Dark Abyss by Kaitlyn O'Connor (classic novels for teens .txt) 📕

the other side. All three of them flew into a well of pitch. The explosion disintegrated the house above them a split second before they hit the bottom, illuminating the walls of the cave and the tunnel that led away from it.

As stunned as he was when he hit the dirt, Simon knew everything that had gone up would be coming down any second. He scrambled to his feet dazedly. “Move!”

Either the explosion had cracked the rock the tunnel was carved from or the debris slamming into the ground above them shook loose rocks from the wall and ceiling.

The three of them launched themselves in a staggering run along the tunnel, covering their heads with their hands in an effort to ward off the rocks raining down on them.

They found the underground channel by falling into it in the darkness.

Splitting up, the three of them searched the walls of the channel until Caleb found the opening they were looking for. Simon knew after five minutes that, without the right gear, no human could’ve swum the distance, and there hadn’t been gear in the tunnel or a boat in the water.

The realization galvanized him and he pushed himself to swim faster. Even so, he heard the distant sound of a boat motor before they emerged from the channel. Two men, he saw, were drifting toward the sea in a boat. One of them working feverishly to get the motor started.

Simon reached the boat just as the man finally succeeded and the motor roared to life. Shooting out of the water, he caught the man as he began to straighten and turn away, using his weight to pull him with him as he dropped toward the water again. A bullet plowed through the man he was holding and dug into his arm. By the time Simon had managed to resurface with the dead weight of the man he’d jerked overboard, Caleb and Ian had wrestled Miles Cavendish into submission.

* * * *

Anna swam upwards through a painful fog toward awareness as a voice penetrated her subconscious.

“What happened?”

“I think I cracked one of her ribs when I jumped from the wall with her.”

She recognized Joshua’s voice, though it sounded strangely rough and shaky.

Someone lifted one of her eyelids. When she managed to focus, she discovered it was Simon staring down at her. “Simon!” she murmured in pleased surprise, swamped with relief to discover he’d made it out alive. As soon as he let go of her eyelid, she drifted down into the dark abyss again.

The next time she roused it was to discover she was being strapped to something.

Before she could open her eyes, she felt herself tilted upward. She managed to lift her eyelids just enough to get a dizzying glimpse of her surroundings and closed them again, struggling with dizziness and nausea as she listened to the voices around her.

To her vast relief, she picked out Simon’s voice, and then Caleb’s and Ian’s.

She’d been more than half convinced she’d dreamed that they were with her. “Wer ‘m?”

she murmured drunkenly.

“She’s come around.”

She didn’t recognize that voice and peered from beneath her eyelids. The bright lights above her said ‘hospital’. She closed her eyes to shield them from the stabbing light, and found herself drifting, swirling.

“Anna! Open your eyes!”

She opened them, but discovered she was still dizzy.

“How many fingers do you see?”

It seemed like a stupid question, but she struggled to focus. “Two.”

“What day is it?”

She frowned, trying to think. “Donno.”

“Did you give her anything?”

“Something for pain. She cracked a rib.”

“Cracked her head, too,” the stranger said. “We need to do a scan. You’ll have to wait outside. You might as well go get someone to look at that burn and those cuts.”

“Where?” she managed to ask after a few minutes.

“New Atlanta. Don’t worry. We’ll take good care of you.”

“Simon?”

“He’s in a treatment room.”

“Caleb?”

“Him, too—and Ian and about a dozen others.”

“Ok?”

“Ok what?” the stranger asked absently.

“Be alright?”

He understood that time. “I’ll check their status and let you know something if you’ll be good for me and stop talking while we do a scan.”

She subsided, but it was more because of the wave of nausea that rushed over her when she felt the gurney she was on turn suddenly. She managed to pitch herself toward the side to throw up.

She felt like crying when she lay down again because she’d thrown up right in front of strangers! And she thought she might throw up again.

“Don’t worry about it,” the man said, commiserating as if he’d read her mind.

“You have a mild concussion. The nausea will pass.”

It didn’t seem to be passing very quickly. She couldn’t decide what hurt worse, her head or her ribs, but it was hard to breathe and throwing up hadn’t helped that at all!

She had to focus just to catch little snatches of breath. Each time she tried to gulp just a little more, pain engulfed her.

After a while, she decided that she must be passing in and out of consciousness although she didn’t seem to be completely awake or completely unconscious at any time.

Her awareness of her surroundings was fractured, though, so it was either that or memory lapses. One moment she was aware of a scanner being moved above her, the next she felt the gurney she was lying on moving and opened her eyes to see lights flashing by overhead.

She was so grateful when the movement finally stopped she felt