Mina was on her fourth tunnel when she began to start feeling lightheaded and dizzy. This was becoming too much for her. She was about to swim back to another cavern air pocket when she saw a bigger opening and more light coming from above. Was it a way out? She pushed off the ground and swam hard for the beacon of light above her. It looked different, so she prayed for it to be an exit.
Her head broke through the water, and she felt a cool breeze against her face. She smiled in relief. Treading water, she wiped her eyes, only to see that she hadn’t exactly escaped. It was just another larger cavern filled with even more glowing stones. Her heart plummeted. She was still trapped.
Something moved in the corner, and Mina’s intrusion startled it. At first she thought it was a snake, or a pile of leaves because of the way it rustled and moved, but a head slowly raised itself off the floor and turned to look at her. There was no mistaking the black cat-like eyes of a sea witch. It hissed at her and began to crawl across the floor in her direction. Mina screamed in fright and dove under the water to try to swim away from it.
It was a terrible choice. She didn’t get a great breath, and her fear and adrenaline were making her escape clumsy. Mina took off down a tunnel that she hadn’t marked with stones. She looked back behind her and saw something green plummet through the water on her tail. It was fast—faster than she could swim. She knew it. There was no way she could out-swim it; she was going to have to fight it.
She turned and pulled out the knife off her thigh and waited for the witch to come to her. The witch’s black eyes filled her with terror, but Mina held the blade in front of her and continued to tread water. The monster barreled straight at her, its long claw-like hands reaching for her, when something shot out of the darkness and smashed the witch into the wall.
Mina had never heard a scream like the one she heard under the water. It was awful as the two beings fought against each other. It was Nix. He was smashing the witch against a cavern wall, using his full weight to keep her pinned. He was physically bigger than the sea witch, but it was obvious that since he didn’t feed on innocents, he wasn’t as strong as she was.
His voice pounded into her head. The tunnel to the left. Hurry.
She grasped her head in pain, but she didn’t waste the time Nix was buying her. Mina swam as hard as she could to the tunnel, and, sure enough, she could see it: the exit. It was an opening twenty feet across and ten feet high. But it seemed so far away. Her lungs burned for air, but she focused on her goal and kept swimming. Her legs felt like lead weights and her arms like Jell-o. But she continued swimming until she passed through the opening and headed upward. She could see it. The sky. It danced across the water through a sea of glass. Her heart sank when she realized it was farther than she could hold her breath. Even now, bubbles were escaping from her lips, and she was out of strength.
Her body’s lack of oxygen was causing her to hallucinate, and all of a sudden she could see Brody’s smiling face floating in front of her. She reached out to touch it, and it disappeared, to be replaced by Jared’s angry one, yelling at her.
Swim, Mina! Fight—don’t give up!
“I’m tired, Jared. I can’t. I’m so tired,” she mentally called back before her body betrayed her and her muscles cramped underwater, and she felt herself sinking lower and lower.
NOO! She heard a scream and was unsure if it was her own hallucination of Jared or someone else. Something hard and rough grabbed her around the waist, and she was being propelled through the water faster than she had ever gone in her life, straight for the light. But Mina knew she wouldn’t make it. Her body went limp, and her eyes had closed on their own when something warm pressed against her lips.
She didn’t have the energy to fight, and was surprised when her mouth was forced open and life-saving oxygen passed into her mouth. She opened her eyes in surprise to find Nix’s lips pressed to hers, kissing her. No, breathing for her as he continued to swim upward. Her hands reached up to grab his face and hold it to her mouth hungrily as if her life depended on his kiss—which it did. His kiss fought off the darkness of death, and her mind began to function again. She was kissing a monster!
A few seconds later they broke through the water, and she pulled away from his lips to breathe on her own. Nix carefully held her and swam toward shore. Mina only had the strength to roll over on her back and let him pull her to safety. He had now saved her life three times.
Rocks brushed against her feet and she tried to stand up, only to fall to her knees in the rocky shallows. Nix held onto her arm and tried to support her weight. He desperately pulled her away from the water, and even though they were on the shore, he didn’t stop. He tried to coerce her to move, but she couldn’t. Mina collapsed on the ground.