“Can I let you hang for a second and I’ll try to get your foot out?”
Annie nodded. Marilyn helped lower her back down, then carefully scurried up the rocks so she could see the damage.
It wasn’t as bad as she’d feared. The large rocks weren’t crushing Annie’s ankle, they’d just shifted and wedged, trapping her foot in a pocket. It could’ve easily been much worse.
It only took Marilyn a few seconds of pushing at the rocks to figure out she wouldn’t be able to budge them. Someone was going to have to bring in some equipment to get Annie out.
“Girl, you are good and stuck in those boulders.” She looked at her phone and Annie’s. “And we have no phone signal.”
Annie let out a sigh. “I think we’ve got a bigger problem. The tide.”
Marilyn couldn’t help her gasp as she turned and saw how much the water had risen inside the cave in just the couple of minutes she’d been trying to move the rocks. The water was coming in fast, and the cave was trapping water at an unusually quick rate—much faster than a normal tide. She looked around at the cave walls and could clearly see where the water normally rose to.
Oh shit. Shit, shit, shit.
“Can you help me get upright for a few minutes again?” Annie asked. “Blood rushing to my head is pretty uncomfortable.”
“Yeah, sure.” Marilyn scurried down, having to stand in ankle-deep water to help hold Annie up.
It didn’t take long to realize that Annie couldn’t hold herself up for long at this awkward angle, and if Marilyn ran to get help, the water was going to be past Annie’s head much sooner than she could get back.
Marilyn fought to think past the panic. Maybe she could swim out, get some sort of branch and try to jimmy it—
“Hey, are you guys alright?”
Marilyn and Annie both spun at the sound of a voice at the mouth of the cave. It was the snorkeler they saw earlier.
“Lexi?” Annie said. Marilyn had no idea who that was. She didn’t remember meeting anybody named Lexi since they’d arrived at the island.
“What happened?” Lexi swam over to them.
“My foot is jammed and the tide is coming in.”
They were out of time. Marilyn turned to Lexi. “The rock trapping her leg is too big for us to move. Can you get back to your raft and go get help?” She prayed Lexi’s little raft had a motor. That would save valuable time.
Lexi’s eyes grew wide as she realized the severity of the situation.
“Yeah, absolutely, yeah. And here.” She handed Marilyn a mini scuba tank that had been attached to her waist. “This will buy you ten, maybe fifteen minutes.”
The water had already risen. “We’re going to need every one of them. Hurry. This isn’t good.”
“I can hear you two, you know,” Annie said.
Lexi took off, swimming hard against the waves back out of the cave. Marilyn didn’t know the woman, but prayed she’d have the speed they’d need to get Annie out of this alive.
Marilyn scooped Annie back up into her arms again so she wasn’t hanging upside down. The cold water was already causing her feet to sting, but she ignored it.
She smiled at her friend. “Hey, remember that time you thought it was a good idea to get married on a tropical island?”
29
They talked about everything. Anything to keep their minds off the rising water.
Marilyn told Annie how she’d been processing her rape at Jared’s friends’ hands, and Annie told her about the cruelty that had almost kept her and Zac apart years ago.
They talked about their futures and what they hoped for and places they wanted to travel.
But most of all, they never gave up hope that their men were coming. If Lexi could possibly get to them in time, Zac and Noah would not let them down.
When Marilyn’s arms became too tired to hold Annie up, she put her back under Annie’s back and held her up that way. She’d long since lost feeling in her legs as the cold water rose, but it didn’t matter. She wasn’t leaving Annie alone.
“Wh-what wedding cake flavor did you decide o-on?” The water was up to their chests now.
There was no response from Annie.
“Annie, stay with me. Come on, now.”
They were both covered in cold water. It would only be a few more minutes before they were completely submerged. Marilyn was warmer because she was able to move around, but Annie didn’t have