Darkness(61)

“You mean, being quiet?” Was there a hint of humor in his voice? “I thought that’s what you wanted me to do.”

If he’d been able to see it, the look she turned on him then would have fried his eyeballs.

“Why don’t you go explore more of the cave?”

“I don’t like leaving you here alone in the dark.”

“So give me a flashlight.”

“It’s the leaving you alone part I don’t like.”

For a moment, neither of them said anything more. He sipped more water. She tried to keep her mind blank. But his words sent a fresh niggle of fear slithering through the mental barriers she was busy erecting.

“You think somebody could be in here?” She cast a nervous glance toward the impenetrable darkness he’d just walked out of.

He shrugged. “Possible. Not likely. I didn’t see signs that anybody’s been here in years, and as far as I can work out, unless somebody already knew this cave was here, they haven’t had time to find it. And they’d have no reason to be looking for it. We just got here ourselves, and they can’t know that this is where we’d head.”

That made her feel a little better.

“You think they’ll find it?”

She could feel his shrug. “If they look long enough.”

“It’s pretty well hidden.”

“Yeah.”

From the tone of that, Gina gathered that he thought that wasn’t an insurmountable barrier. He sipped more water. She tried, unsuccessfully, not to think.

“Do you think Arvid was dead?” She couldn’t help it: the words pushed themselves out before she even knew she was going to say them, a result no doubt of the thought continually preying on her mind. “I mean, obviously he is dead. I know those men will have made sure of it. But do you think he was dead when we left him there in the river?”

“Yep. Believe me, he was dead before he hit the water.”

She slanted a look up at him. “How could you possibly know that?”

“I know, okay? Trust me, I know.”

Funnily enough, she did trust that he knew, although what that said about him, and about her for not being horrified that she was sitting here so companionably with him, she didn’t care to think about.

Still, she couldn’t just leave it. She needed more. “How do you know? The tough-guy version of female intuition?”

“There wasn’t a follow-up shot. If he’d still been alive when they reached him, there would have been.”

To be fair, she’d asked the question. It was her own fault if the answer made her dizzy. Anyway, as horrible as that was to think about, it relieved her worst fear: that she’d run away and left her friend behind to die without even trying to help him. She let out the breath that she hadn’t realized she’d been holding in what she hoped was a nearly soundless exhalation. To her chagrin, her lips trembled in the aftermath.

“Nothing you could have done,” Cal added. She guessed that either he’d heard the sigh, or that with her face silhouetted against the marginally lighter entrance to the cave he could see her profile and had seen her lips tremble.

“I know that.” She sounded defensive, she realized, and pressed her lips together to keep them from trembling again.

“He the reason you’re crying? Arvid?”

“I’m not—” Gina began, her voice tight. But he knew better, and she knew he knew better, and suddenly she didn’t feel like pretending anymore. “I hate that he died like that, okay? I hate the idea that I just ran away and left him to die like that.”

To her horror, she felt tears welling up again and closed her eyes tightly to keep them from spilling over. When that didn’t work, when tears slid down her cheeks despite everything she could do and she felt him looking at her, she scrambled to her feet and started blindly walking away, back the way he had come, into the darkness that was the interior of the cave.





Chapter Twenty-One





Gina,” Cal called after her. “Hold up.”

It was, literally, so dark that she couldn’t see her hand in front of her face. Gina was having to feel her way along with her hand on the cold stone wall, but she didn’t even slow down. Not that she was going very fast to begin with, but still.

The sliver of light caught up with her before she made it much farther along the narrow passage. He was right behind it, his arm brushing hers as he fell in beside her. Fortunately, she’d had just enough time to swipe her eyes with her shirt, and to get the damned tears under control.

With his fingers covering it, the flashlight provided no more than a minimal amount of illumination. Even with him walking right beside her she didn’t think he could actually see her face. That being the case, she was glad of his presence. Or, more precisely, glad of the flashlight that was moving over the rough stone floor in front of them to illuminate the way, even if it only brightened up the darkness slightly. Otherwise she’d be worried about breaking her neck.

“I’ve got the flashlight. And the gun. You want to wait for me,” he said.

She made a noncommittal sound. At least, she’d meant it to be a noncommittal sound. What actually came out, to her horror, was more like a sniffle.

She could feel Cal looking at her. Then he said, “You’re right. You shouldn’t have left him. You should have done what you threatened to do to me: gone all ninja assassin on those four heavily armed military types and saved your boyfriend. Except, wait, he’d been hit by a bullet from a sniper rifle and was already dead before anybody had time to do anything.”