ChapterThirty
Iskidded on a jagged surface, then fell several feet to the ground. Excruciating pain shot through my shoulder, and I cried out. Another body slammed hard into me, knocking the wind out of me.
Brie moaned.
I groaned.
Out of everyone, why did it have to be her?
With a grunt, I rolled, pushing her sack-of-potatoes body off me. My breath rushed back in. “Shiiiiittt.”
My first thought was that I had dislocated or possibly broken my shoulder. The right sleeve of my shirt was wet. Please don’t be an open break. I reached for it with my other hand and touched my skin—the sleeve was gone—then brought my finger up to my nose. It wasn’t blood, just wet dirt. If I found the way out of here alive, I never wanted to go into or think about another cave.
Blinking into the almost pitch-black space, I took in the hell basement we’d just landed in. Next to me, a colossal stalagmite stretched upwards. I cursed again. If I’d landed a yard to my right, I’d have died.
I turned my head the other way. Brie was curled into the fetal position and quietly sobbing.
“Are you hurt?” I asked. It was a stupid question. We were thrown like rag dolls down the jagged surface. Of course, she was hurt. Her response was a squeak.
“Anything broken?” I asked.
She whimpered. “I think I broke my back.”
Excellent. The last thing I needed was to take care of her.
“Can you move?” I lifted on my elbows, ignoring the agonizing pain in my shoulder.
She slowly shifted, letting out a few sobs. “Yes, I can.”
“Then you’re probably fine.”
“Are you a bloody doctor?”
Before collecting our flashlights, which were several feet away from us, I took a moment to check my body for injuries: scuffed knees visible through torn pants, scraped arm, and hurt shoulder. Everything else seemed to be okay.
With a great effort, I stood up, staggered and nearly fell. My hands shot for the stalagmite, and I managed to stay upright. I stumbled to our flashlights and picked them up. Mine had a cracked lens, but it worked. Leaning against a timber pillar that supported the mountain overhead, I surveyed the space.
The damp cavern held no skeletons. We must have been the first ones who’d fallen through the floor trap, or maybe the others had made it out of here alive. Or didn’t and their remains were somewhere lost in the tunnels.
All I saw was more rock, stalactites, stalagmites, limestone columns, and passages. And a door. The misshapen wood frame door with an iron ring handle looked like something I had seen on a tour of the gold mines out west. I stilled. It made little sense why someone would build a trap just to let their victim leave. My scalp tingled with discomfort. Maybe it was another ha-ha-gotcha trap, or maybe we weren’t meant to have survived the fall. I strained my neck to look up, and then my eye landed on the sharp stone sticking out of the ground, Brie flat on her back close to it. Were we lucky, or was it a design miscalculation? I shook my head. It didn’t matter. We’d survived.
The beam I was leaning against groaned and creaked faintly. Perhaps putting pressure on a few centuries-old structures was a bad idea. Giving myself several seconds until the pain subdued, I carefully pushed off it and wobbled to the door, dropping Brie’s flashlight near her as I passed.
The door bulged outward as if something was pressing on it from the inside. Wood could bow, but I was sure this wasn’t an unbalanced drying problem. Better leave it alone. We’d return to it as our last option.
Brie was lying on the floor, eyes closed.
“Can you walk?” I asked. “We have to find the way out of here.”
Her chin wobbled, and she turned her face away. “How did this happen?”
I peered up, my flashlight revealing the outlines of the trap. “I’d guess Igor picked up that statue and set this off.”
Did others also fall into other traps, or had they been lucky? My heart squeezed at the thought of William having to deal with more troubles. Taking a deep breath, I expanded my lungs and yelled. “Andrew! William! Can you hear me?” My words echoed before fading into the void, but no one called back. I tried again and again.
“Oh my God,” Brie said. “Stop yelling. You’re hurting my head.”
“Maybe they can hear us,” I rasped.
