Chapter 46
FORTY-SIX
An iron ladder, leading into darkness. Holly clung to the bars, following Reese’s steady movement down.
“Guy who built this was a survivalist.” His voice echoed oddly—she could hear the dimensions of the slightly sloping shaft, the roughness of rock walls. Instinct told her the ladder was safe and solid enough, but her breath came in little sips.
It was so dark.
“He was sure the government was going to come and take his guns,” Reese continued, calmly. “Or that his creditors would show up. It changed from day to day.” They had been climbing down for quite some time, and her arms should have been aching.
They weren’t.
Her own voice took her by surprise. “What happened to him?” Thin and reedy, as if she was having trouble breathing.
Reese had led her behind the big humming thing—geothermals, he told her—and heaved at a well-hidden trapdoor.
Now it was a climb down and his steady heartbeat, her own pulse going much quicker, thumping in her ears.
“He sold out and went to Peru. Something about a valley he could hole up in, fight off the rest of the world. He was obsessed with square-foot gardening and panning for gold.”
Sounds like a real winner. Holly decided the cabin’s former owner sounded in fact, like Phillip, only without Phil’s determination to get through med school.
Funny, but the thought of her ex-husband didn’t hurt anymore. “Is he still there?”
“Don’t know. Never wanted to find him.”
“But what do you think?”
“I think he got there, but he probably found out it wasn’t the place he wanted.”
“Oh.” More descending, her arms and legs moving like clockwork. I should be tired. I should be terrified.
Well, she was plenty scared. The hollow thudding of bullets, Cal’s arm soaked with blood, everything left behind again—she should be screaming bloody blue murder.
Instead, she was just following Reese. Tagging along, her body moving with dreamlike efficiency.
No nausea, no weakness, no hot bar of pain buried in her back.
Still alive. For however much longer.
“Anyway, when they put this in, he had them leave a shaft. For maintenance, but then he came down over a couple years and did some work. Just in case.”
“In case of the government?”
“Yeah, well, ironic, isn’t it?”
“Very.” Who was the woman using her voice now? Her breath had come back, and Holly realized terror wasn’t the problem.
The problem was that she wasn’t terrified enough.
The old Holly—the tired, dying waitress—would still have been screaming her lungs out and quite possibly sobbing after being shot at.
This new woman, full of a virus that had shrunk the tumors like sugar lumps under running water, was simply climbing down a ladder and trying not to fall.
Funny, nothing had mattered when she knew she was terminal. It was so much easier. Now she didn’t know what the hell to do, think, or feel.
The end came as a surprise—Reese’s hands at her waist, he lifted her down with thought-provokingly casual ease.
The darkness was a living thing, pressed against the borders of her body.
Reese curled a hand around her nape and pulled her forward.
Holly didn’t resist, burying her face in his chest, breathing him in. At least he was just the same.
Holly stays with me. He wasn’t going to leave her behind just yet.
She could sense his head tilting, listening intently.
“Nothing,” he whispered. “Bad tactics, to warn two agents in a hide.”
“That was a warning?” Her voice didn’t shake.
Much.
“All three of us as pretty targets, lead sprayed everywhere, and only Cal winged by a ricochet? Maybe it was bad luck or incompetence, I don’t know.”
Her fingers were numb, though not with the cold. “God.”
“Don’t worry. The angle was wrong to hit you.” His gloved fingers tensed, massaging the back of her neck.
Oh, that’s so comforting. The little movement did comfort her, though. “Great. Reese?”
“Hmm?”
“Cal. How did he even get here?”
“By asking himself what he’d do if he was me.” Reese paused. “If he had to keep someone safe.”
“And just like that, he found you?”
“He had files detailing my domestic jobs.” Tension now, invading his larger frame bit by bit. Would she have noticed it before?
Domestic jobs? “I don’t even want to know.” But she did, Holly realized. She wanted to know who this man was. The hoarse, gentle voice while she writhed with fever, or a killer?
Oh, sure, he had all sorts of euphemisms for it, and Cal probably did, too. It hadn’t hit her before, but getting shot at was probably a good way to concentrate your mind. She was in the dark, being hugged by a man who had probably committed murder.
Not probably, Holly. Definitely. The vision of two shapeless lumps on her apartment floor, mercifully darkened like everything before she woke up this morning seemed to be, hit her again. It had been so much easier when nothing mattered.
“Sooner or later, you will.” Reese actually sounded a little sad. “I’m a monster, Holly. But at least I’m on your side.”
Well. That’s one way to put it. “I don’t think you’re a monster.” Even if he’s killed people, Holl? Really? “But why are we down here?”
“Because this is another way out. We’ll surface a couple klicks from the cabin.”
“In the middle of the woods.”
“Have some faith in me, baby.” His breath was warm in her hair.
I’m not screaming and running away. “Have you... Reese, have you killed people?” Well, duh, obviously.
“I served my country.” Harsher, now, and he let go of her. Not all the way—he reached down, and his fingers became a loose bracelet on her wrist. “That was part of the deal.”
“Do you—did you like doing it?”
“What?” Baffled now. He stepped back, and she wondered if he could see in the dark. “No. Sometimes I had to. But I don’t kill children.”
Oh, that doesn’t sound good. “You didn’t—”
“Let’s go.” He set off into the darkness, and she had to stumble after him.
“Children?” Hardly the optimal time to ask, but then again, there probably was never a good time for this kind of conversation.
“They sit in offices and make decisions, and the agents do the dirty work. Maybe I shouldn’t have tried to stay a little clean. You can hate me all you want.”
“I don’t—”
“Can you be quiet? I’ve got to hear what’s going on topside.”
She strained her own ears, but heard nothing but heartbeats and her own ragged breathing, Reese’s inhales smooth and deep, his exhales long and shallow.
If she made him angry, would he just abandon her? Then what would she do?
You’re smart, Holly. You’d figure it out. After all, there was no cancer now. It was like living in a prison, then waking up suddenly to find yourself free in a sunny green field.
God, what I wouldn’t give for some sunlight now.
Life wasn’t about what you wished for, though. At least she’d learned that lesson on her own.
Holly set her chin and followed the tugging on her wrist, into the uncertain future.