by Ella James
Finley frowns up at me.
I give her a panty-melting smile, and her lips quirk just slightly at the corners. “Don’t believe me, do you?”
“I’ll believe it when I see it.” She sighs.
“You don’t think I can be a nice guy?” I smile again—c’mon, sweetheart—and she looks down at her feet.
“Nothing points to that fact, no.” Her shoulders rise and sharply fall. “At any rate, I don’t care that you’re nice, as long as you can dig.”
I laugh, despite the blood that’s stinging my eye. “That right?”
She puts a hand on her hip. “Yes, that is so.” She leans in closer. “In spite of that lovely helmet, something hit your head and now you’re bleeding. Let me patch it up before you start round two.”
I snicker as she walks past me and I lose sight of her in darkness. I hear her fuck with something and a couple seconds later, light floods our humble burrow. I can see the relief I feel mirrored on her face. I’m moving toward her when she turns toward the rubble pile and freezes.
Fuckkkk. In the lantern light, shit doesn’t look so good. The pile was maybe the size of your average port-a-potty box last time. It’s double that size now, maybe even triple, and interspersed among a bunch of smaller stones are several rocks I think would qualify as boulders.
“It fills half the cave!”
I drag my gaze around our quarters. “Nah—a fourth at most.”
She turns to face me, her mouth pressed into a thin line. I see tears in her eyes, even as she points to my sleeping bag. “Sit there.”
I humor her, sitting cross-legged while she digs through her pack, pulling out a small, red first-aid box. She looks up and then scoots slightly back, as if she finds me too close for comfort.
I wipe the blood out of my eye—the thing is twitching now—and Finley leans in, squinting. I wait for her soft voice, almost lyrical in its lilting English accent. But she just peers up at my forehead, her face so close to mine that I can tell she’s holding her breath. Finally, she leans back, her pretty face a mask.
“Are you hurt anywhere else?”
I shake my head—it’s true, or at least I’m hurt nowhere new—and she presses her finger to my forehead, near the gash. Her frowning mouth is close enough that I could kiss it.
“This likely needs stitches. Since we have none, I’ll just tape it very tightly.”
As she moves again, reaching for something in her first-aid kit, I get another whiff of rose. I shut my eyes. With them closed, I notice I feel kind of dizzy. And kind of heavy in the forehead region. Shit.
“This will hurt,” she says. I feel her words against my cheek and then a sting that’s so intense my mouth and eyes water.
“Sorry,” she murmurs.
And then I feel her warm breath blow across my forehead. I feel her shift her weight and murmur something I can’t really hear before her finger’s dabbing something on the wound.
“Clearly,” she says, “you have quite a hard head.”
“Quite.” Despite myself, I struggle not to smirk.
I feel her hand brush my forehead before her fingers frame the gash, pushing on it so the edges pinch closer together. “Sorry.” It’s whispered so softly, I’m not sure I really heard it. She blows on it again, and then I feel her fingers bend so she can stretch something across the wound. It stings under the tape, but I don’t mind. I like the sharp sensation. It’s grounding, like pinching yourself.
When I open my eyes, I find I’m looking into hers. For a long moment, neither of us moves, and then she’s up, brushing at the seat of her cotton shorts before she turns away from me, ever the skittish doe.
She’s facing the new, larger rubble pile, one hand to her forehead as if she’s shading her eyes from sun.
“Do you have a plan for where to start, or shall I come up with one?”
I get up—my joints have started aching—and stand by her. My gaze travels from her wavy hair down to her bare legs before resting where it should be: on the rock pile.
“If I push it from the bottom, I’m not sure what happens at the top. How much more might fall in when we make more space.” I touch the bandage tapped to my head. “Only one way to find out. I can kick the rocks there at the middle.” I gesture midway up the pile’s height. “Everything will fall against that wall up there if I kick that way. If there’s more up top, we’ll see how much more.”
