by James, Ella
I nod, and despite my still-shut eyes, I feel his body brush mine. When I peek my eyes open, I see a swatch of his wet shirt; he’s sitting right beside me…quite close. I feel him shift again and get the sense that he’s moved back a bit.
“Talk to me.” His voice is low and soft—a pleasing voice accompanying a pleasing physique.
A shudder ripples through me, then another. A trough of fear and horror makes me feel as if I’m sinking. This cannot be happening. It cannot be.
“Hey now…it’s okay.” He scoots closer—close enough that I can feel his knee brush my thigh. “Those rocks aren’t that big. Just watch. I can get them moved in half an hour. Then we’re outta here.”
I press my lips together, inhale slowly through my nose. We will not get stuck here. I will not be stranded—never again. If he can’t dig us out, the village will come for us.
I lift my head and find his face more earnest than I’ve ever seen it. Contrite, I hope. I raise my eyebrows, telling him with my face to sod off. His mouth twitches at the corners. Message received.
A few feet away, a familiar lantern flickers. It’s set beside my pack, which looks lumpy and rumpled. “I see you took the liberty of going through my belongings.”
He brings his palms together in a praying pose, raising his brows in a look of definite contrition, and gets up without a word.
The spineless knob.
I bring my knees up to my chest and wrap my arms around them. With my back to the rear of the cave, where I believe the stream is, I watch as the Carnegie walks to the rubble pile. Underneath his drenched clothes, his body looks impossibly chiseled. A bit like a superhero, actually. There’s not a soft spot to be found on him, except the lump of clay between his ears.
He steps around the rubble pile, which I note again extends from floor to ceiling—signifying that the cave’s mouth must be there in the ceiling’s slant.
The opening is likely not large—I’d guess a meter or so, most. If it were bigger, I’d know of this place. Glancing around the area again, I decide it’s more burrow than cave. I wonder if its entrance is masked by a tree or hidden beneath a crest of rock or grass, further disguising it from plain sight.
My throat cinches. I’m stuck in a burrow with Sheep Whisperer Carnegie.
He’s now poking at the rocks near the top of the pile, causing several to thud to the floor. The dull sound echoes off the walls. Then he steps back, hands at his hips. He remains that way, unmoving for a few long moments before pacing back to me.
“Here’s the thing, Siren. I’m not feeling a lot of water dripping through. But you can hear it raining out there, right?”
I look up at the ceiling. Now that he says so, I notice the low hum, but prior to now, I hadn’t. I nod quickly, as if to say of course.
“That tells me one of two things: either there’s a larger stone up top, blocking the rain, or it’s a pile of smaller stones that’s pretty thick.”
My belly flip-flops.
“Don’t worry. We can figure out which one is true, and we can do it faster if you’ve got something like a long antennae or some tent joints in that pack of yours. I can use something long and straight to poke up through the rocks and see if I can tell where the pile-up seems to end. If it’s stacked pretty thick above us, might make sense to wait till daylight to start digging. See if any sunlight can get through, and if so, where.”
I shut my eyes and use some of the Lamaze breathing Anna and I learned for Kayti’s birth. When I open them, he’s crouched down just in front of me, rubbing a fingertip over the damp floor.
“What I’m hearing,” I say sharply, “is you’d like me to sleep here inside this…burrow. With you.”
His somber face transforms as his lips twitch into a tiny smile. “With me? You say that like it’s a bad thing.”
I snort. “Oh, I wonder why that is.”
He shakes his head once. “Listen, Siren—I’m the one who’s gonna dig you out of here. I just helped you heard a bunch of sheep, and then I saved you from ending up under a ton of rock. I was a dick the other night, but that was then, and it was a one-time thing. You caught me at a bad moment. From this point on, I’m your partner.”
I can’t help myself—I howl. “My partner!” My head is thrown back as I cackle evilly, trying to decide which of his comments is the most offensive. Is it the notion that I couldn’t dig myself out, or his seeming assurance that I’ll simply move on from what happened last night and be his “partner?” When I recover—my head is pounding—I find him standing with his big, thick arms folded in front of his chest, peering down his nose at me.
