by KD Robichaux
She nods vigorously. “Yes, sounds good.”
I get behind her like I did before in the tunnel, duck down, and hoist her up on my shoulders, standing with ease. She must be getting used to me picking her up, because she doesn’t let out her usual girlish squeal. I can’t help it though. She’s so small, so feminine, so easy for me to lift and put her exactly where I want her. I can feel the heat between her legs resting around my neck and shoulders, and that same possessive feeling comes over me, knowing I’d filled her up, consumed her, taken ov—
“Dean? You gotta walk forward. I can’t see anything from back here,” she cuts into my dirty thoughts, and I move toward the skulls, femurs, and tibias.
“What do you see?” I ask her, growing excited.
“Nothing yet. I’m still a little too low,” she mumbles.
“Stand on my shoulders.”
“What?” she squawks, tightening her grip around my chin.
“Stand on my shoulders, love. I won’t let you fall. Trust me,” I tell her, and it’s the truth. I feel fiercely protective over Emmy, and it would be over my dead body that anything happens to her.
“Promise? You’re really tall, and that would be a really long drop to a really hard ground,” she points out, but I hear that she’s conceding to the idea.
“I swear. I won’t let you get hurt, Emmy.”
“O-okay.” She adjusts herself on my shoulders and lifts one foot then pauses. “Um… how the hell do I get up there? I was the furthest thing from a cheerleader as you could get in school.”
I chuckle then lift my hands up at her sides, palms up. “Here, give me your hands.” She hesitantly lets go of my chin and places her hands in mine. “Now get your left foot on my shoulder for leverage, and then push off with it and our hands to get your right one up.”
“Oh shit,” she whimpers, but she begins to follow my instructions.
When she’s got her left foot up, I feel her tremble, so I give her some help. “On the count of three, love. Ready? One… two… three.” And as she lumbers up, I push upward with my hands, lending my strength to help her lift herself.
Squatting on my shoulders, she then asks, “Now what?”
“Now, you stand. Hang onto my chin again, and I’m going to take hold of your ankles to help you balance, then stand right up. I’m not going anywhere. I’m not going to let you fall. I am the fucking Great Wall of China right now, baby. Not going to budge,” I assure her, and I feel her death grip on my hands loosen.
Ever so slowly, she wraps her palms back around my head and I grasp a hold of her slender ankles, pulling her feet downward onto my shoulders more firmly, making her feel steady. And with great care and unhurried movements, she finally stands to her full height. “I did it,” she whispers excitedly.
“You did it, love. Now, what do you see?”
“It’s hard to see with all the shadows. One sec. I’m getting my cell out of my pocket. I have just enough juice left for a few more minutes of light,” she explains. I hear the phone’s unlocking sound, and see the area around us brighten. “Dean! Oh, my God!”
I tighten my grip on her legs as she jerks with excitement. “What? What is it?”
“It’s a door! There aren’t any skeletons behind this section of the bone wall. It’s clear for a width of about six feet. And it looks…”
Her words trail off, and the suspense is killing me. “Emmy,” I gush.
“Sorry! It looks like there is metal behind this section of bones. And the bones themselves are only about half of their actual length,” she describes.
“Hidden gate,” I breathe.
“What?” she asks, and I can tell she’s looking down at me by the volume of her voice, so I look up at her.
“Hidden gate. The bones must be attached to the metal, making it look like the rest of the wall, but it must swing open. Look for hinges on the inside,” I tell her, and I feel her adjust herself.
“Yes! There are hinges here on the left side!” She leans the other way carefully. “And the metal ends at this row of skulls.” She points, and I grab my wallet out of my back pocket and drop it on the ground in front of the correct column to mark it.
“Awesome, okay, let’s get you down.” She squats back down, grasps my lifted hands, and then climbs down my back, her eagerness obviously outweighing her nervousness. I swing her around to my front and pull her flush against me. I dip my face to her neck and nuzzle her there, before whispering, “I told you I wouldn’t let you fall.”
