by James, Ella
“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.
Chapter 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.”
“What?” I’m stifling a smile.
“Oh, you know.” He lifts his brows. “The thing she did.”
“The thing?” I’m chuckling now, at his strangeness.
He nods once. “I know,” he says sagely. “And I see why you don’t want to talk about it.”
“Oh, sod off.”
“Isn’t that a swear word for you English types?” He’s grinning, and I roll my eyes because he looks so proud of himself.
I slip my folded Atkins wrapper into a pocket on the front of my sleep shorts and force my aching legs to stand. “Being near you is wearing on my morals.” I say it lightly, but I cross myself discreetly as I walk around him.
He snorts, and for a while longer, we toil in silence, shards of rock flaking onto our shoes as we chip at the rim of the cave’s mouth.
When it becomes impossible to lift my arms, I sit on a nearby mini-boulder, rubbing at my knotted shoulders and watching him swing the hammer. Sweat coats his neck and back, and stains the waistline of his battered khaki shorts. His shoulder rolls as he reaches around to rub his back. Then he glances back at me, pirate-swarthy with his dark scruff turned into a light beard, and his high cheekbones, and those lips…
“So tell me, what do Tristan girls like yourself do for entertainment when you’ve got some down time?”
I snort. “Down time?”
He turns around to face me, wiping his forehead. “Not much of that around here?”
“Nearly never.”
“They were talking about you in the bar last night.” He runs a hand back through his sweat-wet hair, which I wish looked even a bit off-putting, and my tummy dips in response to his words.
“And?”
He shrugs. “Just saying how you work with the animals and at the clinic.”
“We all do different tasks. I’m no exception.”
“That’s not what I heard.”
“You were hearing bits from Mac at the pub?” I bite my lip to hide a smirk.
He laughs. “Mac seemed all right.”
I look down at my lap, flexing my cramping fingers. “Seeming all right’s not his problem.”
“How does that work, anyway?”
“How does what work?” I look up as he takes a small step toward me. My stomach jerks downward in a sort of flipping feeling.
“How much liquor do you have here on the island?”
“And can someone drain the bar dry?” I put my hand to my damp forehead, shutting my eyes briefly. “Yes, most certainly. It’s happened before. The liquor comes on ships, of course, and only perhaps twice a year. If we run out, we’re out, and we’ve had people get too glad about the bottle.”
I hear his low chuckle. “Glad about the bottle.”
“Well, that’s what it is.” I open my eyes to find him rubbing that shoulder.
“Guess so.”
“I’ve never cared for it myself,” I tell him.
“No?”
I shake my head. My father famously drained the island dry a multitude of times—until at last they banned him from the bar. And after that, he learned to pick the locks and take what he desired. “Never wanted to be one of those sorts.”
“One of what sorts?” he says quietly.
I chew at my lip, trying to think of how to say it without mentioning my father. “I’m not sure I’ve ever wanted anything enough to lie and skirt the rules to get it. Not sure that I want to want something so desperately. Seems exhausting. A bit dangerous.”
I watch as his features seem to soften, and he nods.
“How did we get on this?” I sigh, looking at the dark gray stone that’s got us stuck
here.
“I asked what you do for entertainment.”
“Most of us don’t court the bottle like Mac. For me, I knit on Saturdays with a few friends—on Saturday evenings. We celebrate occasions at the café or the Burger Joint. That’s once or twice a month. And then there’s things that come and go with seasons. Fishing and the factory—processing crab. Helping sort the mail when that comes. Every one of us wears many different caps, as I said. When I do get a bit of time,” I offer, looking at my feet again, “I like to throw a bowl or two.”
“Throw a bowl?”
I look up at him. “Clay-throwing. Pottery. Ceramic working. Throw a bowl, so…form it on the wheel. And then I fire it in the kiln and sometimes sell it.”
“Here?”
I blink. “I apparate to London to throw clay and put it at the market.”
I enjoy watching his face bend in surprise that morphs into amusement. “So we’ve got a smartass, and a wizard.”
“I’m not any sort of arse.” My lips twitch. “That’s your place.”
He grins broadly. “Touché.”
“Merely honest.”
“Hey—” He holds his hands up. “That was one night. One…crummy night.”
“Bravo, Sailor.”
“You stick around, you’ll see that night’s not representative of Declan Carnegie.”
“Perhaps not, but I believe I’ve only met the Carnegie.” When I feel my mouth trend upward at the corners, it feels as if someone’s yanked the floor from under my feet. I tuck my mouth back down and try to frown, although I believe it comes out smirk-ish.
“There’s that name again.” He shakes his head as he walks backward toward the stream. “Not sure I know the Carnegie. I’m just Declan. Nice guy.” He holds up the middle three of his fingers, as if he’s making a pledge of sorts.
I scoff. “That’s what you say.”
He nods. “I do.”
Then he’s turned around, and I’m left looking at his back as he moves to the stream, where he kneels down and splashes his face.
My heart pitter-patters, as if something inside’s cracked and now is leaking.
