161 Meters Down

Taken

The three underlings clad in black suits with unbelievably thick goatees followed the line of vision of the man who was now staring at Kristina as if he would eat her alive, no innuendo intended.

"Boss, what's the matter?" 

One of the underlings kicked the unmoving body on the wooden docks to the water, eliciting a splashing sound as the other two underlings crouched to make sure that the body would tilt. 

After making sure that the dead stayed dead, the three underlings finally caught sight of Kristina, who was hiding from the shadows of the yachts littering around the docks.

"A rat saw us disposed of Alberto, Sebastian." 

The man, whose eyes were as dark as the bottom of the ocean, did not avert his gaze from hers. Thick accent and gruff voice, his eyes held a warning that should she choose to do something, he would execute her like what they did to the corpse now lying at the bottom of the sea as fish food.

'This is bad, so bad!' Kristina thought as she gulped audibly.

 On instinct, her body inched away from the scene, her consciousness fully sensing the danger whipping around the tense atmosphere.

Nice and slow like how she usually did her swimming tricks, her strokes pushed her away from their sight. Kristina was looking for the right chance to dive fast. Though it was dangerous, Kristina knew the surrounding waters of the hotel like the back of her palm, unlike the surface.

The underling named Sebastian scoffed as if the news of her witnessing such a gory scene was added work for them. In a way, it was added work for them. But Kristina refused to accept such a fate. She did not run away from Arizona only to die in Yucatan, Mexico! No! She was there to start anew and this bunch of mob could not stop her – or so she thought.

The moment she moved a muscle to prepare herself for the quick dive, bullets hit the surrounding waters of Kristina.

One. Two. Three. Four.

The boss of the three mobsters was now holding a silencer gun; its tip pointed in her direction as he just finished firing the four bullets around her with only a few inches distance from her body. It was as if he was warning him through his bullets.

Wide-eyed and completely frozen, Kristina could feel her nape running cold. Not because of the chilly breeze brought by the starless skies, but because of the promise of death swirling beneath his eyes. With jaws clenching, his left hand was still inside his pants pocket while his right hand was still aiming the gun toward her. In a deep guttural voice, he practically growled his words.

"Get her."

With the gun still pointed at her, all Kristina could do was watch his underlings trudge in between yachts to get her. Every time she averted her eyes from the onslaught of mobsters coming to get her from being submerged in the water, she looked at the boss of the three and would only feel the pounding of her heart upon seeing the tip of his gun still pointed at her.

Kristina knew the drill. She had watched too many mystery-thriller movies to know what her fate would be and there was only one conclusion for Kristina. She would die at the hands of the man whose eyes spoke only of cruelty and death. He was a predator and she was like the deer stuck and caught in headlights.

"Lassie! Climb up! We can't get wet, you know. We'll have a strip show to watch so come help us and we will make it less painful for you. Right, Rogelio?" 

The underling named Sebastian looked at the tall and muscled Russian beside him before he shifted back his attention to her. The third underling brought down the ladder from the yacht which was nearest to Kristina.

Lifting her chin up, Kristina could not help but gulp audibly for the second time. The moment that the stainless ladder descended, it was as if her entire world slowed down. Gulping the clog in her parched throat, Kristina finally found her voice.

"I... uhm..."

She looked at the man and went cold after seeing the gesture he was making through his gun. He was nudging it from her direction to the descending ladder at her west side. He wanted her to climb up and he was giving her no choice. No. She had no choice from the beginning.

"Alright," said Kristina in a whisper.

Arguing with them was futile. They were not normal citizens. They were mobsters. And from their accent and the boss's prominent jaws and cheekbones that she could even see from afar, Kristina could tell that they were of Russian descent like what she guessed earlier.

"Tik tok, tik tok, tik tok. Hurry up, señorina. Our boss can be brutal when you let him wait," said the third underling as she swam slowly towards the yacht's ladder. Fingers shaking, she was having a hard time gripping the ladder.

"Bernardo is right, lassie." Sebastian nodded his head solemnly before he took a step back to make room for her as she climbed up.

One by one, Kristina discarded her diving gear. The thuds of the yacht's crystal clean floor upon making contact with her diving accessories resonated in the dead of the night, muting the crickets around them as three pairs of eyes were now watching her closely, ready to attack her should she was planning something underhanded behind the pretense of discarding her gears.

Oh, Kristina could only wish she was that quick-witted. But she was not and she was far from being like that.

The floor of the yacht, whose owner was clearly Chinese judging from the flag on its sail, thud loudly when Kristina finally put down her oxygen tank along with her diving masks. Clad only with her diving suit, her long, wet hair cascaded around her.

"Finally! Señorina is finally done! I thought we will have to wait for fucking Santa Clause here to appear before you finish." In an exaggerated voice, Bernardo, said as he clapped his large hands as he tilted his head upward. He was standing behind Kristina, so his loud voice made her flinch as she clasped her trembling hands to her pounding chest.

"Wh-What do you want from me?" asked Kristina. Her voice was hoarse and her throat was scratchy from all the sobs that she swallowed just not to tick them off. She was so sure that they were the type of people who were easy to get offended. Pissing them off was the last thing that she wanted to do, not if she wanted to survive.

"Save the questions later, lassie." Sebastian grinned, showing his beer-stained teeth toward her as he bridged the gap between them. "Right now, you have to say good night."

It was swift. She could even barely see his fist coming to her stomach, as if he was so used to it already that his hand had moved on his accord. But Kristina was not prepared for the next thing. 

The toe-curling impact made her cough followed by a scalding heat spreading from her stomach to every fiber of her being... then there was darkness.