by Shay Savage
I have no idea what to think of this new information or how to use it to my advantage. I want to know more about her and where she comes from, and my patience is gone. I need to understand who she is and why she’s here.
“You ever want to walk away from this?” I ask, turning my attention back to her. “If you do, I suggest you start talking. Otherwise…well, we’re going to have a problem.”
“Are we?”
“Yes, we are.” I lean back a bit and stare at her intently. “Thaves aren’t appreciated in this area, and you’ll be seen as a spy. We’ve had our issues with Thaves infiltrating our community, and we don’t want you around. If you can give me a clear understanding of who you are and what you’re doing here, maybe I can get you out of the area alive.”
“What makes you think I’m one of them?”
I consider her words carefully as well as—more importantly—her tone. The way she says “them” with vaguely disguised venom is a clear giveaway. Though she was obviously raised with Thaves, she doesn’t consider herself to be a part of that life any longer. She also doesn’t profess herself to be a Naught, which makes me wonder how long it has been since she has had a place she considered home.
“Well, ‘your worshipfulness,’” I say with a smirk, “let’s just say you gave yourself away. How I know isn’t as important as the knowledge. People here know me and trust me. They will believe what I tell them, not some outsider who clearly doesn’t belong.”
Her eyes widen and her mouth drops open as she realizes I recognized her movie quote and responded in kind. She glares at me with clenched teeth. She grips her hands into fists a couple of times before standing up straight.
“You are the one with the problem,” she says distinctly.
“Me?” I tilt my head and grin at her. “What problem could I possibly have?”
“Well, son of President Harrison LaGrange, I know who you are.”
My blood goes cold.
Chapter 8
“I have no idea what you’re talking about.” I don’t sound convincing, not even to myself.
“Really?” She tilts her head as she stares down at me. “Is that the best you can do?”
“You obviously have me confused with someone else.” I wave my hand dismissively, immediately regretting the gesture. It’s just the sort of action I would look for to determine if someone is lying.
“No, I don’t. I’m really just wondering if your father exiled you for all those protests or if he really believes you’re dead.”
I stare at her. I’m so profoundly taken aback, I don’t know how to respond. My tongue, normally prepared with a plethora of smooth talk, feels like heavy grade sandpaper. All I can manage is to throw it back at her.
“And what about you, your highness? It’s clear you’re from the capital. What political family’s name do you hold?”
Before she can answer, the ground begins to shake. It starts with a slow, deep rumble, and quickly escalates. Within a few seconds, I have to brace myself to keep from falling over, and rocks begin to tumble down the side of the hill.
“We have to get out of here,” she says. She plants her feet firmly and looks up toward the mountaintop.
“Just some aftershocks from the west,” I say. “It might be over.”
“It’s not. This isn’t a normal quake.”
“How do you know that?” Before I can get an answer, the ground begins to rumble again.
“Run!” she screams as she starts running up the hill.
“Watch the rocks!” I don’t know why she’s heading up when rocks could dislodge at any moment, but she doesn’t listen to me. I end up running after her, dodging rolling stones and falling tree limbs as the shaking of the earth increases.
“This way!” she yells as she continues to ascend.
I follow her as quickly as the shaking ground will let me. She has amazing agility, and she leaps over tumbling stones without missing a step. I have a difficult time keeping up, and I fall behind as I am nearly crushed by a falling boulder.
“Over here!” She’s stopped near an outcropping of rocks abutting a large tree with roots spreading out into the side of the mountain, holding the earth together even as the ground around it shakes and threatens to break apart.
She grabs hold of a group of vines and pushes them to one side. I rush to catch up, slip partway down the hill, and have to regain my footing. I scramble up to her using my hands for support as ash billows about, choking me.
When I reach her, I’m astonished by what I see.
Behind the rocks and vines, there is a two-foot by two-foot square of metal with a lever on the outside. I watch her grab the handle and yank it open, glance quickly at me, and then drop to her knees to crawl inside. I crawl in after her, and she reaches around me to pull the metal door closed.
