She came back up. ‘I can’t get it open,’ she said. ‘The handle turns, but the door won’t open.’
There was a brief pause. ‘Okay,’ Cherry said. ‘Let me try.’
There was another long pause and she heard him breathing in the darkness. Then he gulped an enormous breath, and went under. She could feel him fighting with the door as he struggled to get it open—he had no more success than she did. He came up, gasping loudly for breath. ‘It’s no use,’ he said. ‘Either the wood’s too swollen from all the water, or there’s something pressed against it. Debris, too much water. Who knows. I think we might be stuck here.’
She could hear the note of fear in his voice. ‘It’s okay,’ she said. ‘We’ll just look for another way out. There could be a window. Which way are we facing? Do you remember which way was the outer wall?’
‘Er—I think it was this way,’ Cherry said.
They paddled on to the third wall and continued to feel their way along.
‘Can you feel that?’ Annalie said suddenly.
‘What?’ Cherry said, his voice taut with fear.
‘It felt like a current.’
She had felt the surge of water around her legs. The water in the room was moving, just slightly. ‘I think there could be a gap in the wall somewhere,’ she said. ‘Let’s find it.’
They felt around the wall above the water line, but found nothing that indicated a window. Annalie felt the water sucking back gently around her legs. She took another breath and dived down, feeling her way down the wall—and there it was. A hole in the wall, at the old floor level.
‘I’ve found it,’ she said, ‘our way out. There’s a hole in the wall. If this is the outer wall, it should lead outside.’
‘But we don’t know what’s on the other side,’ Cherry protested. ‘What if we swim through it and there’s no way out? We could get trapped there.’
Annalie could hear his fear, and now that he’d said it, she found herself imagining nightmare scenarios: going down into the hole and getting stuck, or swimming through it into somewhere worse, darker, enclosed, being unable to get out…
‘I think this is our best way out,’ she said firmly. ‘I’ll go first and see where it leads, and if it doesn’t go anywhere, I’ll just come back.’
‘But, Annalie—’ he said, his voice ragged with fear.
‘It’ll be okay,’ she said.
She took a deep, deep breath, and dived.
Down into the hole with its ragged sides. The tide swept in, pushing her back into the room so she had to kick hard to keep going. She felt the hole’s rough edges scrape her arm as she pushed through into a blackness no less profound than the darkness she’d left behind, and for a moment she feared she had merely swum from one dark hole into another. What if they’d got themselves turned around in the dark and she was swimming into a maze that went on and on, rooms opening onto flooded rooms with no way out? And still she kept swimming, swimming, her heart pounding harder, her lungs starting to strain, and now the tide surged the other way, sweeping her away from the hole, and she had no choice but to kick her way to the surface. She swam up, desperate to breathe, afraid that at any moment she might hit some barrier that would prevent her from reaching the fresh air—and then suddenly she was on the surface, sucking in a huge grateful breath, and when she wiped the salty water from her eyes she saw the night sky littered with stars. She was free!
Cherry
Soon enough, Annalie and Cherry were both outside, bobbing on the surface.
‘I don’t think I could have done this without you,’ Cherry said.
‘’Course you could,’ Annalie said. ‘You’re an Admiralty man.’ She looked around her. ‘Any idea where we are?’
They both looked around. They were in that part of Dio where the buildings were as much under the water as above it.
‘Not really,’ Cherry said, ‘but I know we need to get out of here as quick as we can.’
They paddled over to a rickety boardwalk and climbed out. Cherry took his Admiralty jacket off and carried it, but even without the jacket, their Duxan clothes made them both conspicuous.
‘How long do you think we’ve got until they realise we’re missing?’ Annalie asked.
‘I don’t know,’ Cherry said. ‘Depends on whether we’re lucky or unlucky. We need to find ourselves a ride out of here.’
They hurried along the boardwalk, listening out for any sounds of pursuit. The path swerved down towards the water; a cluster of dinghies were pulled up above the tideline.
‘What’s your position on stealing things?’ Annalie asked.
‘Normally I’m against it,’ Cherry said. ‘But in some situations, it’s necessary.’
He tried the dinghies one by one while Annalie kept a lookout. The first four engines had been disabled and wouldn’t start.
Annalie noticed someone opposite had stopped and was watching them. ‘Maybe we need to keep moving,’ she said nervously.
Vrroom! The fifth dinghy started. ‘Let’s go!’ Cherry said.
They both jumped in. Cherry opened the throttle and drove out into the channel. Behind them, a window was thrown open and somebody shouted furiously, but the voice was quickly lost.
They motored out, making for open water, Annalie keeping watch behind them while Cherry steered a course.
‘Anybody following us?’ he asked.
‘Not yet,’ Annalie said, half-expecting that at any moment someone would come shooting out to hunt them down.
But no, not this time.
They crossed the debris field and reached the safety of the open ocean. Cherry turned east and they began to put the great sprawl of Dio behind them.
‘We made it,’ he said. ‘I can’t believe it.’
‘Don’t you do this kind of thing all the time?’ Annalie asked, smiling.
‘Not by myself,’ Cherry said. ‘So had you thought about what happens next?’
‘I need
