I could see it even from below: her white-knuckled grip, her fingers not fully closing around the metal.
“I’m trying!” The crack in her voice cut through everything.
The water climbed.
Waist. Chest. The pressure against my body multiplied with every inch, the current finding every gap between my body and the ladder, forcing itself through, methodical and relentless. Debris struck my back, my legs, tumbling past without slowing.
I planted my boots against the wall on either side of the ladder, locked my arms, and made myself immovable.
“Don’t stop, Libby, keep going!”
Another surge—harder, angrier, with more behind it—and above me, Libby slipped.
Her boot shot off the rung. She dropped several inches before one hand caught and held, while the other scraped uselessly at the metal beside it.
“Finn—!”
The sound of my name—the raw terror—
I let go with one arm, reached up, and found her waist. I hauled her down against the rungs, pinning her there with my own body, my forearm locked hard across her stomach. The water slammed into us, and I took the force of it, planting myself between her and the current.
“I’ve got you,” the words came out low and guttural. “I’ve got you.”
The current tore at us, and something struck my shoulder blade—solid, heavy—and my vision blacked out for a half-second before I dragged it back. I didn’t let go.
“Climb.” I put my mouth close to her ear, dropping the volume, stripping out the panic, making my voice an anchor against the rusted metal and the sound of rushing water. “Climb, Libby.”
“I can’t—” She choked on a mouthful of water, coughed it back out, her whole body convulsing against mine.
“Yes, you can. Now move.”
For one terrible second, she locked against me—not trembling, not fighting, just gone still. Her hand had stopped moving on the rung. The water poured over us, and she didn’t react to it.
Then she moved.
Her hand closed around the first rung, held.
Then another.
I climbed behind her, one arm braced against her back, the other hauling us both upward through neck-deep water that poured over my face with every surge. Rust, sewage, and rot filled my mouth. Every rung demanded something I wasn’t sure I had left—a hold that threatened to slip, arms burning past the point where burning meant anything useful.
“Almost—” she gasped above me.
I looked up. The hatch. Four rungs. Three.
“Go!”
She reached it, pressed both palms flat against the metal, and shoved.
It didn’t move.
“Finn—it’s stuck!”
The water surged again, pulling my head under. Black. Roaring. I held my breath, locked my grip, and fought my way back up. Spat. Blinked.
“Move,” I said over the roar of water. “Down one rung.”
