Partners In Crime Part 3

Jack’s fingers dug into her arm. “Push,” he gritted out.

“I can’t,” she whispered. Every instinct in her demanded that she retreat and end this horrible pressure against her chest. Fresh air. She desperately needed fresh air. And to stand, and to see sunlight and to twirl around in a circle with her arms flung out to simply feel the empty space around her.

She began to shift toward him. Jack tried to push her back with more urgency.

“I’m outta here!” she said louder. It cost her precious oxygen, but she didn’t care. Her mind was made up. She wanted the horrible cavern back.

“Go.” It took her a minute to make out the word. It sounded less like a command and more like a gurgle.

She shook her head, uncertain and suddenly terrified by his tone. His face was much too pale. By the thin light, she could see his Adam’s apple bobbing…gasping…

“Josie…can’t…breathe. Forward!”

She moved. Panic overloaded her system, not for herself but for him. She’d forgotten how much bigger he was than her. His ribs were being compressed, shoved into his lungs, rearranging his diaphragm and cutting off his circulation. For the first time, she realized the fingers gripping hers were dangerously cold, icy cold.

Her bloody hands pressed against small indents in earnest, and she slid herself backward like an eel wriggling through a light socket.

Move, move, move. Get him out of here!

Her hard hat pressed against the ceiling. She’d forgotten to take steady breaths, and dots appeared before her eyes. She was hyperventilating. She couldn’t breathe. She was trapped.

She was suffocating.

Move, move, move.

Her hand slid out, too slippery to grasp the rocks. She dug in her toes, pulling, pulling, pulling, flailing like a drowning fish.

Abruptly her feet burst free. She could taste air—cold, clean air. Wonderful air! She kicked her feet as if doing the doggy paddle and felt only vast, luxurious space. They had made it!

And then she realized for the first time that Jack’s hand was no longer moving. He didn’t rub her hand in reassurance. He didn’t urge her forward. His eyelids had collapsed. His body was going limp.

Panic burst. She searched vainly for a foothold, found a crevice, and dug her toes in.

“Come on, Jack!” she cried. “Come on, you have to help me here. We’re almost there, we’re almost there.”

But when she tried to wriggle out more, her handcuffed wrist brought her up short. Jack wasn’t moving. She was trapped with her hips and legs free, but her torso wedged into the tiny space.

She was the worm, stuck halfway out of the ground.

“Move, dammit! Move, Jack, or I will kill you myself. You stubborn, stubborn…”

She ran out of air and words. She slapped him instead. Hard. His eyes, glazed and oxygen starved, fluttered open. “Come on, Jack. Move. Move. You promised. You promised.”

And in the dark tunnel, Jack moved. He weakly pushed her forward and whispered, “Go, Josie. Go!”

“Damn you!”

She was crying. She didn’t feel the tears. She wrapped her bloody hands around his wrist and she pulled. She pulled so damn hard she should’ve yanked his arms out of their sockets and then she pulled some more.

“Exhale, Jack. Now.”

They rasped forward a few precious inches.

“Again.”

Her shoulders broke free. And Jack’s fingers went limp. She was losing him. She was losing him to the stone and the mountain and the thousands of pounds of rock collapsing his chest.

Pull, pull, pull.

Dammit, pull.

Her neck corded. Her teeth gritted and veins popped up, and for a horrible moment, they still didn’t move. He was stuck, so tightly stuck. She squirmed, he groaned, and the minute she heard the release of air, she pulled once more.

They moved. Slowly, horribly, painfully. She could hear the rocks grating against his skin. She could feel his icy, numb hand.

“Come on, Jack.” One inch. She pulled harder. Two inches. Her muscles roared while lights danced in front of her eyes. The top of his head appeared, blond hair so dirty and dear. “Don’t die on me, Jack, don’t die on me. Don’t die on me.”

She wept and she pulled and she wept.

And then his head broke free and shoulders broke free and a minute later he slithered to the floor.

“J-J-Josie,” he gasped.

“Stryker, Stryker, Stryker. Damn you!”

She wrapped her arms around his shoulders, rocking him like a baby and sobbing against his hair.

Chapter Eleven

Jack hadn’t been lying—you could fly a kite in the cavern. Maybe a couple of kites. The ceiling yawned above Josie so high her light bounced off distant crystals and wet rocks as if they were distant stars or the misty Milky Way. The cavern embraced the nighttime sky, took it inside the bowels of the earth and claimed it as its own. The air was rich, moist and fresh, replenished by unseen holes in the rocky ceiling. Josie inhaled deeply and greedily. She imagined she was sleeping beneath a vast awning of tree branches, feeling the cool night air on her face and listening to crickets.

She wanted desperately to be anywhere other than beneath ten tons of rock and earth and mountain, pressing down, down, down. Jack’s silent, shuddering body was sprawled beside her.

Josie made herself move. She clambered wearily to her feet and tugged Jack up with her. His nearly naked body swayed dangerously. Immediately, she offered a supporting hand, but he winced as her fingers brushed his raw, torn up skin.

“Are you all right?”

“I feel like I’ve been through a meat grinder.”

Josie fell silent, trying to keep calm. She was faring better than Jack, it was up to her to keep them moving. They were both very tired now. They’d gone too long without food or water. Adrenaline and fear had milked their muscles dry, and now they stood bonelessly, too fatigued to think. In the meantime, the cool cavern air hit the perspiration coating their skins, chilling them too fast for safety.

Josie had her orange jumpsuit, but Jack could only shift in place for warmth, his threadbare socks and B.V.D.s not offering enough cover for a tropical beach, let alone an underground cave. His dress shirt still hung in tatters on the handcuffs between them, but he appeared too tired and dazed to put it on.

“We need water,” he mumbled thickly. “The…cavern…”

Josie frowned, not understanding, but then her ears picked out what her eyes couldn’t—the rhythmic sound of water slapping against stone.

“Okay, Stryker,” she said firmly. “Time to move.”

He gave a hoarse bark of laughter that ended as a groan.

“Come on,” she said, hands on her hips, face determined. “You were a Boy Scout. Surely you can handle more than this. Time to march!”

“Yeah.” He tried to step, but his overwrought muscles gave out and his legs folded beneath him instantly. He grimaced, his hands struggling for something to hold on to. “I swear I didn’t think I’d had that many beers,” he muttered.

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