“My partner…” I throw my head back once more, wiping pretend tears from my eyes. “Quite the comedian, are we?”
His lips twitch in a smirk—or stifled smile—as he shakes his head. “I get the feeling that I’m not appreciated.”
“How astute of you.”
His mouth rounds into an “o” of mock offense. “I’m wounded.”
“If only.” His jaw drops even as he’s laughing, and I aim an awful look his way. “I’m not your siren, so let’s get that bit settled. We’re not friends or family, therefore no pet names shall be required. Thirdly, I suspect what you are actually saying is you’re worried that the pile of rocks may collapse, and if that happens wrongly, we’ll be stuck here.”
Cold sweat glimmers through me even as I go on in a steady voice. “I agree that seems a danger. Other things for you to know: I don’t need you to dig me out.” I hold my hands up. “I’ve got these, and they both work quite nicely.” I tap my head. “This is full as well, and although I concur we should perhaps wait for some sunlight—and to see if rescuers arrive—before we poke the beast, and that means technically you and I agree, I don’t want to be partners. I’m not forgetting how you behaved before because it’s relevant to who you are.”
He gives a low whistle that echoes through the burrow. “Ouch.”
“I doubt quite a bit that anyone is ever honest with you, Homer.” I hold up my hand, as if I’m pledging. “I will be. My hands work well enough, but I’d prefer you dig us out with yours while I sit back and think up a new knitting pattern. My service to you in return can be my honesty.”
One of his cheeks curves, a dimple appearing near his mouth. “I’ve always been a fan of English accents. Got a couple friends from England. But yours is different. A little Scottish sounding, maybe a little bit of Welsh. I like the softness of it.”
I roll my eyes. “I do so value your assessment.” A bit of Welsh; is he brainless? “I’ll do you the favor of not commenting on your accent.”
Again, I’m rewarded by a widening of his eyes and a small part of his lips before he grins as if he’s pleasantly surprised. “Are you insulting my accent?” He tilts his head, folding his arms again.
I smile back cheekily. “Not yours specifically.”
“I think I get it. You’re an American-hater.”
“Whatever gave you that impression?”
His brows furrow. Then he shakes his head, smiling like he thinks I’m quite the rogue. “Could it be a lewd encounter with a shameless interloper?”
“Dammit, woman. What does a guy have to do to say he’s sorry?”
I stretch my fingers out in front of me, peering critically down at the dirt under my nails. “Oh, I don’t know. For behavior like that, it might take two or three apologies…especially when the offender has got the innocent party trapped inside a burrow.”
He sighs as he crouches back down. “Last night was a shitty night for me. That’s no excuse. I was a dick, and I regret it. You might not believe me, but that’s not how I usually am. I’m…I don’t know. Honestly, I’m kind of a nice guy.”
I pick at my cuticle, and he gives a soft laugh. “C’mon, Finley.” I look up to find his hand in his hair. That must be his nervous habit, and I find I like it. I like that he’s nervous, that he feels sorry for his knob-headed behavior.
I like it enough that I say, “How
about a deal? A sort of truce? I’ll extend to you the benefit of the doubt as well as my prized honesty if you promise you’ll improve quite a bit. Should you violate the truce’s conditions, I reserve the right to exact revenge.”
He grins, shaking his head. “What sort of revenge?”
“You should hope you never find out. We Tristanians know a lot of very odd things. I have ways to make you pay that you’d never expect.”
When his brows rumple, I wiggle mine. “Have you ever smelled a yellow-arsed penguin’s egg?”
He laughs at the name of my fictional penguin, and I find myself smiling—an error that I quickly remedy. I purse my lips, looking at the floor so I’ll avoid his too-familiar gaze. “Is that it, then? You truly want to wait here until daylight?”
He rubs his hands together, then exhales audibly, as if he’s got the weight of the universe on his wide shoulders. “I could start digging now, but I’d rather know a little better what’s up there above us.”
“A night in the burrow, then.”
He presses a palm against the floor, then looks up so our eyes meet. He doesn’t speak or make a face, but simply stares at me—until I want to scoot away.
“Are you having a seizure?”