It’s pitch black inside, but I follow her touch and sound farther into the shaft. The floor of the shaft is crumbled dirt, but when I reach out to touch the sides and the top, I feel cool metal around us. The inside dimensions are not much bigger than the two-foot by two-foot door, and there is very little room to move. The shaft is angled upward but not so steep as to be difficult. Within a few feet, the woman stops and rolls to her side, and I wriggle my way in beside her.
“You think we’re safe in here?” I ask.
“It’s reinforced,” she says. “It’s better than outside.”
“That’s likely.” I’m not entirely sure the statement is true, but at least we aren’t being hit by boulders. I can hear them rolling across the ground on top of us as the earth vibrates and shifts.
Her body is close, and even with the earth shaking around us, I’m very aware of her proximity. I can feel her body warmth along my side even where we aren’t directly touching. In the cramped space, lying on our sides and facing each other, my instinct is to wrap my arms around her, but I don’t. I have a feeling that she wouldn’t appreciate it, so I lay my arm awkwardly down my side.
The quake subsides, but I can still hear debris rolling over the top of us. We sit in dark silence as aftershocks hit one after the other over the next hour. When the aftershocks stop, we continue to lie, tense and motionless, for a long time.
“I think it might be over,” she finally says.
“I think so, too.” I shift around a little, trying to relieve some pressure on the shoulder I’ve been lying on. “Do you have light?”
Before she can answer, a loud, sharp crack resonates through the ground. I can feel the echoes of the sound throughout my body as the earth shakes one more time, and I hear loud crashes above us. Dirt begins to sift through the seams of the metal shaft, and I reach my arm over her to partially cover her with my body as dust and ash rain down on us.
It only lasts a few seconds, but I keep my grip on her and my eyes squeezed shut until the earth settles again. I feel her take in a long, deep breath, and I finally pull back though I leave my arm over her.
Again, the touch of her tingles through my body in an embarrassing, adolescent way. I have to shift myself back a bit, and I’m glad for the darkness. I have a feeling I’m blushing.
“How did you know?” I ask.
“Know what?”
“How did you know that wasn’t going to be a normal quake?”
“I didn’t.”
Her nonchalant answer doesn’t impress me. Quakes happen all the time in the valley, but this one was much higher in magnitude. I don’t know how she knew it was coming, but she did.
“Don’t bullshit me.” I grip her arm a little tighter. “You knew it was going to happen. How could you know that?”
“I didn’t!” She pulls her arm away. “There were so many during the day, I just…I had a feeling.”
“How did you know about this place?” I ask. “I’ve been up and down this mountain a hundred times, and I’ve never seen it.”
“It’s well hidden,” she says. “It was more hidden before; I just recently uncovered it.”
She hasn’t an
swered the question, but I’m sure prodding her isn’t going to do any good—not yet. It’s becoming increasingly obvious that she knows a lot more than she’s willing to tell me, and I’m going to have to work on my patience.
What she does know—about my past, at least—scares the shit out of me.
“Let’s get out of here,” she says.
She wriggles her way down to the base of the shaft, and I hear the distinct sound of metal clanking against metal, but no light shines through the opening. She curses, and the sound echoes through the small space again.
“What’s wrong?”
“It won’t open!” I hear her yanking at the lever a few more times, but nothing happens. “It’s stuck!”
“Do you have light?”
“Just a sec.” I hear her rummaging around. A moment later, I hear the whirring of a hand crank, and low light penetrates the darkness.
For the first time, I can get an actual look at the shaft. As I could tell from touch, metal covers the top and sides with just the earth at the bottom. The seams on one side have shifted—either in this quake or a previous one—and allowed dirt to enter, but still seems relatively sturdy. The shaft goes up about ten feet, but I can’t quite see what’s at the top. My focus is on the base.
“Hold the light,” I say. “I’ll try the door.”
With some maneuvering, we manage to switch places so I can shove at the door’s lever, but my luck isn’t much better than hers. Though I manage to get the lever to move, I can only open the door about a quarter of an inch. It’s barely enough to see any light beyond.
“I think something fell against the door,” I say. “Maybe the rocks above or branches from the tree fell.”
“Can you move them?” she asks.
“From here? No way. I don’t have the leverage.” I glance toward her and see that the shaft continues up. At the top, the light from her hand-cranked flashlight catches something shiny. “What’s at the top of the shaft?”
