Forgotten Love: An Action-Packed Adventure Romance (The Forgotten Chronicles) (5 page)

"I can't!" she screamed. And swung away again.

"Yes, you can. You can do this, Gillian." He looked back up at the broken hole, the flashlight finding the tightly stretched line of her rope sliding roughly against the edge with her motion, the sharp rock sawing into it.

Trying not to think of what might happen if her rope became completely severed, he concentrated on her. "Gillian, look at me."

She did, and he noticed her trembling lip and the tears that traced lines down her cheeks.

"Gillian," he spoke softly, calmly. "You can do this. Reach out to me."

She stared at him, swinging close, then away, close, then away again. "Promise me you won't let me fall."

"I promise. I promise not to let you fall."

She swallowed, then nodded her head and slowly reached out her hand.

He caught hold of it on his next slow spin, holding it tightly in his, and finally his spinning stopped.

Just as her rope snapped and she fell.

The hard tug on his arm as he held fast to her nearly dislocated his shoulder. He groaned and strained to hold her as she screamed.

He needed to think of a way out of this. Quickly.

"Gillian, I can't...I can't hold you much longer," he called out to her.

Panic rose in her voice. "You promised you wouldn't let me fall!"

"I won't! Gillian, I promise I won't. But my arm is going numb and I need you to grab onto my legs. Can you do that?"

Her answer was less than convincing. "I can try."

"Good. Good Gillian. Reach up with your other arm and wrap yourself around my legs. Good, that's good. Just like that. Now I'm going to let go of this arm and you're going to hold on—"

She did it while he talked her through it, and soon she was holding him around his legs just above his knees, a death-grip that she had no trouble maintaining.

He let the blood flow back into his sore arm, pins and needles radiating along the skin. They were in one of the worst spots he'd ever been in. And considering some of the tight fixes he'd gotten himself into, that was saying a lot.

"Are we going to die?" she asked him.

"No, we're not going to die."

"How do you know?"

"I don't know, but I'm telling you I'm not going to let us die."

The feeling had returned to his arm, although he knew it would be badly bruised tomorrow. For now, they just had to live that long.

"Okay. Here's what we're going to do. I need you to climb up and get on my back."

"Oh, is that all?" she said. He could feel her shaking.

"It'll be easy. Just use my belt and my pack for hand holds. I'm going to help you."

She managed to grab his hand as he lowered it down to her again, and pulled herself up to his belt. Then higher, up to the harness, and with a few painful digs into his shins she got herself around to his back. From there she could wrap her legs around his waist and her arms around his chest.

"Better?" he asked.

She nodded into his shoulders. "What happens if your rope breaks too?"

Then we both fall to our deaths, he thought. He didn't say that to her, though. "We'll just have to get somewhere safe before that happens, won't we?"

"I'd like that," she muttered, her face buried against the back of his jacket.

He considered climbing up his rope. But he didn't know if he would be strong enough to pull them both out, and he had the fear about the edge of the crack cutting through his rope. Unfortunately that only left them with one alternative.

"Gillian, can you pass your rope to me? I mean, take it out of your harness and pass it to me?"

He felt her moving behind him, her one hand fumbling for the rope while her other clutched desperately at the front of his jacket. A minute or so later she was reaching around him, the length of blue nylon rope that had fallen with her in her fist.

"Here," she said.

"Good. Now, hold on tight."

She panicked and held tighter to him, but all he was doing was tying the cut end of her rope to the end of his. He estimated that they had fallen about thirty feet, until the knotted end of their ropes had caught against the brakes in their harnesses. Tying the end of Gillian's rope onto his own would allow them to descend thirty more feet. Hopefully from that distance, they could at least see the bottom of this cavern. Hopefully.

Using a double fisherman's knot to tie the ropes together wasn't easy. Not with both him and Gillian weighing down his line. When it was done he tugged on it as hard as he could from this angle. It held.

But to be sure, he took the bracelet off his wrist and started uncoiling it.

