Harper
Down.
Sound. Light. Direction. Gone. The world reduced to black pressure and the hand locked around mine, pulling me forward through a shaft I couldn't see the end of.
I kicked. Followed. The cold-storage case was wedged between my chest and my left arm, heavy and getting heavier with every second the water stole from my lungs. My right hand was in Vane's grip. His fingers hadn't loosened since we went under. They weren't going to.
The shaft turned. I felt it in the current more than I saw it, a drag sideways, then up, then straight into a narrowing I had to twist through. My shoulder hit something solid and the pain bloomed bright and immediate and completely irrelevant, because my lungs were screaming now.
Not the manageable kind. The kind where the body starts making decisio
