Chapter 3 - The Underwater Struggle
Maya grabbed the steel handles of the wheelchair to steady herself against the rising buoyancy of the deep end.
The cold chlorinated water burned Maya’s eyes, but she refused to blink as she locked gazes with the terrified mother.
Elena’s lips were turning a faint, alarming shade of blue beneath the flickering surface reflections.
Maya reached down between Elena’s swollen abdomen and the taut black strap, forcing her fingers against the buckle.
The safety mechanism was jammed, packed tightly with the fabric of Elena’s soaked pale-blue maternity dress.
Elena’s chest heaved in a silent, agonizing spasm of reflex, her body desperately pleading for air that was not there.
Maya braced her knees against the metal frame of the footrests, throwing her entire upper-body weight into the buckle.
She clicked the release button with all the strength in her thumb, but the locked spring refused to budge.
Panic threatened to seize Maya’s mind, but she forced her racing pulse into icy, laser-focused resolve.
She grabbed the thick nylon webbing with both hands, twisting the fabric sideways to relieve the sheer tension on the pin.
Elena’s head tilted back against the headrest, her dark eyes rolling toward the wavering penthouse spotlights above.
The child inside her gave a weak flutter, its oxygen supply diminishing with every passing split-second.
Maya uttered a muffled scream of defiance into the water, releasing a cloud of silvery bubbles as she wrenched the belt.
With a sharp, metallic click that vibrated through the metal chassis, the locking mechanism finally yielded.
The buckle popped open, and the black nylon straps fell away like severed chains into the deep.
Maya instantly slipped her arms beneath Elena’s shoulders and around her swollen torso, lifting her from the steel prison.
The heavy black wheelchair, free of its passenger, tipped backward and settled quietly on its side upon the bottom tiles.
Maya kicked off the submerged footplate with explosive athletic power, propelling both of them upward toward survival.
Elena’s dead weight was immense, amplified by the heavy saturated folds of her sodden silk gown.
Maya’s lungs were now burning with the exact same fire that had nearly extinguished Elena's life moments before.
Yet Maya drove her legs harder, fighting the downward suction of the pool with fierce, unyielding protectiveness.
The shimmering ceiling of the pool grew closer, glowing with the amber rays of the sunset and the penthouse lamps.
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Maya used the momentum of their ascent to angle Elena’s limp form directly toward the shallow concrete steps.
With one final, desperate thrust of her heels, Maya kicked toward the surface of the world.
