Aesira’s face scrunched. She did not like the sound of that, Stone gathered, but he could tell in the deep sigh she released and the resolve of her shoulders that she agreed with him.
“You’re right,” she said. “By the time we make it back, our hour will be up.”
He followed behind Aesira, using the torch to find their way toward the entrance all the while he couldn’t stop fixating on the details in the ways she moved.
The breaths she took, the faces she made and the observations surprised him. Not because they were unpredictable, but because he had learned so much about her in such a short time. It surprised him that he cared to learn so much about her.
He was so wrapped up in his own thoughts, he failed to see a large crack in the floor. He tripped, sending himself and the torch flat against the hard ground.
“Are you alright?” Aesira pulled him up.
“Just wasn’t paying attention.” She still clung to his shoulders and the weight of her hands on him was another thing that surprised him. How much he liked it. Craved it. He opened his mouth, no plan as to what to say, but knowing that he wanted to saysomethingwhen she turned abruptly and bent to grab the torch from the ground.
Stone’s stomach dropped. What was his problem? He had never let anyone get this close before, why the hell would he think it was a good idea now?
“Stone.” Even that, her saying his name, was enough to send a lightning strike through his chest. “Look at this.” Aesira was still kneeling on the ground, holding the torch outwards.
Rocks bit through Stone’s pants as he kneeled beside her. Aesira swept away the loose vines that were shriveled and brown and underneath, there was–
“It’s a hatch.” Aesira ran her fingers over a bronze, circular handle. The metal was worn in places, likely from use, and attached to it was a wooden hatch. “Where do you think this goes?”
Stone surveyed the room, something prickled at the back of his neck. Like he was being watched. “I don’t know,” he said. “But we should keep moving. We can come back tomorrow.”
“Stone, we're right here.” She pulled on the handle. It didn’t budge. “We have to check it out. What if there’s a clue about Desmond inside? What ifDesmondis inside? An underground hatch would be the perfect place to hide, don’t you think?”
Hide from what?
Stone’s stomach knotted. Any other place, he would have said fuck it and threw the hatch open himself. But a sharp feeling, with teeth and watchful eyes, tore at his middle. “What happened to ‘it’s not here for us’. We should leave it alone just like we left the flower alone.”
“That was different,” she said. “Desmond wasn’t going to be hiding under that glass case." She tapped the door again. “But he could be in here.” His mind flashed to the spring, to the black water and to Aesira on the shore.
“I don’t want you to get hurt again.” He grabbed Aesira’s arm and tugged her closer. He hadn’t admitted how much it bothered him that night, thinking he might have lost her but he couldn’t stand the thought of anything happening to her.
She cocked her head to the side, her smile illuminated by the warm light of the torch. “You worried about me, smuggler?”
“Something like that.”
Her arms wrapped tighter around his middle. “I’ll make you a deal. We’ll just take a peek at the bottom, if nothing’s there, we turn around. Save any further exploration for tomorrow. Deal?”
He didn’t like it, but he knew her well enough to know she wasn’t going to change her mind and the alternative was her going in alone, which absolutely wasn’t going to happen. “Fine,” he said. “Deal.”
She handed him the torch and knelt before the hatch. The handle released a loud groaning sound that echoed through the empty chambers of the ruins.
Dust and moths fluttered up from a deep, inky chasm in the ground.
“I need the torch.” He stepped closer and angled it over her shoulder, the pathetic flame barely lighting enough to see the rickety ladder bolstered to the inside of the hole. The bottom was nowhere in sight, the darkness was seemingly endless and that feeling in his gut, the one that was hungry enough to eat him from the inside, began gnawing at his sides.
Aesira tied off her hair at the nape of her neck. “I’ll go down first–”
“You can’t be serious.”
“Stay here then,” she said. “Be the lookout. I need to check for Desmond.”
Fuck that.
If she was going, so was he. Stone angled the torch in a way that she could better find her footing. On the first step, the ladder creaked, more moths scattered through the opening. “Just go slow.”
She smiled up at him, half her body now inside the hatch. “Yes, darling.”
