Chapter Thirty-Two
TALIK
If Talik stayed still long enough, the pain stopped. Until he had to breathe again.
They were sitting on the highest ledge, the ceiling a good three feet above them.
Across from them, the causeway had long ago disappeared.
Despite their position, his feet now skimmed the surface of the water.
It wouldn’t be too long before they wouldn’t be on dry land, not that they technically were.
The water had begun to lap at the ledge.
He glanced across at Khalida. Somehow, he’d convinced her to come back to where he was, in the opening, but her fear of the water kept her in place, leaning against the wall.
If he stretched out, he could graze her ankles with his fingertips, but despite their physical closeness, she felt forever out of his reach.
Left alone in her own world. Adjusting himself, he scowled at his clothing.
It had long ago started to chafe, the material had not been designed to be submerged.
Talik had lost count of the number of times he had dived in and searched for another way out.
The tension in the air was increasing, and there were only so many times he could observe Khalida wiping down her perfectly dry swords and knives. She always needed to be active, it helped her think, or at least that was what she used to tell him.
“Say it.”
Khalida looked at him, her eyes narrowed in annoyance.
He could deal with an angry Khalida. “The swords are clean, couldn’t be cleaner even if you tried. Excluding the obvious, what exactly are you thinking about?”
For a second, he thought Khalida was going to unleash on him. Or stab him. At this point, he would welcome either.
She lowered the sword she was wiping down and placed it on her lap. Folding her hands together, she looked him straight in the eye. Unflinching. “What did you mean when you said it was your fault? You said it multiple times when you were unconscious. It was like you were talking to someone.”
Taken aback by the question, his mind went blank. “I was hallucinating, and I don’t remember—”
“Talik. Don’t lie to me. We are likely about to die down here. At the very least, you can be honest with me,” Khalida slowly said. “What was your fault?”
“We aren’t going to drown,” he automatically answered, trying to buy himself some time.
Her words hit him like a punch in the sternum.
The memories of Ninhursag in his mind slammed into him.
If he hadn’t been on the ground, he would’ve stumbled.
He leaned against the rock face, welcoming the feel of the jagged edges. It was a reminder that he was alive.
Talik swallowed. He had thought about how this conversation would go far more times than he would ever acknowledge.
Each time it ended in heartache and a hangover.
But when he opened his mouth, his throat was thick.
He was too much of a coward to tell the truth.
The memory of Sidra too raw. “It’s my fault.
I threw the grenade. I am the reason why we are trapped here. ”
Khalida moved closer to him, straddling him as she pinned his shoulders to the wall. This time her rage was tinged with her growing desire. Her silver-blonde hair fell down her face, the curls wild and untamed in their natural state. “Talik. Don’t lie to me.”
There was nowhere he could go, even if he wanted to.
“Khalida.” Her name was a whisper on his lips.
A dream he had stopped wishing for centuries before.
His heart raced at her closeness. The water dripping from him did nothing to keep him cool when desire and the poison continued to run rampant through him.
As a human, he had never assumed he would live past eighty years of age, had counted every extra minute after his hundredth year as a bonus, a gift from a god who had abandoned him.
Now, faced with his potential mortality, it was a different story.
Talik gripped her hips, needing the contact, wanting to memorize her shape and scent.
He was already the reason why their daughter had died.
He would not be the reason why Khalida perished.
“I’m waiting.”
She leaned forward until their foreheads were touching, their breaths intermingled.
He opened his mouth to respond, but he didn’t know what to tell her.
Guilt had made him ashamed, and he had known that if he wasn’t around, she could have returned to her old life.
The one she had been born into. It was so much harder to put that into words.
There was still a chance they would get out of there.
And when they did, he would tell her whatever she wanted.
The rock above them splintered, the loud echo barely penetrated his mind. All he could think about was how Khalida’s body melded to his perfectly and how she always tasted like coffee with a hint of sweetness.
Crack.
A line in the ceiling widened, the crack growing exponentially larger as it speared toward the center of the cavern. Chunks of rocks and dirt started free-falling into the water. The splash jolted him back to his surroundings.
He grabbed Khalida, rolling her over so she was underneath him, as the rocks hurtled down around them.