Chapter Eight
Annika decided to take advantage of the opportunity Zhor had left for her. She had no idea how long he might be gone. She thought the fact that he hadn’t waited to close the door and block her in probably meant he intended to return immediately, but it was a chance and there had been damned few of them.
And time had begun to torture her—seeming to drag because she had little to do to occupy herself beyond her thoughts and worries and also seeming to fly because she had ticked off at least a dozen alien dawns since the first she’d seen when the ship crashed.
She was running out of time to be rescued.
She was sure of it.
And that prompted her to push her last attempt from her mind and try again the moment she saw an opening regardless of the strain it was bound to put on their relationship if Zhor caught her at it.
She knew there was the possibility that he hadn’t simply forgotten and leaving the door open was some sort of test or trap, but she decided she wasn’t going to just sit tight, twiddling her thumbs when it was possible that he’d just been so pissed off he’d forgotten.
And there was the fact that she had pissed him off—obviously pretty royally—or he wouldn’t have left like that and that added the incentive of not being there when he returned.
For all that, the attempt wasn’t some stupid, girly something she decided impulsively or emotionally.
If she wasn’t already out of time, she knew she would be soon. Shehadto try to find the wreckage and let base command know she was alive or she might never get home again.
The drop was terrifying but although just looking made her weak all over, she ignored the freefall her stomach took and the urge to puke. Instead, she focused on examining the walls on either side of the opening. To her partial relief, she saw she hadn’t just imagined there were steps cut into the side of the cliff. They looked ancient and crumbling but therewerenarrow ledges and steps leading to each opening on the cliff and they seemed to go to the top or almost.
It was worth checking out, she decided.
Gathering her courage, she stepped out on the ledge and began inching very carefully toward the first step she saw. She was shaking so badly by the time she reached the first set of steps that her teeth had begun to chatter.
The urge to turn back assailed her but, somehow, turning around seemed more terrifying than continuing in a straight line.
It wasn’t just the narrowness of the ledge and steps and the sheer drop that made moving difficult. There were gusts of wind that threatened to break her precarious hold and snatch her clean off the cliff.
She was tempted to just stop when she reached the next cavern opening—not tempted to go back. She was beyond scared stiff and spit-less. She was so scared she felt like flopping on the ground and crying like a baby—might have if there’d been a nice, safe spot to indulge herself.
She sucked up the urge and struggled to focus minutely—only on hand grips and footholds. By doing that, she managed to make it all the way to the top. She thought for several moments after she’d discovered the cliff edge that she wasn’t going to be able to make it over, but after standing—panting and shivering—for some moments, she gathered herself for a final effort and lurched over the side.
For several terrifying moments, she thought she was going to slide backwards off the cliff. She scrambled for anything to get hold of but it seemed everything she grabbed came away in her hands. Finally, thankfully, she managed to get hold of a clump of grass that gave her just enough stability to wiggle up until she’d shifted her center of gravity to the plain. Panting, she lay perfectly still for several moments, trying to catch her breath, trying to calm her heart before it beat its way out of her chest, trying to think when her mind had turned to jelly just like the rest of her muscles from unmitigated terror.
In the end, she simply inched upwards on her belly like a snake until she was able to grab two fistfuls of grass and lift one knee to the edge.
She didn’t think she would be able to get up even after the horror had begun to dissipate. The adrenaline that had helped strengthen her muscles so that she could actually make the climb had completely abandoned her and she felt like a puddle, a shapeless, heavy mass that had no ability to rise to the commands of her brain.
Eventually, bolstered, at last, by the thought that she would have gone through all that effort to escape for nothing if she kept laying there until Zhor returned, she managed to get her knees up and stiffen her arms to push herself away from the ground. After a few moments, she managed to stand upright and look around.
Disappointment flickered through her. She recalled the plateau as being basically flat, but then she’d seen it from the ship, not ground level.
She supposed itwasbasically flat, but there was just enough deformation to prevent her from seeing any great distance. Small, vegetation covered hills rolled away from her to the forest—which looked to be maybe two miles away.
There was no sign of the ship. She didn’t spot a single piece of wreckage to tell her the point of impact.
When she’d turned all the way around, she came face to face with … Zhor.
It wasn’t as if there was no warning. A deep shadow passed over her and she caught just a hint of the brush of feathers together and then there was a heavy thud, but all those warnings preceded discovery by mere seconds. Not enough time for her brain to process and react.
She did react when she came face to chest with him, however. She screamed ear piercingly, jumped, and then took off at a dead run.
It took stork man all of three steps to catch her.
She considered trying to fight free for a handful of mindless seconds, but then reality set in. She didn’t have a chance in hell of outrunning him. Even if she decided to take a swan dive off the cliff, he couldstillcatch her!
It was only when she subsided that she realized he was shaking—vibrating all over with some strong emotion.
