Racing over to the head of the column that pinned her debris in place, she put her shoulder against it and tried to shove it into the water.
The ballyhoo found a heavy slab of stone and began dragging it to the column.
Seconds ticked by before the column just barely shifted. Shea pushed harder. She just needed to move it a little to the left or right to find safety.
The ballyhoo placed the slab on the column and floor on his side and tested it. The slab tilted but held steady.
“No,” Shea said. She’d promised Fallon.
She screamed, a defiant outpouring of sound as she strained, using every ounce of the training Trenton and Braden had beat into her body to shift the marble those precious centimeters, pushing it off the side of her ledge.
The column splashed into the water, upsetting the ballyhoo’s balance. It lunged, grabbing her wrist, its touch a brand against her skin that threatened to send her mind screaming into the abyss. The ballyhoo lost its balance, its grip loosening enough she could tear free from it.
She collapsed backward, tasting blood in her mouth as the ballyhoo’s shrieks scoured Shea’s ears.
It thrashed in the water, its cries turning to pain as it began dissolving, the water sizzling and popping as pieces of its cloak unraveled. Shea didn’t understand how or why the water hurt it, but she was grateful.
The ballyhoo dragged itself along the column, its form shrinking every moment it touched the liquid. Finally, it heaved itself out and rushed back the way it came, its glow considerably faded.
Shea collapsed onto her butt, her arms sore and aching. She lifted her wrist. Based upon the blistered feel of it, she didn’t want to see what kind of damage the ballyhoo had dealt her in that very short time.
Lethargy invaded her limbs, the brand burning white hot. She twisted onto her side and struggled to her feet. She needed to get moving before it returned. She’d hurt it, but it still lived. She couldn’t stay here.
In a haze, Shea made her way back to where her bolt-hole cover had been slammed shut. She could have tried for the chasm entrance, but instinct told her the ballyhoo would have headed in that direction. Also, this was closer.
She stood on the stump again and pushed, straining ineffectually at the covering. It didn’t budge.
She punched it and screamed, her exhaustion and frustration pouring from her.
Abruptly, it lifted clear, startling Shea and causing her to lose her balance. She looked up from her seat on the floor.
Fallon’s face appeared in the hole above, his mouth drawn into a grim line and his gaze wild.
“Fallon,” Shea said with relief.
“Hey, lover. You were taking too long. Thought I’d come and lend you a hand,” he said, his intelligent eyes taking in the state of her, bedraggled and wet, splotches of blood on her arms, pants and hands from her fall, and exhaustion on her face.
“If you insist,” Shea told him.
His mouth creased in a smile and then his head disappeared. His legs slid through the opening, and he dropped down into the tunnel with Shea. She held her arms out so he could grasp them and pull her easily to her feet.
“I had it handled, you know,” she told him.
“It looks like it too,” he responded.
Trenton’s concerned face appeared above them. “Hey, troublemaker, I hear you could use a hand.”
Fallon grasped her around the waist and lifted her up to Trenton, who grabbed her arms and pulled her up.
“I was handling things just fine,” she told Trenton, though her voice lacked conviction.
He gave her a sideways glance.
She conceded his point. “I mostly had things under control.”
He snickered and moved her away as Fallon swung up, climbing out of the passageway with little effort. Only then did Shea notice the bodies being guarded by Wilhelm and Caden.
The rain had lightened during the time she’d been playing with the ballyhoo, though the yard had turned into a muddy mess and all of the men were wet.
