The rattle in her chest told her she probably had a collapsed lung.
Through the darkness, she spotted another body on the floor next to her.
Pia.
About to worm closer to check on her, Sin heard footsteps and spotted the light of a cell phone. She closed her eyes and pretended to be unconscious. Squinting, she saw one man stand in the door frame of the room, look in at her and turn away. From her vantage point, she was able to hear him as he talked on the phone.
“Yes, she’s alive, but I don’t think she will be for long. She’s bleeding from the leg and has that death rattle. They both do.”
As Sin listened, she felt a drop of water strike her forehead. With her fingers, she felt the restraints cutting into her wrists and smirked remembering what Skull had said about twine. She waited for the man to start speaking again. When he stepped further away from the door and into the other room, she twisted her torso, letting the water drip on her wrists. The wetter her skin felt, the harder she tried to stretch the twine. Come on, she thought, just a bit longer.
“I’m the only one left,” she heard the man say. “What should I do? It’s Spring Break in the swamp, too. There are locals and tourists everywhere. Someone must have heard all the gunfire.”
She kept an ear to the one-sided conversation while trying to catch as much of the water from the leaky roof on her restraints. As she continued to work the twine, she felt the warm, wet feeling of blood as the rope bit into her flesh.
She was about to give up when she realized that her blood was helping to soak the twine. Fighting through the pain, she pulled at her restraints, the twine becoming more pliable from the moisture.
“Kill them?” she heard the man say. “That wasn’t part of the plan. I thought we just wanted the money?”
Sin worked feverishly to pry her hands from the twine.
“What explosives?” the man said.
Sin stopped momentarily when she heard him mention explosives. She watched through her haze as the man walked passed the door and then reemerged with a military-style metal container before walking back to his original location.
“Jesus,” he said. “What do I do with this?” Sin’s heartbeat quickened as she continued to loosen the twine while keeping an ear on the conversation.
“Yeah, I see the cell phone in the crate.” He was quiet while he listened to whoever was on the other end of the phone give directions. “Okay, okay,” he continued. “I’ll turn the dial clockwise and leave it in the room with the prisoners. As soon as I see the boat pull up, I’ll hit the star key on the phone. That gives me ninety seconds before it blows.” He was quiet for a moment. “Film it? How am I supposed to video the explosion if I’m running?”
Working feverishly, she pried her hands free, reached into the lining of her jacket and found the pearl-handled switchblade Shea had gifted her.
Her hand quivered from a drop in blood pressure as she depressed the button on the handle, snapping the blade open. Moving as fast as she could, Sin sliced the twine between her ankles. Each movement brought new heights of pain in her chest.
Again, the man was speaking. “I understand. I’ll video the explosion from the boat. Just hurry before someone else comes to check on all the noise.”
She checked for her ankle holster, but her 9 mm was gone.
Moving as fast as she could, she used the lone steel chair in the room to hoist herself to a standing position and hobbled toward the door. That’s when she heard the roar of an airboat engine. It sounded like Danny’s.
“Thank God,” she heard the man say. She ducked behind the door as a cannister with an illuminated red dial rolled across the floor and under the lone bed on the far side of the room. Peaking around the doorframe, she saw the guy pick up the phone and tap the star key.
Ninety seconds, she thought.
Not seeing any other choice, she gripped her knife in an overhand position and yelled out, “Hey asshole.” Startled, the man stopped and turned in her direction. She threw her knife as hard as possible. Ordinarily, her throw would have killed him, but in her weakened state, she was just happy the blade hit him.
The blade bounced off his fatigues. “The Angel of Death is not so tough.”
As he raised his sidearm to shoot her, she yelled, “Now, Danny!”
She dropped to the floor as bullets splintered the front of the cabin, peppering the man aiming the gun. In a shroud of red mist, he dropped the gun and face-planted on the floor.
Troy crashed through the door and rushed over to her.
“Don’t worry about me,” she groaned. “Grab the girl in the other room and hurry. We have less than a minute before this place blows.”
Sin crawled to the dead man, grabbed his phone which laid beside him and pulled herself up using the same table she had used for cover. She spotted her backpack lying on the table, grabbed it and stumbled out the door.
Troy ran out the door with Pia draped over his shoulder, scooped up Sin from under her arm and dragged her down the dock and into the boat
38
Sin fell into the flat bottom of the airboat while Troy dropped Pia next to her. “We have about fifteen seconds before this place blows,” he yelled to Danny who