“We keep doing that until it stops pouring in, and we see sunlight?” She looks worried.
“That’s the plan.”
Until we see sunlight or the withdrawal finally gets me. I’m not telling her that, though.
Finley
I watch the Carnegie as he examines our new, mammoth rock pile. I believe he hurt his shoulder when the stones fell on him last time. He’s not moving his right arm quite freely as he runs his hand along the pile. He moves slowly and carefully, his shadow falling at odd angles on the walls as the battery-powered lantern flickers, mimicking a flame.
I’m holding my breath when he turns to me.
“I’m going to give it a good shove. See what happens. You ready, partner?” He gives me a smile that’s likely meant to reassure, and I gnaw my lip.
“Surely it will work. There can’t be too much up there…”
One of his cheeks lifts in something that looks like a twitch, though I think it may be his attempt to smile again. “Step back for me, Siren. Far back as you can.”
For him.
I do as he asks, backing up to the sleeping bags. I grab the lantern; this time, if I have to rush back toward the stream, it’s coming with me. As he looks back at me, I call, “Do be careful!”
“Always.”
Then he kicks the rubble pile. The cave rumbles, and as he dives out of the way, more rocks come crashing in from above. As the dust settles, I see him tilt his head toward the ceiling.
“Still blocked. Take two,” he calls.
I hug myself as I watch him move nimbly sideways, throwing his long leg out for a kick. When nothing happens, he kicks again, and that does the job; more rocks clatter to the floor in an ever-growing sea. They stop falling, and he stands again, looking up. When he’s still for a moment, I hurry to join him.
“What is—”
He reaches his arms above his head, and I look up to see my first glimpse of the cave’s mouth. It’s small, as I assumed—perhaps one meter at most—and as I blink at it, I realize that I’m looking at a paler stone. There’s a large, pale gray rock blocking our exit. The Carnegie positions himself below it, pushing upward with both palms, his biceps bulging as he strains against it…but to no avail.
My stomach somersaults.
He grits out a swear word.
“Sailor,” I murmur—but he hears and flashes a quick smile.
“Fucking boulder.” He pushes again, and I can see his chest pump with exertion.
“Will it give at all?”
His body trembles, his eyes shutting for a moment. Then he lowers his arms. “Might just need to re-approach it from another angle,” he says, looking briefly at his feet.
As I peer up at it, he walks around me, nudging my arm gently as he does. The motion is so feather-light, I might have imagined it. I watch as he strides back to the stream, splashing water on his face and hair before he bends into a crouch, breathing perhaps a bit hard.
I’m not sure what to do with myself, and I’m feeling nearly faint with terror, so I join him, bending over and dipping my cupped hands into the stream for a drink.
When I straighten up again, he’s looking at me, his head tilted sideways like my dog Heath used to when he saw something that puzzled him.
“How ya holding up, Siren?” he asks quietly.
“Better if you’d stop using that ridiculous name.”
“Fin?”
“Never—if you value your life.” Someone I loathe calls me that, and I dislike it intensely.
“Finny?”
“Of course not. I will warn you,
though, I’m calling you ‘the Carnegie’ in my inner monologue.” I don’t mean to flash him a wicked smile. It just happens.
“The Carnegie?” His mouth opens. “That sounds like a villain name.”
“So it does.”
“Tell me, Finny. Do you have a hatchet in that bag of yours? Something I could use to chip away at the rim of the cave’s mouth—the rim of rock around that stone? If I could get rid of some of that rock, I could maybe get my hand around the motherfucker.”
By that, I assume he means the boulder.
I don’t have a hatchet, but I have a hammer. I give it to him and fiddle with my broken radio while he starts hacking at the rim of the cave’s mouth. I know for sure the radio is broken, but I keep toying with it anyway.
I feel as if I’m in a Hitchcock film, where everything is menacing and surreal. I’m locked in a nightmare, and the stranger out in front of me is all that’s standing between me and utter isolation.
