Dangerous Ground

by Grant, Rachel

  Harness on, with just enough rope measured out so he’d land short of the floor of the lower chamber—presuming the fragile floor of this chamber held—Dean crawled to the edge and looked for the easiest spot to go over. “Found a decent handhold.”

  He pivoted his body, sliding so his legs dipped over the ledge. There was a cracking sound as his weight pressed down, and she held her breath. But once his legs and hips were over, the rock held.

  He met her gaze as she stood by the pillar with their packs, just in case the entire floor should shatter. The rope was firmly tied to the pillar now, no need for Fiona to act as a brake for him.

  They’d both switched their headlamps to red so they wouldn’t blind each other, and she couldn’t see his blue, blue eyes in the red glow that filled the chamber. “Be careful,” she whispered.

  He nodded and slipped over the edge, his fingers shifting from rock to rope to control his descent. After a moment, he said, “I’m on the ground. It’s solid.”

  She was desperate to run to the edge, but she knew better. Instead she called out, “You okay?”

  “Fine.”

  When he didn’t say more, the tension that clawed at her belly sent bile up her esophagus. “What do you see?” Yesterday, she’d asked that question and he’d said, “Wonderful things,” quoting Howard Carter.

  “Blood,” was his answer today.

  She closed her eyes. She’d give him a minute. Hell, she’d give him an hour if he needed it.

  He didn’t find a body.

  Right now, that was all that mattered.

  After a long interval, Dean said, “I’m ready for you to send the packs down.”

  Lowering the packs was easy and accomplished in a minimum of time, and then it was just Fiona, clipping her harness to the knotted rope.

  She crawled to the edge of the hole and looked down. “Ready for me?”

  “I’ll catch you,” he promised.

  She closed her eyes and held her breath. This was far less scary with Dean below her, but still, thoughts of her dad and Regan were unavoidable. Plus, she worried about the floor giving way and rocks tumbling down on him. They didn’t even have helmets, which, she knew, Dylan had always worn inside these caves.

  Slowly, she slid her legs off the edge.

  A shoelace caught on a sharp rock protruding from the thin, three-inch-thick floor lip, and she shook her foot in an attempt to free it. When that didn’t work, she kicked back more forcefully. The lace came loose, but her hands also slipped on their hold as the floor cracked.

  She grabbed for the rope but missed and didn’t have time to blink before she was in free fall, a shriek coming from her throat.

  Strong arms caught her. Dean pulled her to his chest as his knees bent with the impact of her weight, but he stayed on his feet, even as rocks rained down.

  She grabbed at his neck, holding him tight. “I’m sorry!”

  He held her to his chest. “What for?”

  “Are you hurt? Did any of the rocks hit you?”

  He released her legs so she could stand, wobbly though she was, and the arm behind her back pulled her tight against him. “I’m fine. Are you fine?”

  “I think so.”

  “Then we’re good.”

  “I screwed that up.”

  “Doesn’t matter. We’re both fine. Now shush and let me hold you.”

  She gripped him tight as tears poured down her cheeks. She cried silently, but he had to know she was crying from the way her body shook. He said nothing, just held her, stroking her back and hair.

  She finally lifted her head and met his gaze. They still used the red headlamps, and his skin glowed like a blood moon. She stroked his beard. “I’m so sorry for everything that’s happened, but at the same time, I’m thankful that of all the people in the world, you’re the one who’s with me.”

  His look was intense but somehow still warm, fierce even, as he held her. “I was thinking the same thing. I hate that you’re having to deal with all of this and yet so grateful for your help.”

  She gave a sharp, bitter laugh. “You mean like I helped by collapsing the very fragile floor-slash-ceiling?”

  “Sweetheart, cut yourself some slack. No harm, no foul.”

  She wanted him to kiss her, to escape this horrific situation with passion, but all at once she remembered where they were and why they were here, and she was a little horrified by her selfish desire.

  She pulled out of his arms. “Show me what you found.”

