Page 45 of Clay

Clay imagined him disconnecting, heard them begin to move through the darkness again, heard Hamilton say, “Come get your bitch before she takes a dive.”

Cali leapt forward as she saw something Clay hadn’t. When he saw Ivy teetering on the edge of yet another bottomless shaft, his heart simply stopped.

She was poised on the edge, her hands still bound behind her, the gag cutting into her mouth again. Her eyes were wide with terror. She knew that she stood at the rim of the shaft but had no idea what movements she could make to get to safety. She was starting to sway, just the slightest bit, as fatigue and disorientation and terror surged through her body in a potent hormonal cocktail. Clay knew what it felt like to look death in the face. He’d been there himself.

He could hear Hamilton moving away, not even bothering to hide his movements anymore. He tapped Cali three times on the shoulder, indicating that she should pull right, go after Hamilton.

She nodded and began to move after their prey, her feet silent against the grit of the floor.

“I’m coming for you, Ivy,” he said quietly, oh-so-quietly, not wanting to give Hamilton a target to shoot at. “I can see you, you’re going to be just fine, but I need you to hold very, very still.”

He saw her nod, saw the moment when that tiniest of motions changed her balance, began to tip her toward the abyss.

“No,” he shouted and lunged. Felt his foot drop into an unseen hole, went lightheaded as he almost face-planted in the dirt,pain screeching through his body as the screws holding his ankle together ripped loose from their moorings in bone.

But he made it, latched onto the cuffs with his left hand as Ivy’s momentum pushed her forward. They hung like that for precious seconds.

He heard her screaming beneath the gag and realized she had no idea what was happening. “I’ve got you,” he grated, “but I’m stuck.” Pain lashed through him again, so intense he thought he might pass out. “I won’t let go, but you have to give me a second.”

He didn’t know how much she’d heard, only that her screaming stopped and full body tremors began. He wasn’t sure if they were hers or his, to be honest.

He pulled her back an inch, then two, then another until she fell backward, landing on her ass, dislodging his hand from the cuffs. The jolt made him grey out for precious seconds, and then she was beside him, making ungodly noises from behind the gag.

He reached up and pulled it down. “Shhh, Ivy. We’re fine.” He was, in fact, not fine at all. “I don’t know where Hamilton is. Cali’s gone after him, but we need to be quiet until he’s neutralized.”

She hiccupped and let out a watery, “Okay. What can I do to help?”

He smiled through the agony. “Stay right where you are,” he gritted out, “while I get my foot free.”

He awkwardly levered into a sitting position, stifling a shout as he pulled his leg out of the hole. In the grey-green light of the NVGs he could see the awkward angle of his foot and knew they were fucked. The only way he was getting out of here was on a backboard, just like before.

“Remember when you told me how limber you were?” he said, trying to interject a bit of humor into the situation when all he felt was despair. If Hamilton circled back, they were dead. Yeah, he had a weapon, but they were out in the open, sitting ducks.

“Really, that’s where you’re choosing to go right now?” she whispered back, but there was a smile in her voice.

“Do you think you can get your arms in front of you, rather than behind?”

“Oh,” she said, getting his point. He saw her tuck up her legs and scootch until her arms passed beneath her butt, then her legs. She was indeed limber.

“Okay, now what?”

Good question. He hissed out a breath, then gave it to her straight. “My ankle is screwed up pretty bad. There’s no way I can put weight on it, so right now we’re going to sit tight and let the rest of the team do their job. But first, we’re going to move up against the cave wall. It’s directly behind you by about five feet.”

They both moved backward, she hampered by the cuffs, while the pain radiating from his ankle had a cold sweat popping out on his face and raised his heart rate to levels he was positive were unsafe as hell. But they got there, the rough wall cold against their backs.

She snuggled against his side. “Don’t suppose you brought a key for these cuffs.”

“I wish one of us had thought of it. It’ll be in our go bags from now on,” he promised. The pain was beginning to subside, and he wondered if it was because he was becoming numb to it, if it had been so intense it had basically shorted him out. “Tell me a story, something even Katie doesn’t know.”

She hummed for a moment, then he could actually hear her smile as she began. “Well, I have been arrested before. I guess you should know that.” She’d made her tone carefree but kept her voice low. She knew they were still in danger.

“But we ran you,” he said. “You don’t have a record.” Her story was doing what he’d needed, shifting his attention away from his ankle.

“I said I’d been arrested. Never booked. I was working on a project near Fremont and there was this Karen who thought I was, and I quote, ‘a hooligan up to no good.’ She called the cops, saying I was defacing public property. I, understandably, was pissed as hell, and may or may not have appeared to be threatening her with a beat down when the cop rolled in. He cuffed me, which made her deliriously happy, then pulled the permit out of my backpack.”

Clay was so into the story he almost forgot about the fact he was going to be laid up for a long damned time after this. The secret seemed to be holding his leg completely still. And not think about it.

“What happened?” he whispered.

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