He laughs. “Jesus.”
“Is not an expletive I tolerate.”
One big hand covers his face before he gives me a pointed look. “You feel okay? Do you feel dizzy or sick?”
“I believe I’d know if I had a concussion. I’m the fill-in doctor after all.”
His lips purse. Bastard. But he doesn’t change his tone. “You think you can stand okay?”
Weren’t we in reverse positions just a bit ago, when he rolled down the slope? I run my fingertips over my soaked pants leg, finding I don’t want to look at him as I say, “Of course.”
He’s crouching too close for me to breathe properly, so I do stand and pace around a bit. I don’t want to see that awful pile of rock and mud, so I wander toward the rear of the burrow, where I find a stream that’s perhaps a foot and a half wide, burbling from a stone on one side of the cave and flowing across its back wall into the other side. I crouch down to examine its point of exit, hoping perhaps there’s a hole there to another cave—one whose entrance isn’t blocked—but no such luck.
I wonder if the water’s good and dip my hand in like a ladle. It tastes fine, which means it’s likely safe to drink. Exactly nothing on the island is polluted. We’re so isolated, we are largely shielded from humanity’s idiocy.
When I stand back up, the Carnegie is beside me—so close I flinch as he holds out a water bottle.
“Rifling through my bag again, are we?”
“Oh yeah. Pillaging the good stuff.” He gives me a sidelong glance and a funny little look, as if he’s humored by me. I have a long swallow of water and rub my fingers over my palm. My hands are prunes from being in the rain for so long. My head aches from where I hit it, and my body feels achy and sluggish.
I lock my gaze onto the stream and wonder when he’s going to walk off.
“You can get a blanket from my bag,” I tell him. “There should be two thin sleeping bags packed tightly near the bottom.” I sometimes unzip them and use one as a mattress and the other as my blanket; since they’re waterproof, I also sometimes sleep in one and use the other as a makeshift tent.
“Sounds good, Siren.”
As he turns back toward the burrow’s “front,” where my pack is, I release a held breath. Best for him to stay as far away from me as possible. Of all the myriad things I need at present, friendship with a wicked American sports star isn’t one of them. I’d go so far as to say it’s at the very bottom of my list.
Why does he have to play faux nice guy now that we’re stuck in here? I’m fair at assessing people, and I’m pretty sure he isn’t—nice. I’ve not read much about him, but Holly sought out information on the world wide web, and read that he’s a self-pleased playboy, dressing up for parties he attends with models on his arm. Besides the desperate plan that I’d considered, I’m not quite sure why I’d looked so forward to meeting him.
I take another long swallow from the bottle. How much do I have to drink before I’ll need to relieve myself? That’s sure to be barrels of fun.
I lean down and refill the bottle from the stream. When I cast my gaze over my shoulder, I see my “partner” spreading the bags out. I turn slowly around, scarcely breathing as I watch him from the shadows.
I glean nothing from his movements and his mannerisms—nothing but athleticism and perhaps a sort of masculine elegance. I can almost see him jumping four feet off the ground, his arm flung above his head to catch a fly ball. He looks like someone in one of Gammy’s dog-eared travel magazines: a breathing mannequin with sinewy, deep-tanned limbs and freakishly squared shoulders. Of course, he’s bigger than all that. Despite being lean, I’d say he’s what you might call burly. More the chest and shoulders. He’s built like a bull.
I feel nothing as I watch him move the bags about, spreading the green one out, with its top beside the cave’s right wall and bottom pointing at the middle of the burrow. As I walk slowly over, he spreads the purple bag about three feet from that one.
Without ado, I sit on it, glancing at the rubble pile, which sounds as if it’s dripping.
Not stuck, I remind myself. Not if rain is getting in. We can get out. If we’re not out soon, most of the village will descend upon us. We’ll be dug out in no time at all.
The Carnegie sits beside me on the green bag, and I can feel his gaze move over my face. I drop my gaze to my hands, now folded around the water bottle, then dart a glance back up to him.
I hate him. I hate it that I can’t stop looking at him. I hate that when I do, I feel off-balance. It’s the same unsteady feeling I get in nightmares, when I’m forever trapped inside the bottom of a boat.