She shivers, and smiles up at me when I lift my face. “I don’t know why, but I trust you, Dean. Thank you for not letting me get hurt,” she says quietly, and her confession floods my chest with warmth. Her face softens, seeing her words affected me, and I lower my lips to hers, marking this moment with a sweet and lingering kiss.
Finally, I pull back and we look at the wall of bones. I step up to where my wallet is on the ground, bend to pick it up, and with it in my hand, I follow the column of skulls. I absently hear Emmy move away. I don’t see anything out of place. No way of opening the hidden gate. I put my wallet in my back pocket then rub the back of my neck. What now?
“Dean,” Emmy says, and she bends a little at the waist, squinting her eyes.
“You know, any other time a woman would bend and squint her eyes at my hips like that, it would give me a complex. But since you know for a fact what I have in my pa—”
“Dean!” she scoffs, but I see amusement in her eyes and at the corners of her lips. “Come here, you turd. I’m not looking at your cock.”
That word coming out of her mouth makes the appendage in question twitch, but I do as I’m told, coming to stand next to her.
“Stay there,” she orders, then paces forward. “This skull.” She points to one on the row my wallet had marked that looks just like all the others, until I look more closely and see— “One eye socket is larger than the other, no? Or is just me?”
“No, you’re right. It’s definitely bigger.” I move toward her. “Where’s your phone?”
She hands it to me after turning the light on, and it makes a beeping sound as 10 percent flashes across the screen. I drop to my knees on the ground and come face-to-face with the skull, getting a better angle, and when I shine the beam of light into the larger eye socket, lo and behold….
“There’s a goddamn keyhole!” I jump to my feet, wrap my arms around her, and swing her around. “Emmy, my love, you found the keyhole! You put together all these clues, you spotted the secret 1618 hidden in the ceiling, and you found the door. You. Found.” I kiss her left cheek. “The fucking.” I kiss her right cheek, loving the sound of her giggle. “Keyhole!” I devour her mouth in a searing kiss that leaves us both breathless. When I release her once more, her face is flushed and her breath comes out in quick pants. “You do the honors. You’re the one who’s put all this together. This is your discovery.”
Never have I been so excited for another person before. Any other time, it would have been a fight to the death to get to the goal first. But not with Emmy. She deserves this. She should be the one to open the door.
“The key,” she says, more to herself than to me. She pats her pockets, and then rubs her forehead, thinking.
“Right here, love.” I pull the long, iron key out of my pocket and hold it out to her in the palm of my hand.
“Right. Thanks. I’m… I’m a little overwhelmed,” she confides. “I mean, this is huge, you know? Like, this stuff is all hidden. This key was hidden in the wall. This is a secret gate masked by human remains that leads to another hidden door that leads to God knows what, Dean. Like… none of this is in the catacombs’ history. And none of this was on the map, right?”
“Right,” I confirm with a nod.
“We’ll be the first people to see this since it was sealed up over a century ago. This… this is a big deal,” she says quietly, looking down at the key in her hand.
I walk up to her and lift her gaze to mine with a finger beneath her
chin. “It is. It’s a big deal. And it was all you. When we get out of here, the world is going to know you were the one who found whatever we’re about to discover.”
She audibly gulps. “Oh shit.”
“What?” I ask, confused.
“I hadn’t even thought of that. Dean, we’re going to be all over the news when we’re rescued.” She shakes her head. “I… I don’t like attention. Shit, I don’t even go anywhere except the little hole in the wall pub right by my house. Look at the profession I chose! I like abandoned places no one even knows exist. And then I go home and work anonymously behind my computer. My dream was to have the most badass archaeology blog on the internet. I have no desire for people to actually see me.”
“I’ll be right there with you, love. I’m not going to let anything happen to you,” I assure her, not quite understanding her fear of the limelight.
