“Sure, that’s what they all say. This is my third cave grope this year.”
“Goddammit, IknewHarvard was full of perverts.”
“It’s a feature, not a bug.”
Seb snickered, and I smiled at him in the dark, feeling warm and elated. Secretly I loved a good verbal sparring with Seb. Always had. But he didn’t have a comeback this time. An awkward quiet settled between us. Just for a moment. Then he lightly squeezed my arms in a very non-sexy way.
“Hey, for real, though,” he said in a low voice. “Not hurt are you?”
“I’m okay,” I assured him, sobering up. I cleared my throat. “I don’t know where the flashlight is now, but it definitely rolled away. Maybe you can reach it?”
Seb let go of me, and I hated that he did. Not because I wanted his hands on me. He was my childhood friend, for God’s sake. The black sheep of our weird little Wag family. Sure, he was nice on the eyes these days, but that didn’t mean I wanted to hook up with him. I just... hated being alone in the dark.
Really hated it. “Seb? Where are you?”
“Here.”
Water splashed. I couldn’t see anything, but I assumed he was hunting the flashlight in the stream.
“Fuck! Where is it? We need the other Wags in here with their lights. We’ll... Huh. Are you seeing that? Look down. Look at the stream, Paige.”
I couldn’t see anything but black, but I did my best to look where the stream should be and still saw nothing.Wait, hold on...
Something faintly glowed in the center of the cavern floor. Glow-in-the-dark speckles. And—hold on. The speckles weren’t random. They followed a pattern.
“Is that... ? Seb, tell me you’re not seeing Morse code.”
“Where are you?” His reaching fingers found my arm again.
No boob-grazing this time, which was probably a good thing.Of course it’s a good thing. Stop thinking about it.
“Stay with me,” he said. “Walk toward the speckles, that’s it. Can’t quite tell— Oh, shit. Welp, so much for dry shoes.”
I took wobbly steps, moving where Seb was leading. Two more steps, and we were standing over the phosphorescent speckles.
MostdefinitelyMorse code.
Tiny dots and dashes had been painted into a sort of half circle:
-... . .-. --- .--
“Below,” Seb said. “It says ‘below.’ Below what?”
Excitement blazed through me. “Jaz!” I called loudly, voice reverberating around the cavern. “Get in here!”
Muffled voices in the distance began moving toward us. Punkin barked. After a minute, scraping sounds came from the tunnel, and a tiny, bouncing light appeared—instantly making me feel better.
“Are you guys okay?” Jaz said, emerging from the tunnel with her headlamp. “Hey. Why are you standing around in the dark?”
“Look!” Seb and I both said excitedly together.
But the Morse code was no longer there.
“What am I looking at?” Jaz said as the sounds of Lulu giggling echoed inside the tunnel.
“Glow-in-the dark,” I said to Seb. “We only saw it because the lights were off. Come stand over here with us, Jaz, and switch off your headlamp for a sec.”
When she did, the Morse code reappeared. “No way!” she said, flicking her headlamp on and off a couple of times to see the glow-in-the-dark effect. “Is it paint? Did Wyrd Jack have access to that back then?”
