“Stop.” His voice is sharp enough to make me flinch. “Don’t finish that sentence.”
I glance over at him and find him staring back. The flashlight beam catches his eyes, turning them molten. There’s something raw in his expression, something that makes my throat tight.
“I’m not leaving you.” He says it almost fiercely. Like physics and stone and certain death are irrelevant details. “Ever. So stop talking that way.”
The weight of those words settles over me, heavy and warm. I should argue. Should point out all the practical reasons why sacrificing himself for me is idiotic. But the words stick in my throat, tangled up with feelings I don’t know how to examine.
Instead, I turn back to the rubble. “Then help me move this damn rock.”
His mouth quirks; another of those almost-smiles, gone before I’m sure I saw it.
“Yes, ma’am.”
We work in silence after that. Minutes blur together, marked only by the grind of stone on stone and the steady drip of water somewhere in the darkness. My arms start to shake, muscles screaming, but I don’t stop. Can’t stop. If I stop, I’ll have to think about how small this space is. How little air we might have left. How the Syndicate could be finding a way to track us down, ready to finish what the helicopter crash started.
Luke’s shoulder brushes mine again as we both reach for a loose chunk. This time, neither of us pulls away. The contact grounds me, cuts through the spiral of panic trying to claw up my throat.
“How long have we been down here?” I ask, just to break the silence.
“Four hours. Maybe five.” He grunts as he levers a particularly stubborn rock free. “Hard to tell.”
Five hours. Five hours of him digging while I slept. My stomach turns.
“Your hands—”
“Are fine.”
They’re not fine. They’re torn to pieces. But I don’t push it. Luke’s pride is a tangible thing, prickly and defensive, and right now we need to work together.
Another rock shifts. Then another. We’re making progress. Slow, painful progress, but progress, nonetheless. The gap widens incrementally, letting in drafts of air that taste different. Less stale. Less dead.
Hope flares in my chest, dangerous and fragile.
“Almost there,” Luke murmurs. He’s wedged himself deeper into the gap, using his whole body as leverage. The muscles inhis back strain, cords of tension standing out beneath his shirt. “One more—”
The last slab shifts with a groan that reverberates through the tunnel, through the ground beneath my feet, through my bones. Luke throws his weight against it, and suddenly it’s moving, sliding aside with a grinding shriek that makes my teeth ache.
A rush of air spills through the opening; cooler than the still air around us, carrying the scent of earth and something else. Something that makes the hair on the back of my neck stand up.
We both freeze.
Luke’s hand finds my wrist, his grip careful despite the strength I can feel thrumming beneath his skin. A warning.Wait.
I hold my breath, straining to hear past the hammering of my heart. At first, there’s nothing. Just the echo of falling stone settling, the drip of water, our too-loud breathing.
Then—a sound that makes the tiny hairs on the back of my neck prickle up.
What the hell is that?
Part of me wants to freeze where I am, but a bigger part wants to get out of here.
Luke eases the stone aside slowly, muscles flexing as he shifts the weight with supernatural care. The gap widens just enough to climb through into the space beyond. Darkness, deeper than the tunnel behind us. Shadows that move wrong, that don’t quite resolve into shapes.
What—?
My pulse kicks up. I reach for my fire instinctively, desperately… and, of course, find nothing. The emptiness where my magic should be yawns wide, a void that makes me feel stripped, vulnerable in ways that have nothing to do with the darkness or the confined space.
Before Luke can signal caution, before either of us can process what we’re seeing, a beam of light flashes straight through the opening.
