“Peter! He’ll never make it!” Wendy yelled, but her words were drowned out with another mighty wave of water. She pressed herself against the ceiling, desperate to stay out of the water that threatened to swallow them all.
“Follow me!” Peter leapt ahead of her, his body curving quickly toward the mouth of the cave. Wendy looked back for Darby, but the doorway to the room was completely covered over with water, and she wasn’t exactly sure anymore quite where the door was. Darby would make it, wouldn’t he? From under the water, a hand reached out for her. Abbott rose up behind her, gesturing wildly to the boys flying past him, following Peter through the exit. The water was rising, more quickly than it had before. The tip of her pant leg brushed its hungry waves. Abbott screamed frantic directions to the other boys before turning on her.
“What are you still doing here? I’ll get Darby. GO! NOW!”
Wendy nodded, and Abbott turned back toward the seventh door. He had gotten only a few feet from her when there was a screeching sound, as a pitched, mechanical whine filled the hallway. It was so loud that Wendy clamped her hands over her ears, desperate to stop the sound that she was sure would split her in half. She watched in silent horror as a trapdoor, hidden in the arch of the doorway, slammed down, cutting them off from the room—and Darby
“That bottle was booby-trapped! Dammit, Peter!” Abbott yelled. He ducked under the water again, banging fruitlessly against the door. Wendy took a deep breath and followed behind Abbott, alternating between breathing and yanking desperately at the door handle. Darby’s panicked cries reached her ears underwater, a muffled yell marked by desperate pounding on the doors. This time, when Wendy rose to take a breath, there was only a foot of space between her head and the roof of the cavern.
“Darby!” she yelled. “We have to get him out!”
Abbott looked at her, and then at the door, and back at her again. With heavy resignation, he turned away. “There’s nothing we can do. Gods damn it, Peter!”
On the other side of the door, Darby’s screams went silent, and Wendy’s mind was assaulted with images of Darby drowning.
“Can’t we . . .”
Abbott took her arm firmly, sputtering over the water. “The only person who could get into that room is inside of it. He belongs to Hook now. We have to go.” Abbott shook his head. “Damn it! We’ll be next if we don’t hurry. Come on!”
Quickly they made their way toward the mouth of the cave, their bodies scraping the ceiling, scurrying like frantic spiders to safety as the water continued to rise. Eventually there was nothing to do but take a breath, latch arms, and let the current push them out toward the mouth of the skull. Wendy felt her feet twirling underneath the water, Abbott’s hand jerking from her own, and her body sluicing through the narrow cavern as if she were inside of a pipe. She heard a strange pouring sound under the water just before her body slammed vertically against the teeth that marked the mouth of the Vault. She gave a muffled cry as she was caught between water pouring out over her and the wooden stakes that were gouging into her thighs and chest. With great difficulty, Wendy pulled her legs up to her chest before pushing herself out between the hanging sticks, water pouring out around her as she gasped for breath and struggled to free herself. Her elbow roughly dragged along the surface of a razor-sharp tooth as she kicked desperately forward. The river water was consuming her, streaming like a waterfall over her body, over her mouth, over her eyes. She twisted her torso and kicked, striving forward. Finally, her body pushed free of the teeth and she reached out into nothing as she fell forward. There was sky! And jungle! She let out an unladylike scream and pushed past the entrance to the Vault, her body spilling out into the foaming river below. Free! Free! Wendy hungrily gulped in the air, so clean and warm, filing her lungs greedily, all else forgotten for a few divine seconds.