Declan
She’s nervous. Not just because we’re stuck here, but because of me, too. I saw her fucking with that broken radio last night before she fell asleep, and as I chip at the rim of rock around the motherfucking boulder, I see her messing with it again. When she thinks I’m not looking, her gaze runs up and down my body. When I glance her way, it falls back to her lap.
The hammer she had in her bag is a wall hammer, the kind that people use for climbing. One side is more flat, the other more pointed. Neither side is great for chipping rock, but the rim of the cave’s mouth is sort of flaky, like slate, so I’m making a little bit of progress. I try not to think about how long it might take to chip away enough to move the stone that’s got us trapped here.
Fuck, I’m getting lightheaded from not eating. Last night, I saw a couple of meal bars in her bag, and I know I should probably ask for one. Doesn’t matter if I’ve got an appetite; gotta fuel up if I’m going to work. Right about the time my stomach growls, I hear the distinctive rip of a wrapper and look across the way to find her munching on one of said bars. A moment later, she’s on her feet, coming to stand slightly behind me.
I turn to find her with her eyebrows arched, her delicate face soft with what looks a little bit like shyness.
“Would you like an Atkins bar? I had several stashed in my bag.”
For a second, I’m just looking at her—trying to reconcile that soft voice and pretty face with all those smartass comments. Who is this woman? I like calling her “siren” because it gets a rise, but maybe she’s more mermaid. The more I’m around her, the more I get the feeling that her temper masks a secret soft side. Something sort of like shyness.
I blink. “Yeah.” She passes the bar to me. “Thanks.”
She stands there looking at me for a minute. Then she crouches, rising with a stone in hand. It’s flat with jagged-looking edges. As she looks at it, she murmurs something.
“Mmm?”
“It might have been a lightning strike.” She holds the stone out. “I think this is from the arch. Look…” She turns the stone over, and something flashes on it. It’s a metal bar, shaped like a giant staple. “Years back, someone welded these into the arch, so when the youth would climb it, there’d be safer handholds.”
She looks back up at me with sad eyes. “They’re most likely searching for us as we speak.” She holds the stone up. “I’m going to chip the rock with this—the bar part. Better than doing nothing.”
“Yeah, for sure.”
She takes a long step back. “Waiting to see how you’re swinging, so I can stay out of the line of fire,” she says softly.
“Sure thing.” I cringe at how eager I sound. Something about her voice…I don’t know. She’s not the type that seems to need protecting, but I guess I want to, I realize as I swing the hammer. Shards of rock go flying, and a moment later, I feel her behind me.
“Back to back,” she says. “I’ll work on the other side of the rim.”
I inhale slowly, telling myself it’s okay for her to be behind me; I’m not asleep—or helpless. “Sounds good, Fin.”
Silence shifts between us. When I look back at her, I see tears in her eyes.
Eleven
Finley
“Not a word about it.” I wipe my eyes, glaring at him through my fingers.
He turns more fully toward me, giving me a searching look.
“I don’t like being stuck in caves. And I well and truly hate to be called Fin, so never again, please. I’m not a crier, only cry when very tired or in a fury.”
He lifts his brows, his handsome face gentle and kind despite those too-shrewd eyes that always see too much. “The kind of fury one might feel if one was stuck inside a cave and being called…you know?” He smiles.
“That kind exactly.” I breathe deeply, wiping my eyes once more before I slam my rock into the ceiling.
“Fin doesn’t feel right anyway,” he says as he turns back around. “Think I’m gonna stick to Siren.”
“That’s absurd.”
“How come?” he asks, striking the ceiling with a sharp rap.
“Well for one, I’m not a siren. You do realize it’s a real thing, at least in Greek mythology?”
“A woman-bird. A temptress. Their songs lured sailors into shipwrecks.”
“You’re not a sailor, not except your shameful, depraved language. And neither is your ship wrecked.”
