Sons of Thunder (41 page)

“Go into a dark cave without a clue where it leads? I don’t think so.”

“Sofia, you can hang on to me. I won’t leave you.”

She jerked away from him then. “Dino will drown.”

“I’ll take care of him.”

“How? What are you going to do—
breathe for him
?”

“If I have to.” He cupped her face with his hands, his warm breath on her face, now his lips moving to her ears. “And I will breathe for you too, Sofia. To my very last breath.”

She wanted to believe him—the way he skimmed his lips against her cheeks, then everything in his voice as he began to describe his plan to Ava and the rest of them.

But she just stared into the blackness and imagined the water swallowing her.

She could do just about anything. Travel across the sea, bury her grandfather on the way, croon like a flapper, chop her hair off at her ears, learn German, and play the maid for the highbrows in Minneapolis. She could bear a child and even barter herself to keep him alive. Yes, she could—and had done just about anything.

Not this.

She placed it now, that deep, engulfing, deafening thunder.

It wasn’t coming from the cave.

“After Mother, you’re next, Sofia. You and Dino. You’ll go together.” Markos reached out for his mother’s hand.

Next. No—A sort of hysterical moan emerged from her even as Ava handed Dino into her lap and eased into the water.

Markos caught her in his arms. “We’ll just follow the rope, Mother. There’s nothing to be afraid of.”

“Oh, I know, Markos.” Her dark hair, streaked in with gray, shone against the black milk of the water. Markos gave one last look to Sofia. “I’ll be right back, I promise.”

She clenched her teeth, digging deep to find a nod.

But he didn’t swim away. Instead, he met her eyes. “God
will
deliver us, Sofia.”

She hadn’t the strength to argue. Horror had scraped her thin by watching, one by one, the Mizrahi family sink into the blackness. She’d long since begun ignoring the screaming inside. Now Dino turned into her, and she tucked his head under her chin.

Markos reached for his mother’s hands—put them on the rope. “Deep breath now…”

They slipped under the surface. Sofia clung to the rope, feeling their handholds traverse it until they slipped into the claws of the tunnel.

God will deliver us.

Oh, how she
wanted
to devour his words, let them nourish her, like Ava. And, apparently, Markos.

Even Zoë. Her words whispered inside Sofia.
Bless the L
ORD
, O my soul, and forget not all his benefits: who forgiveth all thine iniquities; who healeth all thy diseases; who redeemeth thy life from destruction; who crowneth thee with lovingkindness and tender mercies….

Beyond the cave, the waves drummed the walls, as if trying to beat them down.

Forgiveness. Healing. Lovingkindness—mercy?

Why couldn’t she see it, believe like…

The cave convulsed around her. Boulders splashed into the pool. Water crested into her lap, ripping at her grip. Dino screamed, clenching her neck in a hold that swiped out her breath.

The rope ripped from her hands.

She hung on to Dino even as she dove for it, but it sank too fast—
No!

The darkness sucked it under.

She splashed the water but touched nothing. “No!” Her voice echoed against the walls, bounced back to her, raising gooseflesh.

No—no—She wrapped her arms around Dino, staring at the waters, listening to rocks plunge into the sea.

It started faintly, more a feeling, a murmur more than a tune, but something stirred inside, a humming, notes. She let it bubble out, gave it strength.

A different song than the one she’d forgotten, but she knew it all the same. The song filled the cavern, a soft thrum of noise that rebounded to her, settled in her chest.

She stroked Dino’s head and let herself return to the taverna, to that moment when she believed life would be as simple as dancing with Markos.

She slipped into Dino’s embrace in the kitchen of Elsie’s boardinghouse, his soft voice in her ear.

She found the tune, heard inside it Dino’s laughter, Markos’s whispers.

Little Dino’s smile.

She rocked as she hummed away the burning inside, raising the volume, sinking into it.

Letting it overwhelm her.

A splash, then gulping of air.

She picked up the flashlight, panned it across the room. Markos clung to the rocks, working his way back to her. “The rope—I pulled it and it came back to me. What happened?”

“I don’t know—it just ripped out of my hands—”

“I thought maybe the cave had collapsed.” He rested his head in his forearms, his shoulders rising and falling. He shivered. “I thought I heard—were you singing?”

She couldn’t answer him.

“We need to go, Sofia. The British are still bombing the shore, and already the tunnel is collapsing. Another nearby hit, and I’m afraid we’re going to get trapped—”

As if cosmically heeding his words, a shock wave rumbled through the cavern. Markos reached for Dino.

“No!” Dino clung to her with all his toddler strength.

She held him, her eyes searching Markos’s. “He’s three. He can’t—he’ll drown.”

Markos met her gaze, in his a sort of sadness, or perhaps simply the truth. He said nothing as he hauled himself out of the water.

“What are you doing?”

“I’m staying here. With you.”

“What—
No!
You can’t do that.”

“Yes, I can. I should have done this long ago.”

She cast her eyes over him, the way he drew up his legs to himself, shivered in the clammy air. “You really mean to stay.”

“Where else would I go? My life changed the moment I saw you, Sofia. Everything simply clicked into place. You are the reason I came back to Zante. I didn’t know it—but God did. Do you really think that I’d turn my back on you?”

He brushed the dust from her face, running his hand across her cheek. “I’d die for you, Sofia.”

“You already did, once.”

“No, I
lived
for you.”

Something told her that perhaps that’s exactly what it took to survive. Hope.
Her?

Oh, Markos. To have pinned so much on so little.

“And my son, Markos? Would you die for him?”

Markos met her eyes, his face crumpling.

