Page 5 of In Too Deep
“How blocked?”
Long pause.Too long.
“It could take some time.”
Noah stared at the collapsed passage—at the wall of rock where minutes ago there’d been an opening.His headlamp illuminated only rubble and dust.
He had to get digging.Noah started to stand.
“No.”Meg’s voice was sharp.“I need your light.And I need you to hold her again if I have to repeat the procedure.”
Her glance at him said it all.The procedure was a Band-Aid.Lydia needed emergency help.A hospital.Surgery.
Time was what they didn’t have.
He looked at Meg, met her eyes, and saw his own worry reflected back.
Meg Lewis refused to let the fear suck her under.
Her heart hammered against her ribs, with each beat a frantic echo in the clammy air.She crouched beside Lydia, her knees aching against the uneven stone floor and the girl’s shallow breaths a fragile rhythm.The metallic tang of blood clung to the dust.Her headlamp flickered with the battery dying.
But Noah’s light helped her see the regular rise and fall of Lydia’s chest.
She squeezed her eyes shut.She’d nearly lost it and let Lydia die because her mind had spiraled into that familiar storm.
Doubt.Guilt.The weight of every life she couldn’t save.
Her brother in the water, thrashing.Her father at their vacation cabin, cold and still.Nimue’s face, pale and clammy.
But with Nimue, Noah had been there.His hands steady, his voice cutting through the chaos.Breathe.You’re a good doctor.You’ve got this.
Now, his presence beside her—broad shoulders hunched in the tight space, his headlamp a steady beam—was a lifeline.She clung to it.To him.
“It can’t be too blocked, right?”
“What?”He studied her face.
“I mean, if the radio is getting through, then?—”
“It’s VLF—very low frequency.That’s what the transverter we set up was for.Transmitting through rock.”
“Oh.”The silence returned.
Every so often, a pebble skittered down the wall and she flinched.
“Noah.”The whisper barely escaped her dry lips.“I don’t know if I can do this.”
He turned with dust settled in the creases around his eyes—those deep-brown eyes that had become her anchor.“You already did, Meg.You saved her.You are doing it.”
His voice was calm, that deep rumble that always steadied her.But she heard the strain underneath—the weight of the collapsed passage trapping them inside.
They were stuck.All of them—her, Noah, Lydia.
She checked Lydia’s IV with trembling fingers.Lydia’s chest rose and fell unevenly, her lips still faintly blue despite everything.But the decompression had bought them time.
Not much.But some.
Jeremy’s earlier accusations still echoed in her mind.What is wrong with your doctor?
