After a few more tries, she swam back up to give David a breath. He was struggling to get his arms in front like hers were, but he wasn’t as limber and hadn’t made any progress. After a deep breath, David went back to trying to flip his arms around, but he wasn’t even close. Laurel gritted her teeth; she’d have to do this alone. She worked herself slowly back down the rope to the knot around David’s rock.

It took three more breaths before the knot came apart in her hands. But the rope was still trapped beneath the huge rock. Bracing her feet against the bottom of the river, Laurel heaved at the rock, trying to free the last loop of rope.

Her feet slipped, and she kicked off the one flip-flop that had survived the icy plunge. Her toes searched the crevices of the rocks and found a better hold, and she strained against the rock, trying to roll it just a few inches. She felt it start to move and pushed a little harder. The rock shifted suddenly and Laurel’s feet slipped away from it. The river tossed her in its current, her arms lurching back as the rope stretched taut.

David’s white form rushed past, a slave to the current and out of reach before Laurel could even try to grasp for him. It was less than a second before he was out of sight, a tiny trail of bubbles the only fading sign of his presence.

David was gone and Laurel felt like an idiot. She should have planned that better. All she could think as she stared frantically into the darkness was that it had been a long time since his last breath.

Panic edged into her thoughts and Laurel tried not to let it overtake her. The lack of air had already begun to sting her chest, but it was far less uncomfortable than any of the other things she was feeling right now. Her feet were raw from pushing David’s rock, and her wrists ached where the ropes still dug in as she flopped helplessly in the current.

She closed her eyes and thought of her parents for a few seconds, regaining a semblance of calm. She would not let her mother lose her entire family. Hand over hand, Laurel slowly dragged herself down her rope to the rock. It had worked for David, and it was probably her best hope. Because of the cold, her fingers were even clumsier now, and Scarface had done a better job than his companion. The knots yielded more slowly, and by the time she got them undone, her chest was screaming for air with an agony she’d never felt before.

And the hard part was still in front of her.

She found a decent toehold and pushed her rock, begging it to move easily.

It didn’t even budge.

She cursed in her mind and, even in the water, tears found their way to her eyes. She took a few precious seconds to move some of the smaller rocks in front of the one blocking her rope and braced her sore, tingling feet again. She pushed with all her might, and as darkness started to descend on the edges of her sight, the rock began to slide. Laurel shifted her hands and pushed again, expelling the last of the air from her mouth as she forced the rock another inch forward. Another, another, just one more.

Suddenly she was flipping through the water like a rag doll, with no concept of which way was up. She kicked frantically, trying to find some sort of bearing in the murky water. Her toe kicked a rock with agonizing force, and she bent her legs against it and thrust upward with every ounce of her dwindling strength.

When she thought she could not last one more second, her face broke the surface and she gasped in a chestful of air.

The current was still dragging her along, and though she kicked toward the shore, her body had been drained of its strength. Her feet scraped the bottom and she tried to stand, but her legs wouldn’t obey. The force of the water threw her down, and her arms and legs clattered against the rocks as she tried to gain control.

Then something looped over her head, pushing her under for a few seconds.

Laurel whimpered, knowing she’d been found by the two thugs, now ready to finish the job they’d started. But when the heavy loop reached her waist, it yanked her upward and away from the water. Away from the unmerciful rocks.

“I’ve got you,” David said in her ear over the sound of the current. His still-tied arms were looped around her waist, and he slogged through the shallow water toward the shore. He dragged her a few feet out of the river and onto the reed-strewn bank before collapsing on the ground. His teeth chattered in her ear as they lay together, both gasping for air.

“Thank you, God,” David sighed as the arms around Laurel went limp.

TWENTy IT WAS SEVERAL MINUTES BEFORE EITHER WAS ABLE to move. David’s whole body shook with cold as he disentangled his arms from Laurel. “I thought I was never going to see you again,” he said. “You were under for almost fifteen minutes after I got my arms in front so I could see my watch.”

Fifteen minutes! Laurel was instantly grateful she had freed David first instead of herself. He’d have been very dead after only five. “How did you get to shore?”

David smiled wanly. “By being very, very stubborn. I wasn’t convinced I was going to make it at all. But I kept kicking and taking a breath when I could and eventually I got into shallow water.” He leaned closer till their shoulders touched. “I had no idea where you were. I couldn’t have even found where you were tied because the river was so dark. I just kept walking up and down the shore looking for any sign of you.”

“And what if the two uglies had been waiting?” Laurel scolded.

“That was a risk I was willing to take,” David said softly. A violent shiver shook his whole body, and Laurel rocked slowly to her feet.

“We’ve got to get you warm,” she said. “You might get hypothermia after being in that water.”