The problem was, as he quickly discovered, he’d miscalculated.
The footing was trickier than he’d expected, because the bottom of the bridge was made of webbed rope and wooden slats. Waist high on each side, rope as thick as his wrist gave him the same guides that it gave Caitlyn, only he was at a disadvantage. He had only one hand to clutch the rope because he held the flashlight in the hand at the end of his cast.
The bridge swayed and twisted sideways, and Mason gasped. Without the strangled grip of his good hand, he would have plunged over. As it was, panic forced him to drop the flashlight and clutch for the other guide rope with his injured arm. He flailed, ignoring the pain, and managed to find the other rope.
Eerily, the flashlight tumbled in silence, the light shrinking until it disappeared. Not because the flashlight smashed as it hit bottom, but because the depth of the chasm simply swallowed it.
That sent him into another bout of panic and paralysis. Mason panted with horror and almost wept as he waited for the bridge to stop the pendulum swing from side to side.
If he waited too long, she’d be across. And if she decided to lift the bridge off the hooks, the bridge would simply become a ladder with him hanging on, thousands of feet from the bottom of an abyss, until he lost his strength and let go. That thought galvanized him, and he staggered forward, biting the inside of his cheek to keep from whimpering. If he were far enough across, she wouldn’t be able to lift his weight.
Step by step, palms sweating, he advanced, grateful that he couldn’t see below him, trying to keep his imagination at bay.
Then light again.
Caitlyn’s.
She’d crossed and now pointed her headlamp toward him. She shined it on Mason, and the light pierced his eyes. He directed his snarl at her.
The beam moved away and illuminated the end of the rope bridge, secured by heavy iron hooks, on her side. She began to struggle to pull it loose. Her figure was a blurred outline of shadow and light.
As he guessed, she didn’t have the physical strength to unhook the bridge with his weight on it.
He moved forward another couple of steps but with less urgency than before. Now she was down to two options. Wait for him on the ledge or begin climbing down the rope ladder beside the bridge, slowed by her injured leg. Even with one arm in a cast, he’d be able to follow, and then, because of her injured ankle, it was only a matter of time until he caught up with her.
Her beam turned to the edge of the ledge, and Mason saw Caitlyn squat and examine the top of the rope ladder. The beam marked her downward progress. Something looked strange about her back. It didn’t matter, though, as he’d kill her first and examine her later.
The light would also help him find the ladder.
Ten steps left, he guessed.
Down to five.
Then he was on the ledge.
Because of the contrast of the darkness against Caitlyn’s light, Mason had no difficulty seeing the loops of the thick rope that held the bridge in place on the iron hooks.
He lifted them and let go.
With a swish, the bridge fell away. Seconds later, he heard it slap against the far side of the chasm.
Now the tunnels behind him were no longer an issue. Nor the soldiers, if they found a way around the destroyed headquarters. No way for them to cross should they make it this far. No way for them to reattach the bridge on this side.
With a grim smile, Mason echoed Caitlyn’s actions only a minute earlier.
He squatted and found the top of the rope ladder, held in place by iron hooks similar to those that had held the rope bridge in place. With his good hand, Mason held tight and felt his way down.
In seconds, he was vertical and able to also use the hand of his casted arm to hold himself secure. Unlike the bridge, this ladder didn’t sway. He began the descent.
The beam below him brightened.
He looked down but saw only a circle of light. Caitlyn had pointed the headlamp upward, catching him in the beam as he had caught her earlier, and now she would see that he was close.
Nothing would stop him now.
FORTY-SEVEN
Because of her injured ankle’s restricted movement, Caitlyn knew that Mason could travel faster down the ladders than she could. Climbing one ladder wouldn’t matter much, but a series of ladders were ahead.
Jordan had explained to Caitlyn what remained of her journey. The ladders descended hundreds of feet. Then a bridge would take her across the river at the bottom, back to the side that she’d started from.
But she knew that eventually, at this pace, Mason would catch her on one of the ledges. Even if she somehow managed to stay ahead of him, even if she managed to get across the bridge at the bottom of the chasm, she faced the same problem she hadn’t been able to overcome on the first rope bridge. While the plan had been for her to cross the top of the chasm and then drop the bridge to seal off any pursuers, with Mason’s weight, it had been impossible. She didn’t see it happening any differently below.
If she didn’t stop Mason somehow, he’d cross the river again at the bottom and discover what so many people had already made such a sacrifice to hide.
And she could hear Papa’s words. “You can’t be taken, dead or alive. You must not fall into their hands.”
No, even if it meant her own life, she had no choice.
When she reached the second ledge at the bottom of the first ladder, she didn’t begin scrambling down the next ladder.
Instead, she removed her cloak, set it down, and waited for Mason.
Mason lightly stepped onto the second ledge and slowly turned. He expected to move slowly, even crawl, as he searched for the hooks that held the next rope ladder.
He didn’t expect a beam directly in his face. Caitlyn was still on this ledge.
“I heard you release the bridge up there,” she told him, her volume raised above the water cascading past the ledge.
