by James, Ella
* * *
Declan
“Siren…stop.”
She looks over her shoulder, wide-eyed, like I’ve just caught her doing something naughty.
I wipe my forehead, where my hair is dripping into my eyes. “You can’t even lift your arm up straight.”
“I can.” She holds her chipping stone up, and my own shoulder aches with sympathetic pain.
“Go lie down. And in a few hours,” I lie, “we can swap shifts.”
She turns away from me, and then back toward me, lips pursed and her eyebrows drawn down. “Promise?” She looks sulky.
“That we’ll switch shifts?” I nod. “We both need to get some rest so we can keep at this until we get it.”
She exhales and nods once. Her hair’s falling into her eyes, and her face sags with exhaustion.
“I’ll wake you in five hours. Or six if that works better.”
“Absolutely not. Three and a half at most.” She gives me a pointed look I’ve come to recognize. I put one toe out of line, and those slightly scrunched eyebrows go full-on pissed off and her pert mouth pulls into a disapproving frown.
“Yes ma’am.” I salute her. “Three and a half it is.”
“And then it’s your turn. I’m enforcing that,” she says as she stalks past me.
“Do it.”
I sift through the rubble quietly as she goes to sleep. When I’m sure she’s out, I walk around what remains of the rock pile and sit on one of the larger stones with my back to her. I take a few deep breaths until the anxious hum that’s buzzing through me eases just a little. Then I rub my head and eyes and knead the inside of my wrist—a pressure point that’s supposed to help you keep from puking.
Fuck.
I run my hands back through my hair a few more times before I stand up, grab the hammer, and go at the cave’s mouth like my life depends on it. Over the course of a few hours, I bring another three or four inches of stone crumbling down before my hands are shaking too bad to keep going and I’m seeing bursts of light behind my eyes.
Fuck this.
I wedge my palms against the boulder, bend my knees, and shove as hard as I can. I push until I feel my heartbeat in my eyebrows and I’m groaning at the pain from my shoulder. When Finley stirs, I drop into a crouch. I hold my head and feel my eyes sting.
Jesus.
I just need to lay down for a second. I walk to the sleeping bags, feeling my knees shake. They’ve been hurting kind of bad for the last few hours. The joints in my arms, too. I stop beside Finley, looking down at her as lantern light plays on her face.
When I ducked behind the slab of rock that hung over the cave’s mouth, I didn’t realize that there was a fucking cave. I just had to put us behind something, somewhere out of the rocks’ way. About the time I realized we were fucked—I had wrapped myself around Finley and was getting smacked to shit by big rocks—one of my legs went into the hole. I tried to get my balance, and instead we fell through. While I was checking Finley over—she still wasn’t moving, and I was scared she’d gotten hurt bad in the fall—rocks came pouring in. A few seconds later, it was a done deal.
I blow out a long, quiet breath. When I’m in my bag beside hers, I shut my eyes and let my chest pump, let my jaw clench, let my fingers knead my shoulder till my nails break the skin. I press my lips shut so I don’t groan.
I just need to get some sleep. I scoot a little closer to her, close enough so I can smell that nice, flowery smell.
My heart’s beating fast. I can do my meditative breathing till it isn’t. I know how to do this shit. At some point I think I nod off. It’s hard to tell for sure because I almost never sleep since starting the tapers, but I think this time it actually happens. Next time I check the watch that’s lying between Finley and me on the cave’s floor, it’s almost an hour later, and almost two hours past the time I promised I’d wake her.
I get up quietly and move around in front of her. She’s tossed her way out of the top half of the sleeping bag, and her T-shirt is jacked up over her breasts, giving me a view of her belly. For a long second, I can’t tear my eyes away from it. Unlike most bellies I’ve seen these past few years, Finley’s is soft and slightly rounded, protruding just a little bit over the top of her pajama shorts. I find myself smirking down at it. Nonconforming—that’s what it is.