  TWENTY-SIX

  The blood-soaked cloth was one of the ubiquitous Pollux Engineering light cotton tote bags. It could belong to anyone, but Dean knew in his gut it was Dylan’s. Had he left it here on purpose? The floor all around the bag had dark-brown stains that were likely more blood. How badly had he been injured?

  The amount of blood looked bad, but some wounds bled a lot without being serious. Of course, any injury down here would be serious.

  But if he’d eaten the MRE, that meant he had his pack, right? He had food. Maybe first aid. Maybe that bloody sack and empty food bag were nothing but a fuck you left behind for whoever he’d been fighting with up above.

  Had they left him for dead when he fell?

  “We need to explore this tube,” he said to Fiona. “See if—I mean how—Dylan got out.”

  She nodded.

  He could see the exhaustion on her face. They’d been going for hours and hours, one terrifying moment after the next. She needed a break.

  “Scratch that,” he said. “We’ll have dinner here, then grab a few hours’ sleep.” He glanced at his watch. “It’s dark outside anyway. Even if we find an exit, we need shelter for the night.”

  She gave a sharp shake of her head. “I’m exhausted, yes, but we need to keep going.” She glanced up at the gaping hole in the ceiling and the rope that hung down through it. “I can’t sleep under this opening. What if Victor comes after us? That rope would lead him right to us.”

  “Okay, we’ll explore a little more; then we’ll stop for the night.”

  They donned their packs once again and set out. There was only one direction they could go from here, and after a day of hard decisions, Dean was glad this was one he didn’t have to make.

  Unfortunately, the only tunnel was small, and they were on hands and knees. He led the way, as he’d been doing all day, and now he had an added fear of what he might find around every corner.

  Is Dylan dead?

  He didn’t want to imagine it. Didn’t want the words to cross his brain, but he had to acknowledge the possibility after seeing evidence of a fight in which his brother was surely the loser.

  All at once, the tunnel seemed to close in, and he couldn’t breathe.

  He stopped and attempted to take gasping breaths, but no air entered his lungs.

  “What’s happening, Dean?” Fiona’s voice was surprisingly calm even as she asked the alarming question.

  “Can’t . . . b-b-breathe.”

  Sounds behind him—barely audible over his gasping breath—told him she was crawling closer. He felt the press of a hand on his calf, and she squeezed, making sure he could feel the contact through all his layers of clothing. “I’m here with you. I’ve got you.”

  He was so damn thankful for her voice. Her touch. She was a pinpoint, a star in the vast heavens to fixate on and find his way. He couldn’t see her in the dark tunnel that pressed around him so tightly, he could only face forward. But he could feel her. Hear her.

  He was Orpheus and she was Eurydice, following his path out of hell.

  He wouldn’t make Orpheus’s mistake. He’d keep moving forward. And when they got out of this tunnel, they’d set up their one sleeping bag, and he’d hold her in his arms. He wasn’t alone in this. He wasn’t alone in his quest for answers either. She was right there with him, hoping to find Dylan almost as much as he was.

  She cared about Dylan.

  And Dylan had wanted her. Goddamn it, he’d make that happen. He couldn’t
give up hope now.

  Air filled his lungs. Panic receded. He had a goal now. Reunite Dylan and Fiona, so Fiona could fall in love with the best, most worthy man Dean knew.

  Slowly, he began to crawl again. After a long stretch of silence, he spoke softly into the void behind him. “Thank you.”

  “You’re welcome.” Another moment passed; then she added, “And thanks for being human. I was starting to feel so inadequate.”

  He snorted. “Sweetheart, I am far too human.” Like the fact that he wanted his brother’s girl for himself. That was all flawed humanity right there.

  “Nah. I’m pretty sure you’re a superhero pretending to be mortal.”

  “Who’s your favorite superhero?”

  “Male: Black Panther or Captain America, with a soft spot for Spider-Man in an Aunt May sort of way. Female: Wonder Woman. Who’s yours?”

