Read Online Alive at 5 (Entangled Ignite) by Linda Bond - Free Book Online Page A

looked ashen and downright alarming. She blinked to make sure she was seeing correctly. “My God, are you okay? You look like death.”
    He groped toward her. “I need to sit down.”
    She reached out and took his camera bag, ushering him inside. Quickly, she stepped outside the hotel room and checked the hallway, then the parking lot. “Where’s Zack?”
    George didn’t respond.
    When she turned back around, he was lowering himself onto the king-sized bed, carefully, as if injured. He eased his head onto a pillow and gingerly threw an arm over his forehead. “I almost died today.”
    “What?” She sprinted back into the room, but left the door open in case Zack was parking the car or something. George looked like a man who’d just thrown up his dinner. “What the hell happened?”
    “It all went down so fast. Shit.”
    Her heart fluttered. Where was Zack? She hurried over to the bed, sat at George’s side, and grasped his arm. His skin felt cold and clammy. “You need to tell me what’s going on.”
    George rubbed his head agitatedly. “The dive started out great. The first rush of cold water freaked me out, but as soon as my body adjusted, I fell right into the groove. I followed Zack after he went in, just like you suggested.” He sat up and filled her in on the scary details of his dive gone wrong. “He led but, you know, I don’t think he knew I was with him at first.” He lifted a shoulder. “The dude was, like, in his own zone or something.” His eyebrows bunched toward the center of his forehead. “Eventually we got to an entrance where the cave narrowed into a small tunnel. There was this big sign with the Grim Reaper on it.”
    She was getting a bad feeling about this. “Let me guess. Zack ignored it.”
    “Yeah.”
    Her pulse kicked up. She was actually a bit envious of Zack’s obvious lust for excitement and total lack of fear. “And you followed him in there?”
    “You told me not to let him out of my sight. And shit, I didn’t want to be down there alone. Jesus. That guy has got balls the size of—”
    She put her hand up. “Yeah, I get it. What happened next?”
    “The ceiling was so low in some places it was impossible for me to lift my head without bumping into rock. Pretty freaky.”
    Her stomach clenched. She hated confined spaces. She grew increasingly nauseous as George described how he’d freaked out when something brushed up against his fins, setting off a sand storm underground.
    She closed her eyes and envisioned that moment deep in the underwater cave. On second thought, she could do without those images in her head. When she opened her eyes, he had started shaking. That was a first. Damn, he was really traumatized.
    Or maybe he was suffering from hypothermia? She got up and searched the closet for a blanket.
    “Oh man, did I fuck up. I kicked up all that shit on the cave floor, and in, like, five seconds I couldn’t see a damn thing. The lights didn’t help. The water had turned brown—like a whiteout on the ski slopes.” He clutched at his chest. “I didn’t have any guideline attached to me. Both my hands were gripping the underwater camera casing, and”—he took a deep breath—“I didn’t know what the hell to do. I was thinking, do I drop the camera and swim for the wall? Or do I keep the equipment and lose my sense of direction? I just panicked. I mean, fuck.”
    She walked back to the bed, the blanket under her arm. His muscles were actually twitching. Adrenaline, no doubt. She wrapped the thin, white blanket around his shoulders. He shivered so hard his teeth rattled.
    “How did you get out?” Her mouth had gone bone dry. She reached across for a bottle of water on the other nightstand, took a sip, then handed it to him.
    “I swam straight with the current, with my arms outstretched, and damn if I didn’t run right into Zack. He grabbed my wrist, but then I lost my bearings again and my wrist slipped from his grip.” His shoulders rounded over,