Page 24 of Wired Ghost

Likely this mysterious Connor had planted some sort of tracking device on one of them.

There was nothing to do but agree. “Copy that.” Raveaux ended the call with a punch of his finger, and bit back his frustration at the wasted time and effort of the current search and rescue operation.At least they had Lia Ayabe in custody, and her father would pay the tab for all of this.

The chopper was heavily loaded, once the perps were secured on board. Comms buzzed with talk as the lieutenant arranged for transport to the jail for their captives, but all of them in the craft fell silent as they flew over a churning river of lava below them.

“Holy shit,” the lieutenant said, his voice low with awe.

The liquid rock was moving faster than any of the videos Raveaux had seen of Kilauea’s normal eruptions, faster than anything they’d seen thus far. The glowing stone flowed in chunky, red, cresting waves that lifted, formed, collapsed and dissolved, smoking as they melted back into the current of magma. Along the edges of the fast-moving river, fantastical, lacy black formations piled up, only to be pulled back into the stream and disappear.

The color was so intense that it hurt Raveaux’s eyes to look at directly, even through his tinted visor.

“How could they survive that?” Ohale said what Raveaux was thinking. His question seemed to echo inside Raveaux’s helmet. Raveaux closed his eyes, and did the only thing he knew to do: he prayed for Sophie and Jake.

He didn’t believe in God anymore, but still he prayed.Maybe God still believed in them.

Chapter Seventeen

Jake

Exhaustion caughtup with Jake and Sophie after their bath and lovemaking; they’d both been so tired they’d barely been able to keep their eyes open enough to rinse their filthy clothing in the hot spring. Putting the wet garments back on after getting cleaned up had seemed too hideous to contemplate. That left them naked, which wasn’t a problem once Sophie discovered a depression in the stone next to the pool that was naturally heated.

“Burying himself in sand and pebbles was how the boy I rescued kept warm while he slept,” Sophie told Jake. “We can do the same.” They lay in the depression and scooped pebbles and coarse sand from the bottom of the hot spring, using it to cover their bodies as they rested.

They’d decided to put out the torches to save oil while they slept; but the lighter lay right at the edge of their wallow. Jake practiced finding it with his eyes closed several times, before they took the step of dousing the light.

Sophie fell asleep in his arms immediately once they were semi-buried in the warm pebbles, but Jake couldn’t seem to.

He kept opening his eyes, which was a mistake. The blackness was absolute and indistinguishable, whether those orbs were open or shut. As he’d experienced before, it was disorienting. He had no sense of direction. His ears seemed to buzz with interior noise, seeking to fill the void of sight, and the edges of his body felt like mere suggestions. He might not actually be present in this particular time and space, but floating in some black amniotic universe of pre-existence.

“These thoughts sound like philosophy,” Jake muttered, to hear the sound of his own voice. “Or like something out of theLord of the Rings.” He shut his eyes. He had to tune into his other senses, ground himself in this particular moment, tether himself tonow.

Sophie was in his arms: warm, present, real, breathing softly as she slept. Everything was okay right now, even if his empty belly growled and gnawed at his backbone and the bruises of his beating sent up an ugly chorus. The hunger pangs would subside and come back eventually, but hunger wasn’tpain.Wasn’t any kind of real distress he hadn’t been through before. The beating had been bad, but he’d known that kind of pain plenty, and he was healing already.

Nothing kept him down for long, not even being buried alive. He was master of his body, and its discomfort didn’t bother him.

Jake stroked gently down Sophie’s side, from her shoulder to her thigh. She was wedged against him in the hollow, with pebbles and sand surrounding them in an oddly cozy subterranean blanket.

Warm skin. Soft hollows. Firm muscle. Strong bones.The weight of her head, pillowed on his bicep.

Jake slid his hand down to rest lightly on Sophie’s belly. Her soft, quiet breathing lifted and lowered his hand.

Actually, everything was wonderful right now.

Sophie had once needed absolute darkness to sleep at all—a relic of her time living under the cruel hand of Assan Ang, her sadistic ex-husband. She was comfortable in the dark. And if she wasn’t afraid of their current situation, if she trusted Jake with her body and her life enough to let go and sleep, then he could relax too. Sophie was wise enough, smart enough, strong enough, and loving enough for both of them.

Gradually Jake’s breathing synced with hers. He floated away into a deep, fathomless rest.

* * *

The ground vibrated.

The blackness whined and creaked.

Jake pulled Sophie beneath him to protect her, curling his body instinctively over and around hers. Small stones struck him, falling from above.

Then the darkness heaved, bucking and groaning and shrieking, the sound of a volcano in labor.

Sophie and Jake both cried out, but their voices were lost in the chaos of sound around them. Hot water splashed over their vulnerable nakedness, burning their skin. Jagged bits of falling rock peppered Jake like shrapnel.

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