Page 9 of Wired Ghost

“What have you been able to determine about this chamber?” He finally asked.

“They stripped us of everything in our pockets, so I don’t have anything to use for light. I didn’t want to start exploring because I have a sense that this is a roomy cavern, and I didn’t want to lose track of you while you were unconscious.” Sophie’s voice continued to be eerily calm. “I’ve established a five-foot perimeter around our drop site.”

Jake craned his neck to look up overhead. “How far up is that?”

“You’re wondering how we got in here.”

“Yeah. And how high we have to climb to get out.”

“I don’t think climbing out is going to be possible. The overhead hole is at the top of a sort of stone bubble. They threw you in first; I took a minute to look around while I had some illumination and could see that the walls were out of reach of the hole at the top. So there’s no way to climb back up to the opening from below.”

Jake swore; Sophie stayed silent, maybe because she’d had fifteen more minutes than he had to assess their situation.

“How are you staying so calm?”

“I was trapped in a lava tube for days on Kaua`i, remember? I mastered my fear and disorientation then.”

“I’m feeling really dizzy.” Jake lay back down. “I need a minute.”

“The disorientation goes away eventually,” Sophie said. “You come to trust that what you think are the edges of your body, really are what you think they are. But it’s a weird feeling, kind of like you’re floating in space or something. No one tells you how crazy it makes you to completely lose your sight.” Sophie patted Jake gently, establishing the position of his body, and then hooked an arm under his. “Let’s get out of the filth of the trash pile. They chucked everything in here; fortunately, it was a big enough heap to break our fall into the pit. But no reason for us to wallow any longer in their shit. Literally.”

Jake couldn’t control the nausea rolling through him this time. He dry-heaved into the slime, muck, and garbage as they crawled through it onto a dry, rough area.

The tiny, faint circle of light above them got even further away.

Chapter Six

Sophie

Sophie wishedshe weren’t so familiar with the bizarre subterranean environment of the lava tube, but she’d been involved with finding a boy who’d fallen into one of the tubes formed by underground rivers of lava, and been trapped there with him for a time until their rescue.

All of the disorientation from sensory deprivation that Jake was feeling was something she’d already experienced and, eventually, bested.

She helped her groaning partner out of the immediate area of the rubbish pile and into the darker edges of their prison as her mind ticked over their situation.

They had been chucked down here to die, and to judge by the smell at the edge of the pile, they weren’t the first. The feral grin on Lia Ayabe’s narrow little face as she supervised the disposal of Jake’s beaten, unconscious body into the hole, and then did the honors for Sophie herself, was not something Sophie would easily forget.

Sophie had fought to get away. No sense, anymore, in meekly letting them throw her in the pit when their only possible hope might be escaping to fetch help. She’d gotten in some good licks on the hired hands, but with Jake out of commission and possibly badly injured, she hadn’t wanted to make the situation worse. She’d been dragged to the edge and pushed in to fall twenty feet to land on the refuse pile by that evil little bitch, Lia, herself. Once they’d been searched and all weapons or useful tools removed, and their identities verified, O’Brien had cheered Lia on.

“These two aren’t even real cops,” he’d said. “Collateral damage in the game of love, my dear.” His lilting Irish brogue made his foul words even more repulsive. “We’re moving out, anyway. The lava’s unstable and I don’t like the look of the news reports out of Kilauea’s seismic monitoring center.”

The girl was only seventeen years old, but if she’d ever had a conscience, it had been wiped out by using meth and her relationship with a sociopath.

And now they had to find a way to stay alive and get out of here.

Kendall Bix, their President of Operations, had the coordinates of the camp. If they didn’t check in by tomorrow, he’d mobilize a rescue team. By the time he did, the meth gang would be long gone. They just had to hang in there and wait for help to arrive and find them.

Sophie no longer cared what happened to their target. That kid had made her bed.

“We need to stay alive until tomorrow, when Bix checks in and we’re not responding,” Sophie told Jake. The cavern was surprisingly large, but she finally reached the rocky wall and settled her injured partner against it. “We’re going to be fine in here until then.”

“Speak for yourself. I’ve definitely got some cracked ribs, maybe worse,” Jake said. “My nose is bleeding again.” He sounded stuffed up.

Sophie sighed. “They sure enjoyed kicking the shit out of you. But I didn’t go into the pit without a fight. I wanted to escape and get help, but that evil little girl shoved me in here herself.” The picture kept playing in her mind over and over: Sophie held up at the edge of the pit by two of the flunkies as Lia Ayabe, little and cute and young, had charged at her and slammed two hands into her chest, knocking her backward with only pinwheeling arms to break her fall.

She’d been very lucky that Jake had rolled part of the way down the trash pile, because she’d landed so heavily the trash still bore the imprint of her body. “I’m not exactly in great shape, either.”

They commiserated over each other’s injuries, but in this filthy dark cave there was simply nothing to be done about them.

---