Canaan hit the water like he’d smacked into a brick wall. He gasped painfully, the air having left his lungs in a “whoosh.”

Annalise Rubidoux, ever graceful, swam over to him, narrowly avoiding Nolan Weston’s entry into the water. Carlton Fox bobbed to the surface out in deeper water.

“Breathe, Canaan! Deep breaths!” she pulled him into a floating position on his back as he nodded and gulped air back into his lungs.

A hail of bullets entered the water just past where the four fugitives treaded water, the rocky shoreline preventing the shooters far above from seeing their targets or getting clear shots.

“Is everybody in one piece?” Annalise shouted over the waves and gunfire. There was no beach to speak of, just a treacherously rocky shoreline.

“Nothing’s broken,” Nolan reported in.

“Right as rain,” Carlton said. “But we can’t stay here. We’ve got to get to that dock before they do.” He pointed to the dock where speedboats were moored, several hundred yards away.

“Are you okay to swim, Titan?” Annalise asked.

Canaan nodded.

“Stay close to the shoes, it’ll cut down their angle,” Nolan called out, and the quartet set out for the dock, occasional bullets still zipping through the air and hitting the water, but clearly more hopeful scattershot than aimed by a sharpshooter who could see, and target, the escapees.

“They’ll have boats in the water any minute now,” Nolan called out. “We need one.”

“Let’s ambush these bastards,” Carlton replied as the quartet treaded water in a rocky cove that kept them invisible from the dock.

“Unless they’ve got a helicopter, then we’re fucked,” Annalise responded.

“Yeah, proper fucked,” Carlton answered.

“Canaan, see if you can get up on those rocks there,” Nolan called out, pointing twenty yards closer to where they’d seen the dock. The spot he indicated looked like the best place to climb out of the water.

Canaan nodded and swam for the outcropping.

“If two or three of us can get up there we might have a chance,” Nolan explained.

“One of us stays in the water. They won’t be expecting us all to have made it. I doubt they could see us from up there, anyway. There’s a reason nobody leapt after us. It would take a miracle not to land on those jagged rocks where we hit the water. We got very lucky.”

“So we hide there and then what?” Carlton asked. “You don’t think they’ll search for the rest of us?”

“Of course they will,” Annalise clarified. “Nolan, you should stay in the water. They seemed to want to keep you alive. When they pull you out, you’ll tell them you’re the only one who made it. Whatever window we have, we’ll have to take advantage of it and commandeer the boat. We’re not getting out of here, otherwise.”

“Wherever ‘here’ is,” Nolan responded.

Canaan scrambled up the rocks and found a small, sandy nook between boulder that might conceal two of their party. He waved to Nolan and gave a thumbs up before holding up two fingers.

“It beats nothing,” Nolan said. In the distance the roar of engines indicated the boats were being sent to find them.

“Keep Canaan in the water with you,” Annalise said. “I’ll go up with ‘SAS’ here and we’ll come for when the time’s right.”

Annalise and Carlton swam for Canaan, quickly explained the plan to him, and he swam back to Nolan while the other two concealed themselves.

The boats were closing in as Nolan finalized the plan with Canaan.

“You’re going to hold onto the rocks right there,” he explained, pointing to a spot just past where Carlton and Annalise left the water. “I’m going to be unconscious. I hit hard, swallowed some water, and you’ve managed to keep my head just above water. Got it?”

Canaan nodded.

“Let yourself be taken aboard. When shit hits the fan, fight for all your worth. Get your hands on a weapon if you can. This is life and death. Do what Titans do best and kick some ass, Canaan.”

Nolan and Canaan clasped hands and then swam quickly to the spot of the ambush. Nolan draped an arm across Canaan’s shoulders and let his head fall to the side as if he’d been knocked out. Canaan whispered a mantra to himself that he’d used in the past to calm himself before important fencing bouts and adjusted his grip on the rocks as two speedboats filled with armed men spun around the corner and pulled up just in front of him.