“Another door,” she says, “but there’s a padlock on it.”
“Does it have a keyhole?”
“No, just the combination lock.”
“I’m not great with combinations,” I tell her. “I don’t have anything to cut through it, either. Not on me, anyway.”
“I don’t either.”
“Let me take a look at it.”
She shines the light as I make my way to the top of the shaft and find a similar two-by-two square of metal blocking the passage. This one also has a lever, but the lever is chained with a combination lock, just as she said. I twist it around a bit, but it’s locked up tight. If I had just a small hacksaw, I would be able to break it, but I have nothing of the sort.
I check the seams of the door, and bang against it with my fist, but there is no easy way to get through. Under other circumstances, I might have tried to break through it, but the angle is terrible, and I can’t get any kind of force directed upward.
“No chance.” I look back at the thief and shake my head. “If I had tools with me, maybe, but definitely not without them.”
I press my hand to the dirt below, wondering if it would be possible to dig our way out. The ground is compacted and hard; I can barely dig a fingernail into it. I couldn’t possibly dig through it with just my hands.
“So…what do we do?” she whispers.
“I don’t know,” I reply. “At the moment, we’re trapped.”
My own words sink in, and I wonder why in the world I was foolish enough to follow her into this shaft in the first place. I might very well have been safer outside, dodging boulders as they rolled down the mountain. Then again, I might just as well have been hit by one of them. Either way, the situation isn’t good.
She nods slightly, and I wait for panic to cross her face, but it doesn’t come. She’s remarkably calm, and I try to mirror her expression despite the growing fear in my chest. The area is safe enough from earthquakes, but I have only a little water and no food on me. The chance of someone coming across our location and hearing us call for help is basically zero.
If we can’t get out, we’re fucked.
“What can we do?” she asks.
“Wait for another quake?” I shrug. Part of me wants to yell at her—blame her for our predicament—but I don’t. It’s pointless now and would only cause us both more stress. “I guess it’s possible that the next one could shake whatever debris is blocking the door farther down the hill. I don’t really know.”
“That could take days.”
“How much water is in here?”
“I have some,” she says, “but food will be tight.”
“But the ventilation is good, right?”
“Yes,” she says. “Seems to be.”
“Well, that’s something.”
“Better than the alternative.” She shines the light toward the bottom door and sighs deeply.
She takes a small bottle of water out of her pack, drinks from it and then offers it to me. I take a swig before thanking her and handing it back.
I’m still impressed with how calm and collected she has remained. If she’s faking it, she’s faking it well. I’m barely holding it together inside, and being absolutely exhausted isn’t helping.
“Maybe we should rest a while,” I say. “The rocks could shift again, and I’d have better luck getting the door open if I’m not tired.”
“Not sure what else to do,” she says.
The shaft isn’t long enough for us to lie down end to end, so we maneuver beside each other again to try to sleep even though it’s ridiculously uncomfortable. At the same time, I can’t help but think about how nice it is to be up against her.
Tentatively, I place my arm around her.
“Is this okay?” I ask. I carefully watch her face, but she doesn’t seem upset by the movement.
“It’s fine.” She reaches out and places her arm around my waist. “At the very least, we fit better in this position.”
It’s true; we do fit better. I also happen to like it—quite a bit.
I place my hand against her shoulder blade. In my palm, I can feel the tension in her muscles. I don’t know if it’s because of me or our predicament, but I want to rub her shoulder and tell her it will be all right.
I don’t do it or say anything. I seriously doubt it will be all right, but I feel myself go into my natural protector role anyway. I hold her a little closer, hoping to offer her some sense of security though I have no idea how we’re going to get out of this.
As soon as we’re settled, she turns the light out.
I close my eyes in the darkness, but my heart is beating fast enough that I wonder if she can hear it. I adjust my position a little under the guise of getting more comfortable, but I really just want to be touching as much of her as possible without being completely obvious.
Her hair smells like rain and campfire smoke, but there is also something brighter and almost sweet, like fresh flowers. I find the combination intriguing, intoxicating, and definitely feminine. I inhale deeply and quietly, hoping she won’t notice, and my head spins a little.
I’m completely exhausted, but my body feels electrified. I’m not sure I will be able to sleep like this.