He gives me a funny look over his shoulder. “Finny.”
“What?”
“It’s Finny or Siren.”
“What, pray tell, is wrong with my name?”
His face splits into a grin. “Did you just say pray tell?”
“I did.” I straighten my spine. “And you liked it. Now, get back to work.”
He chuckles as he turns around, tapping the ceiling with the hammer. “Hear that?” He taps again.
“The tapping?”
He reaches his arm out, tapping in another spot. Then he taps the first again.
“That first one sounds a higher pitch.”
He taps again.
“A bit more hollow than the other. I suppose that’s good?”
He nods. “The cave’s mouth might be thinner here.” He switches the hammer into his left hand and slams it against the spot with a sharp rap.
And nothing happens. He strikes the wall repeatedly for half an hour, going at it from all angles, with both arms, later using rock and striking other spots—and nothing happens. Not a thing besides a few flakes of rock off here and there.
I check the watch I keep in my bag and find it’s just past one o’clock in the afternoon.
“No one shouting for us,” I murmur, as I peel open my half-eaten Atkins bar.
I get a pinch to stop my stomach growling, pass the rest to him.
“Not yet, Finny.”
“I’m not Finny.”
“Yes you are.” He smiles at me as if we’re lifelong friends. “You’re very Finny.”
“You’re corny.”
He wipes his brow with the back of his wrist, exhales so his shoulders seem to sink. “I’m going to try to swing a different way. See if that helps.”
“Knock yourself out.” I smirk, and he rubs at his forehead.
“I kind of want to,” he confesses.
Over the next few hours, we make slow-but-steady progress, flaking shards of rock away each time we strike the cave’s mouth. My muscles tremble and cry out in pain the more I use them.
I have hopes that if we chisel enough, larger chunks of rock will fall away…but that’s not so. As night falls outside our wretched burrow, I feel like my throat is being squeezed.
While the Carnegie swings his strong arm for the millionth time, I eat the third segment of my Atkins bar and fetch another for him. I sit on one of the scattered rocks that used to be the rubble pile and beckon him over.
He rejects the bar with a shake of his head, then walks to the stream to splash his face. After that, he positions himself below the stone and tries again to push it.
He strains until his veins are bulging and a sheen of sweat shines on his back and shoulders.
And still…nothing. The stone blocking our exit is a large one, seemingly larger than the mouth of our burrow.
When my arms ache too much for me to lift them without groaning, I rub my face, and he turns to me.
“How ya doing, Siren?”
“Your arms must be made of steel. Mine are screaming bloody murder.”
“It’s not comfortable.” His face is serious and, I think, for the first time, perhaps a bit strained.
I squeeze my eyes shut, and then look up at the stone. “Do you think we could hear if they came calling?”
I’m talking to myself, really, but he nods. “I think so. But it’d be better if I could get that fucking rock moved.” My face must register my dislike of his language; he runs a hand back through his hair and has the good form to look sheepish. “Sorry.”
“I’m growing used to it—your sailor’s mouth.”
He bends down to get his water bottle, and I watch him guzzle from it. He drinks so quickly, it runs down his chin and throat. As he wipes it with the back of his hand, his gaze rests on me again. “You Catholic? Grew up Catholic?”
“Everyone is Catholic here, cradle to grave.”
He offers nothing of his own religious practices. I’d be surprised if he had any.
“Tell me something, Siren.”
“What?” I’m still sitting, my right ankle on my left knee, folding my bar’s wrapper into a small square.
He slams the hammer into the rock. “Anything.” A beat of silence passes, and he glances at me with a little smirk. “What’s the craziest thing that’s happened here that you remember? Something that really shocked all you Catholics.”
The answer comes quite easily to me. I feel my stomach dip, and I suppose my face must reflect…something. He lifts his brows; after a moment, he slaps his pants leg. “Oh—I think I heard about that. Can’t believe she did that to her.”