"What's that?" she asked him.

"It's a paracord bracelet. It's a line of parachute-grade cord wrapped over and over itself to form a neat little package."

He tied one end of the paracord to his rope, and then wrapped it around the knot he had made several times, tying the lower length around Gillian's rope. It couldn't hurt to have some extra insurance that the two ropes would hold together.

"Are you honestly doing what I think you are?" Gillian asked, watching him over his shoulder.

"Um. You're going to want to hold on really tight."

"Oh God help us, you are." Gillian tucked her head into his back again and held on for dear life.

He wrapped the loose length of Gillian's rope around both of his hands, twice, and said a quick prayer as he did. He figured it couldn't hurt.

Now for the hard part.

"Gillian, I want you to hold on tight, okay?"

"Did you expect me to let go?"

"Uh, no, I guess not. Just hold on. This is going to get a little hairy."

Carefully he set the secondary carabiner on his harness onto the new length of rope he had tied to his own. Thirty more feet. Didn't seem like much.

Letting the secondary carabiner take their weight Theo detached the primary from his own line. There was a quick twang as their weight shifted, but the knot he had tied held.

"Okay. Here we go."

Letting off the tension a little at a time from where his fists held the line, he lowered them down about a foot at a time into the space below. His flashlight was still on, but its beam still found the same, empty space.

Theo was sweating by the time the yellow marking ring came into sight on the rope line. Ten more feet to the end.

Theo swallowed hard. This was not looking good. At all. Unwinding his left arm from the rope he shone it straight down. Darkness. All around, darkness.

Moving darkness.

He scrunched up his brow and tried to focus on what he was seeing in the beam's light. There was something there. A rippling, fluid movement, as if he were looking at—

"Water!" he cried out loud. "Ha! There's water down below us."

Gillian shifted herself on his back just enough to peak down. "Water? How...how far down?"

"Well. Let's not worry about that right now. For now, let's just be happy that this pit isn't bottomless and we have somewhere to go."

"You want us to go into the water?"

"I want us to live, yes."

"You're crazy! There is no way I'm going to go down th—"

The rest of what she was going to say was lost to a scream as the jagged edge above finally cut through Theo's rope as well. They fell the rest of the way through space, splashing into freezing cold water below.

Chapter 6

OUT OF THE
frying pan, into the fire.

Theo actually would have preferred a fire to the wet chill of an underground river. But he was grateful just to be alive.

He wasn't sure Gillian shared his sentiment.

Shivering uncontrollably, she clung to him still, their heads bobbing above the rapid current of the water, and with every breath she cursed him, cursed Saul, cursed life, and anything else she could think of. He figured it was a good sign. At least she wasn't too scared to speak anymore.

The variety of swear words she knew surprised him.

"Where do you think this river goes?" she asked him after two or three minutes of helpless floating.

"East."

"You have no idea..." shivering interrupted her harsh words. "No idea...how much...I hate you...right now. Just a...short jaunt...my ass!"

He brought her closer, held her tight. She didn't try to stop him.

The current took them down an ever-narrowing tunnel that closed in on them from both sides. The narrowing of the channel caused the river to flow faster and faster. Theo could see the slick rock walls, but couldn't make out any details other than dark colored stone. Now and again there were flashes of lighter colored veins, minerals or precious metals, or God alone knew what.

"There! Gillian there up ahead, do you see it?"

The flowing river bent sharply not twenty feet from where they were and where it did the tunnel flattened out on the right, creating a flat ledge. The water swirled there in a slow eddy before it continued on.

"Can we...can we reach that?" she asked him.

Theo didn't answer. He was already angling closer to the right side, reaching out with shivering hands to catch at the rock ledge, his fingers slipping and his body being violently knocked about again and again until...

His hand slipped off entirely and they were caught in the slow whirlpool.

"Fuck!" she blurted out in frustration.

"I know, I know! Hold on. The current is bringing us around again."