  “Totally Black Panther. I want to go to Wakanda on assignment. I mean, it’s not even the hero so much as the world. The continent of Africa is amazing, but Africa without colonization? That would be . . . I don’t even have words for it. I just want it to be true.”

  The walls of the tunnel widened a bit. His breathing was steady now, but he was ready to quit for the night too and hoped there was a chamber up ahead that would make a good campsite.

  At last, after nearly thirty minutes of achingly slow crawling, they reached a wide spot on the inside-the-mountain corridor. The ceiling was low—only five feet in places that didn’t have spikes hanging down ready to jab them in the head—but it was an irregular heart-shaped room that was about twenty feet wide at the apex and fifteen feet from the notch in the heart to a rounded point at the bottom. It would work as a camp for the night.

  Fiona joined him in the wider space, and they both turned on their white lights to examine the chamber. His heart rate kicked up as it appeared to be a dead end.

  No. No. No. No. No. This couldn’t be it. It wasn’t the end of the line.

  He crawled toward the rounded part of the left side of the heart, where there was an irregular pile of rocks, gravel, and cobbles. It was . . . different. They hadn’t encountered anything like it in the other tunnels.

  “It looks like the ceiling collapsed over there,” he said. “Closing off part of the room?”

  “Or a tunnel.”

  His light scanned the jumble of rocks and stopped on a mark on one of them. He crawled forward to get a better look. He was a foot away when he was certain of what he was seeing.

  A bloody fingerprint.

  He shone the light over the gravel and cobbles, and the truth became clear. It had been an opening, not too long ago. But something—an explosive maybe—had collapsed the tunnel, sealing it shut.

  Had Dylan been inside the tunnel when it collapsed?

  Dean must’ve snapped a hundred photos of the bloody fingerprint and collapsed tunnel. Fiona didn’t dare interrupt him as he processed what it all must mean. She was just beginning to process it too. They were going to have to crawl back and climb the rope and make their way back, retracing their steps to the entrance they’d run through so many hours ago, in hopes that it wasn’t filled with rubble.

  “We can . . . see if we c-can dig our way out,” she said softly. “Either here or at the front.”

  Dean’s eyes were red-rimmed and haunted when he turned to face her. “Most of these rocks are too big. No way can we move them.”

  “We have rope and tools. Leverage. We can try.” She refused to give up this last hope without a fight.

  “You see the thumbprint? You know what that means?”

  She nodded. “Dylan was here.”

  “And he went that way.” He nodded toward the wall of piled rocks.

  He didn’t say the words, and she wouldn’t make him. They both knew what it all meant. The evidence of the fight on the glassy rhyolite floor. The blood in the chamber below. Dylan was injured and he’d tried to escape, but they caught up with him and destroyed the tunnel, killing him in a way that ensured no one would ever find his body.

  But then, what were the odds of anyone tracking him this deep in the volcano? No one but Dean would have gone to these lengths to find a man they’d made sure everyone believed had flown home with Sylvia Jessup.

  And they’d smeared his reputation in such a way to practically guarantee everyone would hesitate to reach out to him.

  Including Fiona, but for a different reason. She’d wanted Dylan to reach out to her for help, instead of offering to vouch for him when she didn’t know the details.

  She’d played right into their hands.

  She realized Dean had gone frozen, staring at the fingerprint, and placed a hand on his shoulder. “We need to set up camp. Eat. Decide on a location for the latrine.”

  They were breaking every rule of volcanology and Aleutian fieldwork with their every rock can be a latrine policy, but they didn’t have other options and survival came first, last, and always.

  If she got written up for this, the navy could enjoy knowing she’d piss on her resignation letter before sending.

  For the first time, she realized she was very pissed—pun intended—at her boss and other higher-ups in the navy for giving Pollux so much free rein on this project.

  She tugged at Dean’s arm, then crawled away, hoping he would follow to the smooth patch of floor where they’d left their packs. Even if he didn’t, she’d set up their bed and cook their dinner. The fish would be thawed by now, so they’d have salmon cooked on a skewer over a Sterno flame.