Fuck toned and tan, Finley’s stomach is whiter than the moon, and it looks soft like women’s thighs and asses can be when they’re nice and thick. I have the strange impulse to run the back of my hand over it, see how soft she really is for someone so damn prickly.
I look up and down the sleeping bag a time or two, and then back at that belly and her full breasts, hidden by the rumpled tee shirt, before I reach out and touch her shoulder.
“Siren?” I whisper it a time or two, smirking as I watch her face twitch and her balled-up hand lift up to rub her cheek. She cracks her brown eyes open, then gives me her signature glare.
“Good morning, darlin’.”
She scowls, but it lacks its full force. She blinks around the burrow, seeming confused.
“You want to sleep some more?”
She yawns, balling her small self up. Her hand brushes her belly as she does, and she yanks the hemline of her shirt, as if she knows how hard I perved on her when she was sleeping. I give her a wink. Finley rolls her eyes and pushes up on her elbows.
She groans. “The ground. So…hard.”
I nod.
“I hate it here.” She shakes her head, and her long hair falls over her shoulders, covering her breasts until she uses something wrapped around her wrist to fasten it back.
I pass her a protein bar—one of only six left. “Fuel up. And wake me in an hour.”
She gives me another troubled frown, but nods.
“Not a morning person?” I smile.
“It’s not morning.”
“Fair enough.”
Shortly after I stretch out, she gets up without a glance my way. I watch discreetly as she works, going at it hard and feeling probably the same way I do—like every second we’re in here makes it less likely we’ll ever get out.
For a second, I consider getting up, but it’s a minor miracle I slept before. If I can get a little more, I know I can get us out of here.
Chapter Twelve
Finley
I realize while he dozes: there’s something amiss with the Carnegie. I notice him stirring as I slam the hammer into the wall. I feel badly for interrupting his rest, and my arms ache so terribly that swinging the hammer brings tears to my eyes. So it seems sensible to take a break at the stream.
I don’t like the dark rear of the cave, but I adore the running water. It may take them a bit to find us, but as long as we’ve got water, we can stay alive for quite some time. I run my fingers through it, and that’s when I hear the sound. I spin around and find him upright, holding his head and breathing in such loud huffs, I hear it over the burbling stream.
“Declan?”
The name bursts from my lips unbidden, but it doesn’t seem to reach him. I watch as he stretches out on his back, his hips twisting as one thick arm covers his face. From my angle back off to his right side, I can see his chest pump with his heavy breaths.
“Declan?” It feels strange on my tongue: such a knightly, masculine name…and somehow also delicate—almost pretty.
When he doesn’t respond, I realize he must be dreaming.
A low moan reaches my ears, and my belly tightens. I stand slowly as he writhes and starts to pant. His hands fist in his dark hair, tugging, and a gentle crest of empathy swells in my chest. I walk quickly over to him, dropping down to my knees on the ground beside him.
“Declan. Hi there,” I whisper. “It’s Finley.”
After a heartbeat’s hesitation, I reach for his shoulder. At that moment, he bolts upright. For an instant, he looks aghast—all wide eyes and open mouth. Then his eyes fix on my face, and he appears to steady. “Siren?”
“You had
a nightmare,” I say gently.
He’s up quickly, stalking toward the stream, where he drops to his knees and splashes his face. I watch as he kneels there, heavy breaths still pumping through his muscled back and shoulders.
Watching panic pass through his strong body kindles my own. For a frantic, airless breath, I’m clinging to the underside of a boat’s seat, shivering in water that reaches my neck; the blood pounding between my ears is louder than the howling wind.
When he stands, I whirl away, realizing a beat too late that I’m standing by the sleeping bags with no apparent purpose save for watching him. My pulse gallops as I hear him moving toward me. In my periphery, I see him reaching for the pack. The crinkle of a wrapper lets me know he’s grabbed a bar. I hear the crack and plastic thump of his hands opening a water bottle. Then he’s moving toward the rubble pile without a glance my way.