He was ready this time. He bent his knees up, bringing his feet out, and when they struck the edge he pushed up as hard as he could and then heaved Gillian onto the rock ledge. It was enough to get her top half over the edge even if her legs were still being pulled along by the water. He reached underneath her and grabbed her by the ass for a handhold and shoved. Her hands scrabbled for any hold she could find and finally, between him pushing and her pulling, she was climbing up and over.

And the current took him again.

"Damn it!" he yelled. He tried to catch any part of the smooth ledge as he was pulled past but there was nothing to hold onto.

"You grabbed my ass!" she was yelling, kneeling at the edge, her voice indignant.

"I saved your ass!"

She was still shivering, curled up on her knees, arms crossed over herself, water sluicing from her hair and clothes. She needed his help.

He blinked at that thought. He was the one still in the water. She was safe on dry ground. Was he really more worried about her than he was his own life?

He shook his head, wiping water from his eyes. He had to save his own life first, if he was going to be any help to Gillian. He was coming around again, for a third time, and he didn't know how long the current would hold him in this eddy before kicking him out and sending him shooting further downstream. He tried the same trick again, raising his feet up, bracing for the impact with the wall.

When it came, he pushed as hard as he could.

And his one foot slipped along the rock, leaving him floundering. Some days he wondered if maybe he should just stick to being a professor. His head went under, and when he came up again it was to the sound of Gillian calling his name. The rock ledge hit him hard against his shoulders and his back and he desperately grabbed with both hands at the slippery smooth rock, finding nothing to grab onto, nothing to hold, nothing...

Until Gillian grabbed him with both hands and tried to hold him against the current.

She was down on her knees still, and as he tried to pull himself up he only succeeded in pulling her down flat onto her stomach against the cold, hard rocks. But she pulled, and he pulled, and then he got his feet braced and he was climbing up, climbing out, and then they were both out of the water and she kissed him hard on his lips. He was so surprised that he couldn't do anything except feel the kiss, the smoothness of her lips, the force she put into it. And then she suddenly pulled away.

"I'm sorry," Gillian whispered to him, sheltering herself within his arms, shivering violently.

"Don't be," he said. "It was an in the moment sort of thing."

"I mean... I said...some very...nasty things to you...in the water."

"Don't worry about it, Gillian, I've heard worse. In several languages."

So they were just going to ignore the kiss then. Fine. It was ill-timed and ill-advised. Theo could feel himself shivering. His teeth clacked together when he talked. He figured he probably had the same ice crystals forming in his hair as she did in her damp and tangled red strands. But he could tell that the frigid temperatures were affecting her more than they were him. The water dripped off her hair and her jacket and her skin. They couldn't stay here. They'd freeze to death if they didn't move.

"I didn't...mean...it," she stuttered.

"Mean what?" He was rubbing her back now, trying to work some comfort into her body.

"I didn't mean...that I...hate you."

"I know."

"You...know?"

"No way you could hate me. You kissed me."

"Did...not."

"Yes, you did." He wouldn't let her try to say it didn't happen now.

"What...ever. Can we just get out...out of here?"

Fantastic idea, Theo thought. But, how?

He aimed the flashlight back up the river, the way they had come. The current flowed strongly, water stirring and churning. "Can't go that way," he decided out loud. And there was no way he was going to chance riding the river further down. Not in their state.

So he turned the flashlight back and forth around them into the darkness. He could see how on this side of the water, the rock ledge continued on, forming a cavern of sorts. He couldn't see the other end of it. But it went in a direction that was away from the river. Good enough for now.

"Come on," he said to her. "This way."

"Is it the way...out?"

"Do you want the honest answer or do you want me to lie?"

"Just...shut up."

They started out, carefully placing their steps on the rock that was slick with spray from the river and from thin patches of ice. Theo felt the water dripping off his clothes, felt the bite of the cold on his skin. And he knew Gillian felt it worse than he did. This way had to lead them somewhere.