But in reality? How on earth can any of us stop?
A bit of melted wax drops onto my finger, bringing me back to the present. I hiss in pain.
The sound rouses Logan from his ruminating too. “Let me see.”
“I’m fine,” I say, but hold out my finger anyway.
He gently removes the hardened wax, then blows on the burn. My heart melts a little like my candle.
“These are getting too dangerous. We should have put the wax guards back on,” he says. “Let’s blow them out. You can experience how dark a cave can be.”
The last thing I see is his lips as he purses them to blow out our light. I gasp as we disappear into complete pitch blackness.
It’s like we don’t exist. I can’t see Logan, and I can’t see any part of myself. I wait, straining my eyes, hoping for one small glimpse of him, of not being alone in this blank, unforgiving world, but my eyes never adjust to the dark.
My lips tremble, and my eyes fill with tears I can’t explain. “Logan?”
Then his strong arms wrap around me, and now all of me is a candle, melting into him.
“I’m here,” he whispers.
The words tug painfully on my heart. There’s a feather-light touch against my hair, and for one indulgent moment, I let myself imagine he’s placing kisses there. I want him to be doing that so badly, I’m shaking, but I can’t see for sure. Even one small beam of light would reveal so much, but I’m suddenly terrified of that too. Instead, I focus on his strong,steady heartbeat against my ear, and I press a kiss against that sound. It isn’t enough.
“Come on,” Logan says finally, his voice sounding deeper and rougher than usual. “We should get back.”
We pull out our phones to use as flashlights. “Not to be a modern-day sad sack, but I can’t imagine what they did before cell phones,” I say to distract from the fact that I have tears in my eyes. “It’s pitch-black in here! I’d be so freaked out that my candle or lantern would burn out, I’d probably hide matches in all my pockets and up my sleeves like some bad magician, just in case.”
“Catching on fire does seem slightly less scary than being lost in the dark,” Logan says. “And you would learn a practical magic trick.”
“Remember in middle school when you learned—Oh, shit. Is the gate closed?”
Iron bars stretch across the narrow entrance of the cave. A big padlock hangs in the corner, locked.
“Hello?” I call out. “We’re here!”
Silence.
We both check our phones.
“Not even an SOS,” Logan mutters, stretching his arm through the gate. “Let me see if I can get a bar—” His phone slips, clattering against the stone below. “Oh, fuck.”
I hand him mine.
“Let’s save this one,” he says. “No reason to sacrifice two phones to the cave gods.”
“I don’t understand,” I say. “How did they not know we were in here?”
Logan curses. “I parked behind that boulder, remember? Emily and Seth must not have seen the truck when they lockedup.”
“Oh, no. Oh, no!” I kick off my heels and start climbing the cave wall around the gate, my fingers and toes searching for holds in the rough depressions. “Maybe I can fit through the gap at the top—”
“Whoa there, spider monkey!” Logan grabs me around the waist and pulls me back down.
I slide down his hard body. The rough fabric of his slacks brushes the back of my bare thighs—my dress must have ridden up. Oops. I tug my dress back into place.
“The last thing we need is you getting stuck in the bars.”
I squint at the gap again. Itdoeslook tight. That would certainly make this scenario more likely to turn into a full-fledged disaster.