Mason snorted, then spoke, raising his voice too. “I want you for myself. All alone.”
He reached down with his good hand and unsheathed his knife. Mason didn’t move forward. He could at any time, of course. But it was too much pleasure to savor this. Nor did he want to risk any sudden moves. Not until he knew where the edge of the ledge was.
“Stop,” she said. “Without that bridge for you to get back, your life is going to depend on what I explain to you.”
“I’m sure I’ll find my way out.” Mason scraped his thumb against the knife blade to test the sharpness. “Without your help.”
“The only way out is down,” she answered from behind the light. “More ladders. Like the one above you. I’m holding the ladder from this ledge right now. I unhooked it while I was waiting for you. If I drop it, you’ll be stuck here.”
Mason snorted again. “I don’t believe you.”
“Think about it,” she said. “If I know you’re going to kill me, what difference does it make how I die? Move toward me, and I throw the ladder away as I jump. Dying that way is quicker and less painful than facing your knife.”
Mason knew she was telling the truth. His mouth tasted like it had filled with ashes. His knife hand shook.
“So get rid of the knife and climb back to the top and wait,” she said. “All I want is a head start. Let me get to the bottom. If you start chasing me again, I’ll do this again at the next ledge. Whether you’re trapped here or one or two ledges below, it doesn’t matter. You’ll still be trapped.”
“You expect me to let you escape.”
“We both live,” she said, “or we both die. Your choice.”
The light shifted away from his face. It lowered, showing the dark shadow of her lower body on the rock floor of the ledge. He focused on the thick iron hooks, where the loops of the rope ladder should have been.
Nothing. She hadn’t lied. The ladder is gone.
The light shifted to her feet. She’d placed the loops around her left ankle, the leg closest to the ledge, and her heel was off th
e ground. If she moved slightly, the weight of the rope would slide down her foot. The ladder would be gone. Mason croaked, like the low croak of a raven that had wrapped its talons around his throat. In that instant, he fully understood the horror of it. Trapped. No food. No water. If she jumped, he would not even have light. The worms of terror began crawling under his skin.
“If you were on the other side,” she said, “this wouldn’t have happened. But the others can’t be found.”
“Others?” Mason wanted the conversation to continue, because he’d just noticed something. She’d made a mistake. The drop-off was to her left, but straight behind her was a sheer rock face. She was only ten feet away. If she fell backward, he’d have her.
Keep her talking. He shifted the knife slightly.
“Bar Elohim did not win,” she said.
“The soldiers captured everyone,” he answered. Keep her talking. “You saw that.”
“The Clan has not been destroyed.”
He wanted her. Dead. He wasn’t going to retreat. He shifted the knife slightly. What he was going to do was fire it into her chest. She’d fall backward. Forward, the rope ladder would slide off her ankle. Backward, it would go up her leg. He’d be on top of her before she could move.
“You can’t do it.” He moved a step toward her, intending to distract her by talk and by movement. “You don’t have the steel to jump. You’re just a girl. You want to live so bad, you won’t drop that ladder.”
“You’re wrong,” she said.
With the snakelike quickness that had always given him so much pride, he snapped his wrist, firing the knife through the air, expecting to track her fall by the way the light moved.
There was a barely discernible thud above the noise of the water. She cried out in pain.
Mason leaped forward, but the light didn’t move backward. It moved sideways. Out into the chasm! Plummeting into the darkness.
She jumped.
Then Mason blinked in disbelief as the light defied gravity, as if it had landed on an invisible hand, and then it began to turn in a slow circle.
FORTY-EIGHT
Pierce cinched a life jacket on Billy. “This should do it.”
Because of Billy’s size, it had been a struggle to adjust the straps. He held another life jacket in his arms, in case the first one didn’t provide enough buoyancy.
Theo, Gloria, and Pierce already wore theirs. The group had reached a long, low cavern with a river flowing strongly through the center.
Jordan had to raise his voice from his wheelchair. “I need to repeat this, in case you’ve forgotten already. The river runs through about a half mile of rock until it reaches Outside. Most of the way, there’s enough room to keep your head above water. In places, though, the water level reaches the ceiling of the rock. You’re going to have to hold your breath and trust that there’s only ten or twenty seconds until you have clearance again. When you reach open air, you’ll be Outside. People there always watch the river for refugees. You’ll be taken care of. I promise.”
Pierce laughed too. Billy thought laughter seemed out of place for Pierce anywhere, but particularly in an underground cavern. Particularly now.
“Hey,” Pierce said, “the man sending me down this river is the man I was sent to arrest. But I guess I won’t even remember that he saved my life.” Billy watched Pierce look at Jordan. “You’re still a wanted man. If you ever get Outside, I’ll have to hunt you. If I’m allowed to keep my job, that’s my duty. You know that.”
Then Pierce stepped away from them and fell backward into the river.
Billy helped lower Gloria into the river. Then Theo.