Thunder booms above us. As his gaze flies to the rubble pile, I find mine hung up on the contours of his face. Truly, I’ve never seen a man that looks like him. His cheekbones seem a bit feline…
“You okay?”
I jump. Cover my face with my hand. “Fine.” I hear the blood whoosh in between my ears and hate him, hate him, hate him.
“I…uh…thought I saw some clothes in your bag,” he says quietly. “Want me to turn around and you can change?”
I shake my head, running my nails along the plastic bottle’s grooves. I won’t be here long enough to need dry clothes, and even if I did…
I stand slowly and look up at the ceiling, curved a mere two feet or so above my head. I walk to the rubble pile, where raindrops and faint splotches of moonlight play over the cave’s floor.
“Careful,” he calls. “You don’t want to touch that.”
I swallow, refusing to look back as I hear him move toward me. I run my fingers over the rocks, my touch feather-light. They’re mostly large stones, plus or minus the dimensions of a football—though near the bottom of the pile, one’s more boulder, perhaps half a meter long. My gaze rests on a jagged piece of dark rock near the top. I run a fingertip over it. It looks like part of the archway we just climbed atop. I believe it is.
“Finley.” His fingers wrap around my wrist.
I snatch it back.
“You move something wrong, the whole thing falls.”
“Oh, is that how that works? What a pity. We could climb out.”
He’s quiet for a long time. I refuse to look at him as tension thickens between us.
“We could crawl out,” he says quietly, “or we could get crushed.” I turn my head in time to see him catch his lower lip between his teeth. “No way to tell.”
Tears fill my eyes, and my cheeks and neck burn as I feel my pulse race. “You’re saying we’re trapped here.”
I swing my hand out toward the rubble pile—the impulse born of panic and terror.
Nothing can prepare me for his hands snatching me by the waist, for the ease with which he drags me toward the sleeping bags.
I
buck against him, kicking my legs into the air. “Put me down!”
He sets me on my sleeping bag, and my heart beats so hard and fast my head spins. “Don’t touch me!” My voice is plaintive. “Don’t touch me again—so help me!”
He peers down at me, his face barren until I realize his cheek is sucked in on one side; he’s bit down on it. “You can’t take risks like that, Finley. Now is not the time to be impulsive. Trust me.”
“Do you know when I would trust you?”
He blinks at me.
“Never. I would never trust you, never in a billion years would I trust you, Declan Carnegie. You are not the hero; you’re the villain! I don’t want to know you. I don’t want to be trapped here with you! I want you to disappear, but if we’re here come morning, you will dig us out and if you don’t, then I will do whatever I please—do you understand?”
His jaw tightens, and I can see I’ve raised his hackles.
I lie down on my side, putting my back to him. “By the way—I’ve got a tracker in my pack, so someone will come find us soon. If you can’t dig us out, my village will.”
So don’t you think of touching me again.
Chapter Nine
Declan
I grind my teeth against the square of gum, relishing the hit of flavor and slight burn. Eclipse Polar Ice. Had a sleeve of eight that I found in my pocket. I’ve chewed three since she told me to fuck off.
That was coming up on two hours ago. I know because I can’t stop looking at my phone. Fucker’s got ninety percent battery, and I’ve got it on the power-saver mode, but still, I need to leave it face-down and forget about it.
Eighteen minutes after midnight.
Sun will rise at seven.
On the list of my worst fuckups, where does this one rank, I wonder as I sit beside the stream. Way below the biggest one, a cruel voice whispers. I inhale slowly and rub my aching eyes. I can’t think about that shit now.
I’d say this probably ranks below the time I was ninety feet under the ocean in the Maldives and lost my scuba tank. Earned myself a helicopter ride to a hyperbaric chamber. Below that…but probably above the Encierro three years ago, when I tried to jump up on a fountain in Pamplona to dodge a bull and ended up with nineteen stitches in my calf. Spent the Barcelona portion of that trip laid up, but being stuck inside a fucking cave is definitely worse. Siren’s right—it’s not even a cave; it’s like a fucking rabbit burrow.