“This coming from the man who waited a half a century to dig around in a moldering pile of shite for his lost controller when he should have realized long ago that if I wisnae from this time, I must have a time machine, too?” she spat out, consumed by pain and hatred. “Ye’re nothing but an utter roaster, ye daft shite.”
Color flooded his pallid cheeks, rage narrowed his eyes. “Where is it?” He snapped his fingers at her. “Give it to me.”
“Feck off, ye mangled fud.”
Rage suffused his face even though it was unlikely he comprehended the vulgar depths of her insult beyond the visceral. Then that gruesome smile was back. “Keep it, dream that it could take you anywhere other than into a permanent grave. And keep this, as well.” He tossed the phone on the ground. “To prolong your misery.”
He stepped back through the door. Aila staggered forward to get there before it closed.
Rab beat her to it. He slipped through the door before it was slammed in her face. Derne’s shouts barely penetrated the door. She threw her weight against it. It bounced a few inches and rebounded again as a shot rang out. Rab’s pained yelp almost drowned out the sound of the key turning in the lock.
“Nay! Ye better no’ have killed my dog, ye bastard. I’ll kill ye. I swear I will!” She pounded her fist against the door. Jiggling the handle, she pounded it again. This time with more fury. “Nay!”
Chapter 35
“We’re no’ going to die down here. We’re no’ going to die down here.”
It was her mantra as Aila pressed her cheek to the ground to try to see beneath the gap below the door. Rab’s nose was wedged there, snuffling between heartbreaking whimpers, the occasional paw sweeping by as if he thought he could dig his way back to her through stone and solid wood. When he stilled, her chest constricted so tightly she could hardly breathe. Only his low keening told her he was still alive.
“Ye hang on.” The hoarse plea summoned another bout of tears. She swiped them away as they splashed on her cheeks. There was no way to ease the pain in her heart. “We’re no’ going to die down here. Do ye hear that, laddie?”
Throat clogged, she continued her desperate mantra in a croaky singsong to pacify him.
To pacify them both.
There was nothing she could do for him. No way to know if he were fatally injured or how much blood he’d lost. For her part, she’d torn up her petticoat and cleaned the wound on her thigh as best she could. Under the light of her phone, it didn’t look as bad as she had feared. There were two holes, so it appeared the bullet had passed through the fleshy bit. That knowledge didn’t ease her pain.
Nor did it soothe her worry for Rab.
Or for what might come.
“We dinnae need some man to come and save us. We’re going to save ourselves, aye?”
Limping around the room, she dug through the treasure for anything that might be used to pick the lock. Not that she knew much about lock picking. If she’d had an Internet connection, she might have Googled it. Without it, she tried swords, necklace clasps, and broach pins. Nothing did the trick. Had Rab been locked in with her, she could have pulled the ring off his collar and tried that.
He wasn’t.
She was alone and her time was running out. Giving up the effort, Aila sat back next to the door and pressed her cheek to the ground, praying she’d hear some hint that Rab was still with her. She longed to comfort him. To hug him, pet him and assure him that everything would be all right. Even if it wouldn’t.
Time ticked by without rescue. What more could she do? As Derne pointed out, using the device to go forward would send her to a time when this cellar was filled in with dirt. An instant death. Going back had occurred to her, but what good would it do? She’d still be stuck behind a locked door. “We’re no’ going to die down here, Rab,” she whispered. “We’re going to be fine, ye and I.”
If she kept telling herself that, maybe she could convert words into reality. Hope was all she had. Blood continued to seep through her bandages and the little battery on her phone kept counting down.
She didn’t know which was worse. No power on earth could compel her to turn off the light to conserve what little battery she had left.
How Finn would laugh if he knew he’d been right.
* * *
Finn found Ian in the servants’ hall at the table with a man and woman he didn’t know. Nor had he seen them around the castle, though the man did look somewhat familiar. There were many strangers gathered in Inveraray today, so that didn’t surprise him. Both were dressed well, though modestly. He couldn’t imagine they were part of Argyll’s ostentatious entourage.
“Ian, there ye are. Have ye seen Aila about?”
His friend sat back with a caustic grin. “I feel like we had this same conversation this verra morning. Seems to be happening more and more of late, this sense of recurring events. Such as Aila’s trunk. I was just telling these fine folks about it.”
Those fine folks stood amid Ian’s speech and the man now extended his hand. “Ye must be Lord Keeley. Honor to meet ye. I’m Tris MacKintosh. And this is—”
“Introductions!” Ian announced and dragged himself to his feet. Like those in the solar, he was well in his cups. “Forgi’ my rudeness. These are Aila’s friends. The ones she mentioned to us. My relation — for obviously he is that, aye?”