“Dean, you don’t get it. I’m an only child. I grew up with my parents, who were gone a lot of the time, and my Gran, who raised me while they were on a dig. I’ve had two whole friends my entire life. I’ve been to exactly one party, and you know how well that went.” Panic rises steadily in her voice and hand gestures. “Yes, I live in this crazy, crowded tourist spot of a city, but I’m gone all the time, trying my best to sneak into these forgotten places, so I can be alone inside them. Their history is the only company I desire. And when I’m home, I’m usually locked inside my room, working on my blog, or scouring the internet, looking for somewhere else to go hide. I don’t want to be the center of attention. I….”
Her voice trails off as she visibly trembles. I wrap my arms around her, hating the sight of her so shaken. I’d do anything to take away her fear. Anything to bring back the bright-eyed excitement from only minutes before.
“I want you to tell them you discovered it. You found all the clues and figured out what they led to,” she says.
Anything… but that.
“No,” I state, the tone in my voice leaving no room for argument, but she presses on just the same.
“Please, Dean. I don’t want—”
“No way, Emmy. There’s no way I’m taking credit for something so huge, when I’m not the one who found it. The guilt wouldn’t be worth it. And you may not believe me now, but eventually, you would grow bitter. You might not think so now. You might think you want me to take the glory for this discovery, so you don’t have to be in the spotlight. But you would come to despise me for it. You said you trust me. Well, trust me on this, love.” I squeeze her tighter. “I swear to you, I will be by your side through everything. I will literally hold your hand through it all. But this is yours.”
She’s silent for a few moments, but then I feel her relax and melt against me. “You promise?” she whispers into my chest.
I rub my hands up and down her back. “I promise. Every second, I will be right there.” When I feel her nod, I try to lighten the mood. “Plus, with me standing there, no one will be looking at you anyways. I’m the rock star of documentaries, remember?”
I hear her gasp, and then feel her start to shake, finally hearing her giggle into my shirt. She leans back, and her eyes are sparkling with mirth, and I grin.
“You’re such a dickhead,” she laughs. “Not a selfish, site-stealing one, but a dickhead nonetheless.”
“Hey, I can’t help I’m kind of a big deal,” I tell her, earning another smack to the chest. There’s my feisty girl.
“Ugh. Okay.” She pulls out of my embrace and shakes herself, leaning her head toward one shoulder then the other. Then she brings one arm across her chest, pulling it closer to her body with the opposite hand wrapped around her bicep, and proceeds to switch to the other, stretching herself out. I watch on in amusement as she does a couple squats, sucking and blowing out air like she’s doing deadlifts.
“Um… Em. Whatcha doin’, love?” I ask, as she does some lunges across the center of the chamber.
“Have you never seen Tomb Raider? National Treasure? For fuck’s sake, Raiders of the Lost Ark? We don’t know what’s behind that door! I’m stretching in case we have to run from a boulder, or dive under swinging axes, or God knows what else. Shit could be booby-trapped,” she explains, jogging in place, her face completely serious.
I bite my lip in an attempt to hold it in, but I just can’t. I fold in half, hands on knees, and bellow with laughter. And I don’t stop until tears form at the corners of my eyes. Dear God, no woman on the face of the planet has ever made me laugh as hard or as much as the beautiful creature in front of me, currently glaring at me as she does a couple jumping jacks. And what makes her even more delightful is she doesn’t mean to be funny. How she’s able to be adorably cute but sexy as fuck is beyond my comprehension, but she’s nailed it either way.
When I catch my breath, I gesture toward the skull hiding the keyhole. “All right, Lara Croft. Let’s do this.”
She does one last set of Heisman circuits, and then finally makes her way over to me. Hesitating once more, she looks up at me with those gorgeous green eyes. “What if it doesn’t fit?”
“Amelia Suvan Crain,” I growl, and she jerks, arching a brow at me. “If you don’t stick that key into that hole right now, I will tackle you to the ground and fuck you after forcing me to watch those perfect tits bounce around during the little Insanity workout you just did. Four words, love: White. Tank. No. Bra.” She glances down, clearly having forgotten what she was wearing, and her cheeks turn that beautiful shade of rose I’ve come to love. I lean down next to her ear, letting my lips graze its shell as I add, “And you’re all stretched out and warmed up now, so I’m sure I could put you into all sorts of creative positions you’ve never even heard of.”