Something heavy settles near the base of my throat. For a too-long moment as my eyes cling to his shoulders, I can’t swallow. I decide to follow his lead, sitting on my bag with a bar, of which I take only a small bite.
The next time I look up, I don’t see him. He steps out a moment later from behind the remnants of the rubble pile, his head back as he drinks from his bottle.
He seems more composed now. I know when he looks at me. He’s very still for that one moment, making it feel like a greeting despite the lack of smile or wave. After that, he bends down for the hammer, his big body flickering in lantern light as he resumes his work.
When he seems lost in his own rhythm, I slide in behind him with my chipping stone. I can feel the heat of him, smell the musk of male sweat as his powerful movements bend the air around us.
“Not much done while you were dozing,” I say as I swing the stone. “But a small bit.”
“Good.”
His voice is strange, and when our gazes tangle a bit later, I realize his eyes are strange as well. His are like no male’s I’ve ever seen—fierce and expressive—but when they touch mine this time, they seem different. Troubled, I think.
“Declan?”
He pauses at his name, and when he turns to me, I see his silly, faux-stunned face. I can’t help laughing. “Don’t get too excited. I was bound to slip up sometime.”
He smiles, though—a brilliant smile that makes me feel like I just swallowed sunlight.
I twist my face up and beckon him with my hand. “Come here. Closer.”
He gives me a curious frown, but he moves nearer—near enough so I can smell his minty breath. I pull my flashlight from my pocket. When I shine it in his face, he flinches. I wait for his pupils to shrink, and when they don’t, I zero in on one. He mutters something.
“Hush that foul mouth.”
He chuckles softly as I watch his pupil shrink under the light—but just a wee bit. The other one behaves the same, shrinking only a smidgen in the light, as if something has happened to cause it to be dilated. I shut my own eyes for a moment, and he makes a soft sound.
“That bad, huh?”
I shake my head. “I feel badly that I let you sleep. I should have realized, with your head…” I gesture to my own forehead. “I think you’ve got a bit of a concussion.”
His fingers play over the bandage. “Nah.”
“I think so. I—”
“Listen, Siren, I’ve had a concussion. This is too much whiskey, no shut-eye, and being stuck inside a hole in the ground.”
I chew my lip. “But your pupils—”
“Here.” He holds his hand out, and I set the flashlight in his hand. He leans in so near that I hold my breath, and he shines light in both my eyes, making a low sound in his throat as he does.
“How small would you say they should get?” he asks.
“Very, if there’s bright light. Near to pinprick.”
“Well here we go. We’re both concussed.” He moves the light, and I shut my eyes to regain my equilibrium. “Yours didn’t do that either. Probably because we’re in a place with no natural light.”
He steps slightly back, and I put my hands on my hips. “Can I trust your word, Carnegie?”
He lifts one of his brows. “Calling me a liar, Siren?”
I laugh. It slips out, and then, in my exhaustion, I forget what he asked, so there’s this moment where I just stand there before I remember and shake my head. “Well, no. I’m just trying to do my due diligence.”
I lift my brows at him, giving him the scolding look that’s usually reserved for Mr. Braun, who likes to skip his diabetes medication.
Declan smiles like the Cheshire Cat.
“Your hair is all…” I wave my hand about my head.
He runs a palm back over his dark locks, and as he does, he makes another brows-scrunched face at me. “Question for you, Siren.”
“Yes?” I realize after I say “yes” that I just answered to that silly nickname.
“Do I smell? Every time I get close, you hold your breath.”
I purse my lips, and he shakes his head. “Damn.”
“No.” I sigh, feeling my cheeks warm. “It isn’t that. It’s that I can’t find toothpaste. Usually I have some in my pack, but I could only locate the toothbrush…”
He reaches into his pocket—I note the mud stains on his khakis, which badly need a wash now—and then holds his hand out.
“Check it.”
I frown at the square packet in his hand.
“Gum.”
I take it, squinting at the unfamiliar label. “Eclipse.”
“That work?”
