She shrugged. "Maybe. But I am here, am I not? I've been better. And still, at just a sighting of me doing something potentially dangerous, you are sent after me like some kind of guard dog. I am not a sheep for you to herd back to safety."
"I am not a dog."
"No, you're not. But you still take orders like a dog would, and I am disappointed to know that you would arrive here without any other questions except that my sister told you to be worried."
His anger flared again. How dare she? He was just trying to keep her safe. "Rose, get over here."
"And if I say no?"
"Then I will make you."
She turned her back to the edge, looked him in the eye, and said, "No."
Gunnar nearly saw red. He was trying to help her, and she had no reason to be this difficult. No reason to do this.
"Rose," he cautioned.
"No, Gunnar. I'm not going to do something just because you ordered me to do it. My answer is no. Make me."
He lunged, grabbing her arm and spinning her around. His intent was to toss her away from the edge, putting himself in danger, but she grabbed onto him with more strength than he’d thought she had. Algae had formed on some of the stones here, damp from the falls, and they both tripped lost their footing over them and...
Fell.
Not over the edge, but into a fissure. They tumbled straight down with the water, slipping and sliding beyond a crack into the unknown.
Twenty-Six
Rose
Down, down, down they fell.
They dropped into the fissure, disappearing with the rest of the water that poured from the falls into the very heart of the mountain.
The weightless feeling quickly changed, however. She wasn't just falling now. She was tumbling. Her shoulder hit rocks, her hip slammed against jutting edges that dug at her skin and tore at the clothing she wore. Rose let out a little yelp when her back struck against something particularly unyielding and then... Then he was there.
Gunnar somehow changed the direction of his fall. He moved so that he could grab onto her, wrap her up in his arms, and take all the pain for her. No matter how many times she felt his body jolt, or the icy splashes of water that doused both of them, he kept her safe.
She stayed as still as she could while the elements tried to rip her out of his arms. He became a shield for her against the world, and as they fell, she realized that was what he had always been.
A shield. A safe haven where she could duck behind his presence and heal.
Maybe she'd been healing this whole time. Even though she'd been hiding in that other realm, she'd still been healing enough for her to... to... She wasn't sure yet. But as they struck a new layer of water with a hard thud that knocked the wind out of both of them, she realized that she wasn't the same terrified woman she had been. At some point, since coming to Trollveggen, she had pieced herself back together.
Or at the very least, she'd found all her pieces. Just like Gunnar had said. Now she had to figure out what to do with all of them.
The hard landing tossed her out of his arms. She could feel his claws digging into the fabric of her shirt, trying to keep her with him even as gravity worked against them both. But then her shirt ripped and she uncontrollably careened away from him.
Rose let out a little whimper when her back hit a wall. They were in a pool of water, but this one wasn't rushing like before. It was a sluggish, slow stream that meandered into the darkness, rising only to her thighs when she stood.
"Gunnar?" she asked, making sure he could at least hear her. "Still alive?"
A groan was her answer, and then she heard him sloshing somewhere in the distance. "Where are you, woman?"
"Not too far." At least she didn't think she was.
He sounded like he was speaking right into her ear, but he had been farther away than that, she was certain. Something about this cavern amplified voices, sending them in directions she knew they weren't coming from.
With another grunt in the distance, suddenly light bloomed. Rose hadn't thought it was possible this deep in the mountain, but there it was.
