“Because look at it.” Hunter’s hands grasped my shoulders, and he gently guided my body to my right.
Behind the tree, the bat cave appeared as it had before: a sheer mass of rock with a dark, large entrance at the bottom and two large, round-ishcavities above.
“I’m not sure what I’m looking for,” I said, narrowing my eyes in the hope of seeing what Hunter saw. I closed one eye, then opened it and closed the other. Nothing.
Hunter leaned in, his mouth close to my ear, and whispered, “It’s the front of a skull.”
As soon as his words left his mouth, the three dark holes morphed into a nasal cavity and two eye sockets. No jaw. The nasal passage was the bat cave.
“Holy shit!” I turned to look at him. “But you said it was empty.”
“Yes, but I also didn’t go too deep inside of it.”
“Oh, my god. Now you tell me that?” I climbed out of the water.
“What are you doing?” Hunter asked as I grabbed my shirt and pulled it over my head.
“What does it look like? I want to look in the cave.”
“I hoped we would—” He wiggled his eyebrows, hinting with a nod toward the water. Lovemaking with Hunter was a slice of heaven, but this was too exciting.
“Not now.” I picked up his clothes. “Come on, let’s go look.”
ChapterTwenty-One
We peered into the open mouth of the cave. “Are you sure you want to go in?” Hunter asked.
Nope.
“Yes.” My body tightened.
“I’ll go in alone. Wait for me here.” He took the hammer we brought with us out of my hand in case we had to bash something over the head. Hunter stole a kiss and stepped into the cave, murkiness consuming his body.
“No. I’m going with you.”
We plunged into the cave, Hunter leading the way with the bright light and me tiptoeing after him. The opening was large, with the damp ground and vegetation creeping as far as sunlight could reach.
I grimaced and pinched my nose from the assaulting smell. “What’s that?”
“Probably bat scat. Look.” Hunter nodded to stalactites and small fuzzy creatures clinging to the rocky ceiling. It was hard to say how many were there, maybe a hundred or more. Mymuscles turned into stone. I was expecting them at any second to act chaotically which would make me act chaotically too, but they didn’t move.
Hunter squeezed my hand. “You go back and wait for me outside.”
After what I’d experienced with the snakes, I could handle anything. “I can do this.”
We crept further, following the musty pathway. My flip-flop sank into mush, and my foot slipped out of it.
“Shit,” I hissed, balancing on one foot. “Light, please.”
I let go of Hunter’s hand, twisted, and bent to pick up my shoe. My knee wobbled, and I tumbled forward. My foot swung and kicked the flashlight out of Hunter’s hand, sending it flying into a wall. Everything around us went dark, only the dim light from the entrance curved around the bend.
Hunter uttered a snort. I was glad one of us found this funny. My palms and knees sank into bat-crap goo. Failing to suppress his laughter, Hunter helped me up, then picked up the flashlight and hit it once at the base. Light returned to the cave.
I rubbed my hands on a wall to remove some concoction of the dirt and crap, then yanked my flip-flop out of the mud and placed it back on my foot.
We continued navigating the cave, and soon, the passage tapered until we could barely stand side by side. From there, the cave split into two paths. We went left but shortly faced a dead end. Hunter and I searched for anything out of place, inserted our hands into small cracks, and moved around odd rocks below our feet.
Disappointed, we returned to the fork and tried the other corridor. Dark space with dense air contracted as we pushed further in, eventually cramming our bodies sideways. We stopped. My breathing became quick and shallow as a suffocating thought that we could get stuck and die in here crossed my mind.