“I’m not sure.” I turn the package over and his hand comes over mine.
“Here…” He pulls out a sleeve from inside.
“I knew that,” I say softly, even though I didn’t. “I’ve seen one of these before. A tourist left the garbage.”
He pops a wee, white square out of the sleeve and holds it out. “A token from a tourist.”
I accept the thing, a bit bigger than a communion wafer, and set it in my mouth. He watches with his brows up as I bite—and nearly cry out. The flavor is so intense, it’s almost violent.
I open my mouth to let some of the minty air out, and I find him smiling with a curious tilt. “Tell me you’ve had gum before, Siren.”
“Of course. It’s just…we get the Doublemint.”
“That’s what my old man swears by.”
“This, though.” I laugh. “This is…it’s like mouthwash!”
He laughs, shaking his head. “I think it’s time for some questions.” He reaches for the hammer. “It’ll make the work go faster.”
“Questions? Of what sort?”
He looks over his shoulder at me. “Let’s start with the gum. Are you telling me you’ve never had any gum except for Doublemint, or just that it’s been mostly Doublemint?”
I scrunch my nose at him before scooping up my own stone. “How many sorts of gum have you had, Mr. Fortunate Sports Star?”
That gets another low laugh. “Sports star.”
“When the shoe fits…”
His hammer slams into the rock. “I’m not sure that shoe fits.”
I look down at his boots-clad feet. “I’m quite sure it’s just your size.”
“There are a bunch of different kinds of gum. In every country,” he says as he assaults the wall.
“I assume you’ve been to all of them?” I tease.
“Not by a long shot.”
“How many? Tell me, do you know how many there are total?”
His eyes meet mine over his shoulder. “Hundred and fifty?”
I shake my head, bashing my stone into the cave’s wall. “Try one hundred ninety-five.”
He gives a low whistle. We hit the wall at the same moment, sending shards of rock all which ways. He says, “I’ve been to thirty-one of them.”
I shake my head at his back. Thirty-one countries. What must that be like—to have traveled so much? “Someone like you…” His family’s funds must be near unlimited. He’s been to university, began a care
er. Perhaps he’s being groomed to take over his family’s business in the longer run, and that’s what’s behind his visit to us.
“If you could go anywhere?” he prompts, cutting in on my thoughts.
I lick my lips as my heart beats more quickly. “I don’t know.” My tight throat makes my voice sound strange. “Perhaps to Oregon. Or California.”
“Yeah?”
I get a good chunk of rock as I slam my stone into the rim again, and he says, “Nice one.”
“Thank you. And I’m not sure…” I worry a bit, having revealed my real answer. I’ve long kept it secret—where I’d go if I were to flee—but I doubt the Carnegie would remember anyway, nor be consulted were I to go missing, so I carry on. “Perhaps I’d hate both places. But I’ve heard of redwoods. I’ve heard they’re massive, and I’ve never seen a terribly tall tree. And California being sunny, with all the oranges and avocados, and the movie stars. San Francisco with the sailboats. I would like to see the beach in California. I’ve heard the sand is soft and warm, and people swim there in the ocean.”
He turns to face me, his lips pressed together and his head angled as if he’s puzzled. “You don’t swim here?”
“Nearly never.”
“No good beach?”
I shrug. “There are tiny spots of beach. The current’s strong, though, and the sand is rocky. No one ever thinks to lounge about there. For the children, it’s forbidden. Also, it’s quite cloudy.” It’s almost always cloudy here.
“What’s that like?” he asks, giving me his back again as he turns away.
“Wait a bit—you’ll find out.” I consider what he said, though. He’s correct: chatting will help pass the time. “I don’t think I can answer,” I offer. “I’ve never been anywhere but here, and rain is part of life. It helps the crops grow.”
Silence settles in around us, and we work as we have for the past however long it’s been. I notice he’s not hammering as quickly as he was in hours prior, but neither am I.
He starts humming, and I wonder at the tune until I hear his low voice. “What show?”