We crept down a stairway barely wide enough for Andrew’s shoulders to fit and then came around a sharp corner to a stone landing about ten feet by ten feet. Andrew clicked the flashlight button once more, boosting the intensity of the light and revealing an enormous underground chamber before us.
“Is this a catacomb?” I asked.
“I doubt this was used for burial reasons. This is where they stored smuggled goods.”
My eyes roamed over the empty space. “Someone should tell them that they were robbed.”
“We need to get lower.” Andrew knelt near the edge, then he shook something at his foot. “This should hold.”
“What should hold?” I crept closer to him but kept my distance from the edge.
“The ladder attached to this wall.” Andrew grasped the flashlight between his teeth, turned around, and descended down a fucking threadbare wooden rope ladder. The heavy corded fibers screeched under his weight, and my stomach spasmed.
“You’re out of your mind. It’s been here for hundreds of years. What if it breaks?”
He mumbled something incoherent. Yep, that was exactly how I envisioned the thoughts in his head: incoherent.
Andrew landed on the lower-level dirt floor without breaking any of his bones. He pulled the flashlight out of his mouth and ran it over the room, briefly stopping at another goddamn passage leading somewhere else. He looked up at me. “Now it’s your turn.”
I peered down. The drop was maybe one and a half to two stories high. Would I die if I fell, or would it just hurt really bad? Why did I put the stupid bracelet on?
“What are you waiting for?” Andrew said, his tone hushed and impassioned.
I took my wedges off. “I should hurl my heels at you.”
“What did I do?”
“You dragged me into the abode of the dead.”
Andrew chuckled. “Once again, you did it to yo?—”
I lobbed the right shoe at him.
“Hey, watch it.” He jumped aside. “You almost hit me.”
“You mention again that it was my fault, and the next onewillhit you.” I stuffed the other shoe into my bag. “How far is it?”
“Thirty feet at most. Are you afraid of heights?”
“No. I’m afraid of decaying ladders.”
“You’ll be fine. It held me. It should hold you. Drop me your purse.”
I did as he asked, and he caught it.
Fuck. Fuckity fuck.
I lowered to my knees, turned, and inched backward. My hands gripped the ladder’s sides, while I searched with my right foot for the first wooden bar. Then my left foot found the second bar, my fingers digging into the rope on this piece of crap ladder. The cool air snaked up my legs. “Andrew, look away.”
“It’s too dark. Even if I wanted to, I can’t see up your skirt.”
“Look elsewhere anyway.”
I made another two steps down and carefully moved my hands to the next bar. The ladder seemed to be securely fastened to the wall. I didn’t even want to think how. I pressed my forehead to a stony wall, breathed in, and breathed out earthy air. I was halfway down. Everything was going fine, until I realized… once we were done, we had to ascend the same ladder. Well, shit.
The bar under my feet yawped a faint crack, and my skin doused with cold sweat. The brittle structure made a ripping and crunching racket, and everything below my feet crumbled. My heart lurched up into my throat as my body dropped.
“Shit!” I tightened my grip on the bar, my feet desperately searching for some footing on theapparentlysmooth wall.