Oh. Please, no, she didn’t need his answer—

“Of
course
I would.” He lifted his head, let frustration show in those beautiful eyes. “Sofia, Dino would have been
thrilled
to have a son. He
loved
you.”

“I loved him too.” She let the words be as brutal as she could. Maybe it would make Markos see the truth, slip back into the black water to freedom.

“How could you not? I’m
glad
you had each other.”

She didn’t recognize this man, truly.

“I’m not a fool who thinks I deserved you then. I don’t deserve you even now.”

“I’m no good for you—”

“Don’t tell me you still think you’re poison!”

She looked away.

“Oh—you do. Oh, Sof.” He pulled her hard to himself, wrapped his arms around her and Dino. “Don’t you know you’re the cure, baby? You’re what healed Dino—and
me.
You saw us both for what we hoped to be. You believed in us. You made us both better men.”

She closed her eyes, letting his words find her scars, breathing them in.

“I will love your son, Sofia. Inside this cave—or out. Please—out?”

It was the please, of course, and the “I love you” that followed it that made her nod. He took the flashlight from her hands and eased into the water.

She kissed her son. “Go with Markos, Dino. I’ll be right behind you. Markos won’t let you go, I promise.”

Markos met her eyes, nodded. She unlatched Dino from her neck, handed him to Markos. Dino’s eyes widened, his lip quivering.

“Shh,” Markos said, as he took the boy into his arms.

She sank into the brackish water, the chill prickling her skin, cooler than she would have guessed. No wonder he’d shivered.

Her skirt ballooned around her waist.

“Listen. Once we go in the tunnel, we can’t turn around. There’s no room, and we’ll get stuck. We just have to keep moving. There’s no rope, so hang on to me. Don’t let me go.”

And perhaps that had been her problem all along. Letting them go without a fight. Or perhaps—letting
herself
go without a fight.

“We’ll go with the current, but it could turn against us, and if it does, we’ll have to kick hard. Use the rocks to pull yourself through—there are lots of little nooks and crannies you can hang on to. Whatever you do, don’t let the current push you backward.”

Oh—she couldn’t—

He gripped her hard around the neck, and before she could brace herself, he kissed her. She tasted desperation—or perhaps boldness—and for a second she was on the boat, in his arms, their future in his touch.

Then he turned to Dino. “Take a big, deep breath for me, champ, and don’t breathe until we get to the other side.”

Dino nodded. Markos opened his mouth, and they breathed in together.

Then he dove below the surface.

Sofia gobbled up a breath…

The current grabbed her, just as Markos warned, and she let it propel her into the throat of the tunnel. She opened her eyes, desperate,
but she saw nothing as she held Markos’s pant leg. She fought a scream, panic burning her lungs, and tried not to let her imagination take her.

The passageway narrowed, the walls nipping at her even as she kicked with the flow.
Hurry!

Then it stopped. The flow died and the sea gathered itself to spit her back into the depths.

Markos twisted in the water, as if torn between kicking hard and dislodging her. She clung to his pant leg, the fabric squeezing out from her grip.

Then the current rushed back at her. It ripped at her skirt, tangling her legs.

They weren’t going to make it.

Markos’s hand found hers in the blackness, a vise grip, as if he feared she’d let go. He kicked again, but they floated backward in the current.

They were headed back into the cave.

Dino needed the air.

But Markos’s would die before he’d let her go.

Forgive me, Markos.
She pushed him away.

Markos foot caught her in the jaw as he kicked forward.

Light flashed in her eyes as the pain splashed through her.

Keep swimming. Keep
…

She scrabbled for purchase on the ridges and grooves of the tunnel, fighting the current, her fingertips ripping. She should turn back—the cavern, with its murky air—lay right behind her, didn’t it? She put her hand up to turn around—

Her knees scraped the bottom. No, she’d get stuck—or wait, had she already turned around?

Her lungs turned to fire. She turned the other way, lunged for a handhold, anything—

She slammed into a wall. Her head burned, as if cut. How had she turned around—where—

Her breath hiccoughed out.

She lashed out, hitting the wall. No. It wouldn’t end like this. She wasn’t going to die here in this tunnel, like some sea urchin. She had a son, a man she loved—
God—deliver me!

Beneath her, in the bowels of the cave, she heard a rumble, or a growl, as if the earth opened to swallow her.

The current stilled, whirlpooling around her as the tunnel shuddered. Under her hands, the rock convulsed.

Then something pushed her—water, frothing forth in a wave, tumbling her, ripping her skin, knocking her against the walls.

Something brushed her hand. She fought to find it again, twisting, clawing at the water, black dotting her eyes.

Light. It strobed against the blackness. She reached for it. Kicked.

A hand found hers. She put everything into clenching it.

The water warmed, and even as she began to burp out the last of her air, she cleared the darkness.

Hands around her waist pushed her to the surface.

She broke into the light, gulped in cool, fresh, salty air.

“Just breathe—you’ll be okay.” Markos’s voice in her ear. He secured his arm around her waist, pulled her against his chest. “Why did you let go?”

She gasped, gulped in more air. It razored her lungs.

“I—what…?” She couldn’t catch her breath as she peered through the teeth of a cavern to the pewter blues of the morning sky.

He shook, even as he held her to himself.

“Dino—where—”

“I think the cavern collapsed? The shock wave must have pushed
you out. I would have never seen you but for the cave-in. Half this cave also came down. I barely got Dino out—”

She wanted to collapse there but—

“Where…”—she coughed water from her lungs—“where’s Dino?”

“He’s with Dr. Alexio—” He started to pull her to the opening.

“What the matter?”

Markos pushed her to the edge of the cave, helped her out. On the other side, the sea crashed against a tumble of rocks. “Hurry, Sofia. He wasn’t breathing.”