She shudders, closing her eyes and unconsciously rolling her hips against mine, and I groan when she bites her lip. The sound snaps her out of it, and she clears her throat nervously as she reaches around me with the key toward the skull.
I step away so she can carefully insert the key into the oversized eye socket without damaging the bone. The tip of her dark pink tongue pokes out of the corner of her lips, a look of concentration coming over her delicate features. She moves the hand holding the key in a tiny circle, trying to line it up correctly, and finally, the long stem of the skeleton key slides in up to the intricately designed end. We both take a deep breath, holding it in when she turns the key, then let it out with a whoosh as the lock makes a satisfying snick-clink.
“Now what?” she whispers, apparently still scared of the door being booby-trapped in some way.
I look at the wall of bones, and then her hand still holding the key inserted in the skull. “I’d say push. It would have to open inward, because if it opened outward, with the bones being so closely stacked together, either it wouldn’t move, or it would destroy two columns of skulls as it crushed them together.”
She doesn’t move. She just stands staring at her hand as it trembles grasping the key. Finally, she looks up at me. “Dean, you do it.” Her eyes are pleading. “I’m scared.”
Those words almost send me into action, doing as she pleads, but I don’t want to take this moment away from her. She’d regret it in the end. “No, love. It’s all yours. How long have you wanted this? How long have you wanted to beat me to making one of these discoveries? And now you’ve earned it. I’m not going to take that away from you.”
“But—”
“Ain’t happenin’, Em,” I say firmly. But in a gentler tone, I add, “Our tattoos. Our Atlantean Rings. What happened to Howard when he was the only one wearing the symbol when they entered King Tut’s tomb?”
“He was the only one who lived to old age,” she answers quietly.
“What happened to everyone else?”
“They all died mysteriously within a couple years of the discovery. He was the only one protected,” she replies, and I nod.
“And he was only wearing the symbol. We’ve got that shit permanently inked into our skin, so it’s like… extra strength. Right?” I rais
e my eyebrows at her, prompting her to respond.
She smiles coyly, and my heart does a thing. I don’t know if it drops, speeds up, stops, or what. I just know it feels… funny. When she looks at me like that, with those sparkling, trust-filled eyes, I feel myself fall for her more and more. I’m such a goner.
“Right,” she agrees, and while staring up into my eyes, she pushes.
I WATCH DEAN’S eyes leave mine and fall to my hand as I put weight against the now unlocked, camouflaged gateway. It only wiggles at first, but the little movement causes my excitement to grow, ebbing away the nerves that had filled me moments ago.
I push harder, being careful to put the force directly into the key. I’m scared to touch the skull itself, not wanting to damage it in any way. But it still doesn’t open.
“It’s been sealed for a lot of years, love. You’re going to have to put some strength behind it. Skulls are strong, so don’t be afraid to touch them.” He comes over to me, takes my hand off the key, and places my palm on the forehead of one of the skulls at my eye level, and then my other hand on one near my hips. “Now, push. Hard,” he instructs, and I do as I’m told.
I put all my weight against it, and with a squeaking slide of metal against metal and ancient hinges creaking, the gate of skulls and leg bones opens inward, revealing the iron door behind it.
“Oh, my gosh,” I breathe, looking up at Dean with wide eyes.
“Don’t stop there, Em. Grab the key!”
The eagerness in his voice is contagious, and I hop to pull the key out of the skull’s eye socket, yet remembering to be careful not to damage it with the metal. Dean follows me as I hustle up to the door, seeing the keyhole thankfully looks like it matches the gate’s. To get this close and have to wait to find another key would be pure torture. I insert it into the lock, twist, grasp hold of the metal handle, and give it a yank. The same screech of metal echoes throughout the chamber as the door slides open, and I peer into the darkness beyond.