Oh, gods. I panic and take a step back, almost stumbling off the boulder.
“Whoa.” He tugs me back and holds me steady by my hips. Then he closes his eyes and blows out an unsteady breath. When he speaks, his voice is carefully neutral. “So you want me to rip this off here?”
“Yup.” I nod too many times ... still panicked, still turned on.
With the help of my hwando and some brute force, we repurpose my jeans into really short shorts. Likebehold, my butt cheeksshort. Ethan gets to his feet, but his gaze is glued to my legs.
“Hey,” I snap before I’m tempted to like it. “Eyes up here.”
“Sorry.” His pupils are blown wide. I feel a mixture of nerves and triumph that he isn’t immune to the attraction flaring between us. But nerves win out.
“We need to hurry.” I stuff the remnants of my jeans into the backpack. My magic traces are everywhere, but I don’t need to leave an arrow pointing to the cave. “We still have a lot of ground to cover, and the Suhoshin will find us sooner rather than later after our scuffle with Blue.”
“And the yellow assassin?” Ethan jumps off the rock and offers me a hand.
I roll my eyes and leap down. I immediately regret not accepting his help when pain radiates from my thigh to my teeth. I cough tocover up my whimper. “I’m going to avoid thinking about him for as long as I can.”
“A wise plan.” He sounds so droll I can’t help but grin at him.
“Come on.” I jerk my head toward the cave and lead the way.
The cave entrance is strewn with rocks and tree branches. When we pull them aside, inky darkness greets us. The cave doesn’t look very big as we walk in. Ethan has to slouch not to hit his head on the ceiling. But as we make our way down the dark path with my puny flashlight guiding our way, I realize looks can be deceptive.
CHAPTER TWELVE
If avoidance were an Olympic event, I’d be a record-breaking gold medalist. I’ve had over a century of practice, after all. The tunnels are dark and dank, and we walk single file through the narrow path—me up front and Ethan behind me. It’s not conducive to conversation, especially since we’ve been trudging on for hours.
In the tomb-like silence, I have plenty of time for self-reflection, but I turn my thoughts to food instead. I could really go for a juicy, sloppy cheeseburger right now. Or my personal favorite, rare steak with two sunny-side up eggs.
When I first came to the States, I didn’t ... talk. I didn’t want to hear my voice. I didn’t want to see my reflection in the mirror. I didn’t want to be reminded that I was me. Besides, no one understood Korean, and I didn’t know how to speak English. But I listened. And soon the words started making sense to me.
The missionary couple who took me in thought Icouldn’tspeak. Then one day, I pointed at the fried egg on my plate and said, “Sun.” The bright-orange yolk of the eggs I’d gathered from the henhouse looked like the sun. It made me happy that I could still have a thought so pure and innocent, because maybe it meant a part of me remained good.
The couple took to calling me Sunny after that, and I guess the name stuck. It wasn’t until years later that diners began serving “sunny-side up” eggs. Since I came first, the eggs were technically named after me.
Before my mind takes a proper stroll down memory lane, I glance over my shoulder and break the silence. “You doing okay?”
Ethan grimaces, hunched over at the waist to avoid hitting his head. “It’s torture on my back, but I’ll live.”
As though the earth heard the plea in his voice, the tunnel opens into a cavern ... with two passages. I curse under my breath.
“Oh, thank God.” He straightens up with a groan, pounding his fist on his lower back. “I seriously considered crawling after you on all fours if it didn’t let up.”
“Here.” I hand him a bottle of water before I drink from my own. Then I sit against a wall and glare at the fork in the path.
“Any idea which way to go?” He settles down beside me and takes a long gulp of water.
“Give me five minutes,” I say and close my eyes.
“Are you stalling?” The teasing lilt in his voice hatches butterflies in my stomach.
“Yes?” I didn’t mean to say that like a question. And I definitely wasn’t going for a husky whisper. I open my eyes and turn toward him. We’re sitting closer than I’d realized, our faces mere inches apart. He stares at me for a long moment, his throat working.
Just when I think he’s going to speak, he jumps to his feet and walks to one tunnel opening, then the other. “I feel a breeze coming from this one.”
“You’re right,” I say, coming to stand beside him. “We have to be close to North Korea by now. Hopefully, this tunnel leads us out into the open.”
But when we walk down the path, it deposits us into another cavern that looks suspiciously like the one we’ve left behind—with another set of tunnels to choose from.