  It took only a few minutes for her to set up the inflatable insulated pad and tuck it in the bands beneath their one sleeping bag. She then went into the most private alcove there was in the mostly open room and relieved her bladder. She washed up with hand sanitizer—saving their precious water, as it had been hours since they’d crisscrossed with a stream—and pulled out the fish steaks they’d enjoy for dinner.

  She was absolutely starving, and not entirely certain they’d ever find an exit, so she decided to splurge and cook all four pieces of fish. Fish didn’t keep after thawing anyway.

  She had the Sterno can lit and the first two pieces cooking on a skewer before Dean finally joined her.

  “Sorry,” he said softly.

  “No worries. It was my turn to cook anyway.”

  After the fish was cooked through, they left the small can burning, giving them a tiny bit of heat and a semblance of candlelight as they ate their dinner.

  It was uninspired, plain food but still better than dinner at Canlis with an entitled jerk. She leaned against Dean as she ate, licking the juices that dripped onto her fingers.

  Like her, he made noises of appreciation as he ate. It was amazing how good food could taste when you were on the run in a volcano after being shot at and almost dying a few times. Or something. She’d kind of lost track of the situation.

  After they finished, they split a strawberry shortcake–flavored protein bar for dessert and drank a small ration of water. They had plenty of MREs and other food, but water would be limited unless they could find another stream.

  After washing up with more hand sanitizer, she leaned against him again. They’d been largely silent as they ate, but now there was nothing to occupy them but their thoughts, and she had a feeling he was as eager to escape his as she was hers.

  “I’d kind of like to get stinking drunk, but I know this isn’t the place to risk alcohol dehydration.”

  “Same. But we can have a few sips without risking harm.”

  He pulled out the bottle and took a long drink before handing it to her. With only the blue flame from the Sterno can lighting the room, it felt so very intimate. Romantic even.

  Without thinking, she asked the one question she shouldn’t. “Why does Dylan think your playboy lifestyle is a coping mechanism?”

  TWENTY-SEVEN

  Of all the questions for her to ask him tonight, that one was a sucker punch. But also, he wanted to answer. Wanted her to know why he was off-limits. Then
she could choose Dylan freely. Without hesitation.

  Every time his brain strayed to what he’d found in this chamber, the collapsed tunnel, he shut that thought stream down.

  First, he had to focus on finding a way out of here for him and Fiona; then he could process that.

  For now, he had to convince Fiona he wasn’t the guy for her. Dylan was. “My wife died when we were both twenty-five. Violet had a brain tumor. After taking care of her for two and a half years, watching the woman I loved lose every part of her life, one piece at a time, and hating the universe for the fact that when she finally took her last breath, it was a horrific relief, I decided that I was done with relationships. I had my great love. Now sex is . . . just sex.”

  Lonely, maybe. But still, a connection with pleasure, no matter how brief.

  Fiona had gasped when he first started speaking, but by the time he’d reached the end, she’d gone completely silent. He wasn’t even certain she was breathing.

  Finally she said, “I’m so sorry. I can’t imagine how horrible that must’ve been.”

  “Thank you.” His words were the barest of whispers. It had been so damn long since someone had offered him sympathy for losing Violet. But he knew that was because he told no one about her. The only person in his current circle of friends who even knew he’d once been married was Dylan. He’d cut off all the friends he and Violet had shared when his life had been consumed by taking care of her. He’d seen them at the funeral, but he’d left the next day for Africa and never looked back.

  He hadn’t been able to return to that world, that circle of friends, because it made Violet’s absence all the more painful. The jokes she would have laughed at, the tears she would have shed—both happy and sad—as their friends experienced marriage, childbirth, and their own tragedies.

  He didn’t regret that choice now. He couldn’t. He’d done what he’d needed to survive. But now it was ten years since he’d last held Violet in his arms. Since he’d kissed her beautiful face and said goodbye. Only Dylan knew what September 23rd meant to him. The day she’d left the earth. Both freeing him and breaking his heart all over again.