Jordan trained a flashlight on Gloria and Theo, showing them in life jackets as they bobbed down the subterranean river. Within seconds, the current took both of them into a passageway that had only about a foot of clearance above the surface.
“Your turn,” Jordan said to Billy.
“Okay,” Billy said. He pointed upstream, where it appeared that the river simply came from a wall at the far end of the cavern. “Where does this water start?”
“On that side, the passageway is completely underwater for about a hundred yards.”
Billy nodded as if it mattered. It turned out that it did.
Jordan cared a great deal about the river’s flow. They’d come in through a tunnel that bypassed the waterfall. But on the other side of the cavern, a hundred yards upstream, was where the giant subterranean waterfall fed this river.
Where Caitlyn would be making her escape.
Jordan had a sense of unease. He’d half expected she would already be here.
“You ready?” he asked Billy.
“Yes sir.”
Jordan turned the flashlight toward the river to guide Billy’s steps. That’s when he saw it.
A snake riding the current.
No, not a snake, but thick rope.
He played his flashlight on it. It took several seconds to realize that the rope was part of a long ladder, undulating with the water.
The rope ladder from the other side. Nearly instantly, Jordan realized the implications. If the rope ladder had fallen from one of the ledges, there was no way down.
Caitlyn! He needed to get to the other side, to the base of the waterfall.
He grabbed Billy’s life jacket just before Billy stepped into the water.
“Pick me up!” Jordan said. He trained his flashlight beam on an exit tunnel. “Run with me! There!”
FORTY-NINE
Caitlyn was in the air. She felt it rush against her face. A roar in her ears from the waterfall.
And stabbing pain in her right shoulder from Mason’s knife.
She’d seen the shift of his knife hand and had been preparing to jump even as Mason took the first step toward her.
She shouldn’t have answered when he said she wouldn’t jump. She should have just jumped, as her instincts screamed for her to do, and coldly left him there to die. She had done enough, offering that they both could live.
But he was a killer and she wasn’t, so she hesitated.
When his hand began to move, she’d finally leaped toward the chasm. Too late to avoid the knife, but enough of a shift that the knife struck her shoulder instead of the center of her chest, below the throat.
Now she was in the air, the spray of the waterfall reminding her that the water would slam her down if she ventured too close.
She banked away from it.
Banked. As in soaring. Through the air.
That’s when she realized what was happening. The pain had distracted her. Until now, discovering the sensation of banking in the air, with the updraft of cool air holding her aloft, making instinctive moves that she couldn’t have explained to anyone except herself.
Her arms were spread in the Iron Cross that she’d spent her entire life perfecting, and not even the embedded knife could diminish the strength in her locked joints and muscles.
Her outstretched fingers supported another incredible sensation. The ends of the wings that pressed against her arms, with tips that flexed as easily as moving fingers, subtly making adjustments to the flow of air.
Her wings.
She gloried in the sensation of freedom. The miner’s light on her forehead gave ample illumination for what she needed, bouncing off the face of the rock as she approached in a slow, wide circle.
She banked again, riding the updraft.
The light glinted off the waterfall, showing scattered diamonds of moisture as spectacular as a shower of stars.
Another slight flexing of her wing tips and she soared away from the danger.
She felt no fear. Just amazing comprehension, an understanding of the trembling that had first taken place at the edge of the chasm, the urge to throw herself into the depths, an understanding of the ache for freedom she’d always felt on mountainsides with Papa.
This was her destiny. Where she belonged.
That hideous bursting of her back had been like stepping f
rom life through death into life again. Even then, she hadn’t quite comprehended what had sprung forth, folded inside the hunch, growing until her time had arrived.
But now she understood.
Her arms pressed against the wings, and her wings pressed against her arms, a fit so secure that by bringing her arms forward, her wings moved with them. It was a tentative movement, but she discovered that even this slight attempt gave her lift.
Another beat of her wings, levered by chest muscles that had become indefatigable through all the years of holding the Iron Cross. Another upward lift. She wasn’t just riding the draft like a glider but was actually able to move at will.
It gave her a deep, unspeakable peace. She longed for open air, a place to swoop and dive and rise again.
Yet even as she gloried in the realization that this was who she’d been meant to become since birth, the pain in her shoulder grew.
She felt faint as she banked again to dodge the other side of the chasm. Edges of blackness crept in at her vision.
Her light showed another ledge with a rope ladder in place for her to descend. This would be safest. If she lost consciousness in the air, she was dead.
But she would be just as dead if she crawled onto the ledge and let the blood seep from the knife wound in her shoulder. Except that death would be the death of a creature of the earth. Not one born for the sky.
She banked away again.
At the bottom of the chasm was the river that Jordan had described, a tremendous flow of water that disappeared into the rock, flowing for a mile underground before it came out. It would sweep her to a different kind of death, where water filled her lungs and matted her wings.
But also at the bottom of the chasm was the second rope bridge that Papa had promised, the one that would take her to the others.
If she could reach it, or reach the tunnel the bridge led to, she’d find the others. She didn’t want to die now, not so soon after discovering this glory.
Broken Angel Page 20
