Page 47 of The Gambler's Prize
“Think so.” I test my limbs. My ass aches, but no real harm done. “There must be an old mine shaft here.”
“Yeah,” he says. There’s a strange smile on his face. “I found it a while ago.”
“You knew this was here?Thiswas what you wanted to show me?”
“In a manner of speaking,” he says.
There’s a note of triumph in that pretty smile now. Then it dawns on me. He planned this?
“You did this,” I say.
He nods.
“Why?”
“Why?” His eerie calm evaporates, and he explodes at me. “Because you do nothing but treat me like shit. You fuckinghateme and I have no idea why. I was willing to serve my two years and dig your stupid foundations and build your stupid boxing gym. I was even willing to kiss up to your stupid ego and call you Boss. Cook and clean for you and follow your stupid rules even though I might as well be in prison.” He stops to take a quick breath. “But I’m not going to hang around here and be treated like a piece of dirt on your shoe.”
I stare up at him, feeling like a fish caught in a net.
“This is about what I said yesterday, about you ruining everything,” I say.
I’m struggling to sound calm and logical, trying to marshal my temper. I’m still livid after the letter from the bank, the death of my dream, and it’s all Florian’s fault. But the strategic part of me knows that I’m in a perilous position here. I’m well and truly stuck in his net. I shouldn’t anger him.
“It’s partially about that,” he says. “But that was just the last straw. Don’t pretend that you’ve ever been nice to me.”
“No,” I admit.
“Well,sometimesyou are,” he says. “And then you take it all away again. Which is even worse.”
His anger gives way to confusion, and there are those big, vulnerable blue eyes, letting me right into his thoughts. Then he stands up straight, and I see his resolve strengthen. His expression sets into determination. He folds his arms. He looks harder than I’ve ever seen, less naïve and innocent. Fear starts to gnaw at me. There’s no way out for me, unless Florian decides to rescue me. I must be fifteen feet down.
Although… when it was a mine shaft, there wouldn’t have been a platform here to catch me. I would’ve plummeted down and down and broken my neck when I landed. The thought makes me feel ill.
“Did you put the wooden platform here, Florian?” I ask.
“Yes, Boss,” he says, with mocking emphasis onBoss. “Because I don’t want to kill you. I just want to get the fuck away from you.”
Like I’m diseased or something. He makes it sound as though I poison everything I touch. That stings in a way that doesn’t even make sense. Of course he wants to get away from me. Of course I haven’t treated him well.
I retreat into practicalities. How did he even pull this off? He must’ve gotten a clawed ladder and some wood from one of my outbuildings and dragged them all the way out here, then climbed down and planted his trap. He might’ve had to widen the top of the shaft a little to get the platform in, being careful not to collapse the whole thing, then wedge the wooden board into the narrower shaft below. A tricky operation. An operation I would’ve considered beyond him.
Then he came home and kept right on chatting to me and looking at me with those innocent eyes even as he knew this trap was here waiting for me. When did he rig it up? Maybe when I ran over to Breta’s for an errand or something. I’ve been leaving him alone, trusting him not to run off. It didn’t occur to me he would be capable of something like this. Maybe he didn’t mean to use it, only as a last resort. When I pushed him too far. When I told him he ruins everything.
Though I had every reason. I could tell him the truth, about prison and Jos and the letter from the bank, all of it. He’s softhearted as well as selfish, I have to give him that. He might be shocked into feeling bad for me. He might decide to show pity and pull me out of here. I look up at him looking down at me, so beautiful and aristocratic and far above me, literally and metaphorically.
Fuck him. I don’t need his pity.
“You know, if you would just say please, just once, I’d let you out of there,” he says.
I shut my mouth tight. I must look ridiculous and pathetic stranded fifteen feet below ground level, but I absolutely will not beg Lord Florian Southland for mercy. I’d rather die. Which is a distinct possibility when darkness falls and the temperature drops as harshly as it soars during the day.
“Suit yourself,” he says.
He adjusts his perfect hair and steps away. I lose my view of him. After a moment, all I can see is a circle of blue sky. The restricted view reminds me painfully of the tiny square of sky I could see from my prison cell. Sheer loneliness feels like a weight on my head. I hear, or possibly just imagine, the sound of vultures in the distance, just waiting for me to die of thirst or exposure.
When I’m absolutely sure Florian is gone, I start trying to climb out of the hole. My fingers scrabble at the red earth, desperate for grip that just isn’t there. Bone-dry dirt falls on top of me, making me cough and choke. Panic starts to weave its tendrils around me. There’s nothing to hold onto. A few wizened roots poke out of the soil, brittle skeletons of old vegetation, but they aren’t strong enough to hold me, snapping under my weight. If I keep this up the sides of the shaft are going to fall in and bury me alive. I sit down, coughing hard, wishing I had a drink. My limbs feel heavy with fatigue already; panic is surprisingly tiring. The silence is deafening. Florian has gone. There’s no one coming to help me.
A voice whispers at me to give up: it’s over. I’ll never get out of here, and even if I do I’ll never make anything of my life. I’m branded a criminal. Only good for the vultures. For fuck’s sake, even the famously corrupt Galbravan bank refuses to allow me to run a business. Everything is ruined, thanks to Florian.
