“Stop struggling, Princess. They can probably sense fear and desperation.” He grunts a little and holds out his hand, grasping hers before it can disappear below the surface forever. “Here.”
She desperately grasps at his hand, her eyes wide and frantic. A bit how I’m feeling right now but I’m not about to let my eyes betray me.
Marvin peeks his head over the edge. “Are you all right?”
“We’re about to be swallowed alive by vines,” I yell up. “How do you think that I’m doing?”
Marvin’s mouth twists. “What should I do? Should I run back to town and get some help?”
“That’s a lovely idea,” Byron replies dryly. “At least then you’ll have help pulling our corpses out of here.”
I roll my eyes at his sharp retort despite the fact that I just snapped at Marvin myself. Marvin doesn’t think well under pressure, we can’t expect a miracle from him. There are no saints here.
I grit my teeth and hold up my hand. “Can you reach me?”
Marvin looks a little gray, but he manages a nod and lowers his hand until our two clasp. I start to hoist myself up, wondering if I happened to pack some rope in my satchel, but then suddenly I feel a hand grasp my leg. A bit too high for my comfort. I whip my head around, a sharp retort rising when I realize that it’s Byron who has a hold of me. However, that dies on my lips when I see that he isn’t looking at me to even see where he grabbed me. Instead, he is shaking out his foot, to dislodge a vine while simultaneously trying to pull the damsel out of the thick of the vines coiling around her.
“What are you doing?” I manage to get out. Almost civilly too. Which is quite a feat considering that his hand is currently resting in a place that his hand shouldneverbe.
“Try to hang onto to Marvin, we’re going to need to climb out and then we’ll pull you up.”
“You mean you’re going to climb up me?” I demand. “I’m not a ladder, you know.” Forget my thigh, there are a lot of places I don’t want Byron touching. My whole body for one.
Byron offers me a lopsided smile. “Could have fooled me, you make a very attractive ladder though so you can wipe that expression off your face.”
“And I’m just supposed to hang here until you get up?” My arm starts trembling at just the thought. I feel a bead of sweat form on the bridge of my nose.
Marvin grunts, reminding me that he is also having to hold us all up. But at least he gets to lie on his stomach and not have to be balanced on writhing vines. “Come on, Willow, you said you had broad shoulders earlier. Use them,” he says, his tone low and strained.
Byron chokes on a laugh, and I glare down at him where he is hanging onto my waistline. “Do you find this funny?”
“Sorry, just trying to wonder what drove you to think that you had broad shoulders.”
We can’t all be blacksmiths by trade, Byron. I narrow my eyes at him, but that turns into a wince when the damsel digs her heel into my calf as Byron helps to give her a hand up. I grit my teeth and press my eyes shut.
This is honestly just humiliating. The damsel’s foot kicks my face as she shimmies up. I feel Marvin’s grip loosen a little bit as he gets his first view of her.
“H—hello,” he stutters shyly.
I groan and roll my eyes. Now isnotthe time for him to get a crush.
She finishes making her way up me and pulls herself up onto the ledge above. “I nearly died, do nothellome!”
I work to tighten my hand around Marvin but either his palm is sweating, or my palm is sweating… or perhaps both our palms are sweating, because I find my fingers starting to slide through his. “Marvin, I’m slipping!”
Just as the words are out of my mouth, I lose my grip on him and tumble backwards. I don’t know if Byron was trying to catch me or if he had just been standing there but the end result is still the same. Us landing in a mess of tangled writhing vines, me on top, him on the bottom. My chin hitting his bony collar so hard I nearly bite my own tongue off.
Byron groans and slowly lifts his head up so that he is looking at me. “Ow, Lo, get off.”
I roll my eyes. “My name isn’t Lo,” I grind out as I struggle to get up. I gasp out as I feel a vine coil around my waist holding me to him.
He snorts. “Uh… yes, it is. That’s what I’ve called you for your whole life.”
I press my elbow into his chest, I swear it’s only because I’m trying to get my bearing, but I can’t lie and say that the little grunt he gives isn’t at all satisfactory. “And I’ve called you arrogant toadstool your whole life. That doesn’t make it your name.”
“Get off me. Or are you seriously going to get the both of us crushed to death out of pettiness?”
I narrow my eyes. Pettiness? I would never allow my hatred of Byron to actually endanger either of our lives. Does he think I would? “I’mstuck, Byron, but it’s nice to see that this is your opinion of me.”
