"Good." Luke's warmth was a welcome solidness at her side. "I'm glad."
At his words, Micki turned to him with a new sense of understanding of his vulnerability. When they both struggled together in the dark she could forget, but now she was suddenly, acutely reminded of it. For him, there was no light in the darkness, and yet it was he who reassured her.
Reaching out impulsively, she brushed the backs of her fingers against his cheek. "How are your eyes?"
Startled by the touch, Luke jerked, and then recovered to place his hand over hers. "They're okay," he said, giving her fingers a quick kiss before releasing them. "It's all going to be okay. We're going to get out of here and kick the butts of Van Allen and company."
"Of course we are," Micki agreed, wondering just when she had begun to doubt it. She began to push herself to her feet. "So we'd better—"
Luke restrained her, tugging on her hand. "Wait, I think we need to take a break."
Micki regarded him in the pale beam of her flashlight, unsure whether to agree. To stop was to waste time. She played the light over the area to get an idea of their location. What she saw drew a gasp from her and a concerned question from the man beside her.
"What's the matter?"
Micki warily took a few steps forward to confirm what she suspected. The three choices leading from the small chamber before them were mockingly familiar. All that groping around in the dark had caused her to miss her own X markings and now they were back to where they started—again.
Her groan brought Luke groping his way to her side. "Micki, what is it?"
"We're back to where we came in. For the second time."
"Oh."
In the silence that followed, Micki realized another important fact. There were no sounds coming from the direction of the cleft. None. Surely Dirk hadn't given up that easy and simply gone away?
"What are those clowns doing out there?" she voiced the thought aloud.
"Micki, wait."
She shrugged off Luke's restraining hand and slipped forward to peek about the rock corner that had earlier sheltered them from the angry spray of bullets. When she shone her light into the tiny passage, it revealed a patch of gray concrete, horribly solid and silent, sealing the cleft.
Dirk had walled them in!
Unable to believe it, she swept the beam over the area and glimpsed a sheet of paper lying on the floor. Micki stooped to retrieve it, and then read it by flashlight as she retraced her steps to Luke. There was a roaring in her ears, and it was with a sense of stunned detachment that she felt his hand on her shoulder.
"Talk to me, damn it. What's going on?"
"They cemented us in," Micki said, her voice stirring bleak echoes throughout the chambers of stone that now felt like a tomb. All her strength was spiraling away, given to the hungry darkness by the words she had just read. "We couldn't get out the same way we came in, even if we wanted to."
"Well... we'll just have to find another way out."
"Yeah." Shuddering, she called on anger to push away the sick terror. "Yeah," she repeated more determinedly. No way was she giving Dirk and his cronies the satisfaction of dying in here. No way. Crumpling the note into a tight ball, she fired it in the direction of the new cement then reached back to grasp Luke's hand. "Come on, there's no sense in wasting time here."
"I heard paper." Luke refused to move, holding her hand to anchor her in place. His voice lightened in an attempt at humor. "Reynolds didn't leave us a map, did he?"
"Not bloody likely." Micki tugged hard, drawing him a step forward. "I'm not sitting here waiting to die and neither are you. Come on."
"They left a note, didn't they? Tell me what it said."
Micki's grip tightened on the flashlight. Soon she was going to have to turn it off again. It looked like they were going to need the weakening battery for a long time yet.
"Micki?" Luke gave her a tiny shake. "Tell me."
He deserved to know. Drawing a deep breath, she steeled herself for hearing the words aloud. "It said—"
Echoes ran before them so she softened her voice, not wanting to hear the words again and again in a hateful litany.
"It said, 'There's no way out. Die good and slow.'"
"Micki, do you hear that?"
She came to a stop in the dark. Absolute blackness had been hanging on her shoulders like a thick, cold coat for the last three hours; ever since the flashlight had died. "Hear what?"
Luke's warmth was her only reassurance now, his voice a welcomed whisper against her ear. "Dripping water."
She strained to hear through the blackness cloying her senses. "I can't—"
"No, running," he corrected. "Maybe it's an underground spring."
The parched desire for a drink of water set her in motion at a frenzied pace. "Or it could be rain," she said, dragging Luke forward with her. Her hopes grew as she deliriously considered the possibility. They had been wandering aimlessly in these catacombs for half the night. "Maybe it's a way out!"
They'd gone another fifty feet and around two curves before she finally heard the water. With that recognition came a blinding flash of diffuse light that caught her unawares.
"What is it?" Luke asked, sensing her hesitation.
"I saw... I thought I saw—" She blinked. She was cold and tired and thirsty; maybe she was just hallucinating. Just as she was doubting herself, the unmistakable sound of thunder rolled through the passage like a ghostly freight train. Sure now, she said, "I saw lightning. It must be raining outside. Luke, there must be an exit! A way out!"
She started forward again.
"Easy," Luke warned, stumbling to keep up with her as she increased her pace in the dark.
Micki took them around another turn. She expected to see an exit of some sort that she would make a joyous run for, but what she saw instead with the next lightning bolt brought her to a crestfallen halt.
"Oh, no." Her voice rang against the far walls of the new limestone chamber they had discovered.
Lightning flashed again, drawing her attention to the only route to the outside world. It was some fifteen feet above them. Head back, Micki regarded the hole in the ceiling and the rainwater cascading down through it like a miniature waterfall. The cave roof had fallen away years before, leaving a ragged opening about a yard in diameter and strewn debris at the base. Through it was an unobstructed view of—
A thunder clap made her jump back against Luke's chest.
His hands rose to her arms. There was relief in his voice as he said, "I've never been so happy to hear the sound of rain."
"Yeah, it's storming outside."
"So what are we waiting for? We can get out of here, right?"
"Only if you can sprout wings and fly. There's a hole in the roof. Nothing else."
Exhausted, hungry, and cold, Micki sank to the ground in weary defeat, and tried not to cringe at the electrical storm outside. Luke was immediately there on his knees beside her, wordlessly wrapping her into a supportive hug.
"The note was right, Luke," she said, unable to keep the tone of utter despair from her words. "There's no way out. It's another dead end."
***
After sating their thirsts with handfuls of rainwater, they explored their new prison. They spent ten minutes fumbling along the craggy walls with nothing but the lightning to show the way, looking for a cleft or a crack to confirm it wasn't really the cruel trick of nature it seemed. Micki started feeling her way along in one direction and Luke took the other. When they met on the other side of the irregular circle, neither of them spoke the obvious. Instead, a foreboding silence descended.
Micki moved to a patch of soft dry sand that had blown in through the hole in the roof and, over time, been swept into a pile. She sank down onto it, hugging her knees to her chin and, for the second time in her life, cowered under an overwhelming sense of vulnerability and loneliness. The first time had been when both her parents were killed in the car accident. Then, like now, she felt as if her life had ended. At the thought of her father, the sensation dissipated a little. The Colonel would be very disappointed at how his little trooper had augured in under pressure.
'You're not a quitter, Micki. You survived that, you can survive this, too.'
She had survived, then, by being tough enough, strong enough, and always in control enough to make her way in the mostly male dominated world of aviation by sheer determination. But this time...
Luke approached, drawing her out of her self-pity.
"I'm here," she said, reaching out to touch the blind hand he had stretched in front of him. He sat beside her and for a long moment, they just listened to the dripping rain and the sound of the storm.
Micki closed her eyes against the frequent lightning flashes, and tried to still her shuddering by pressing her shoulder against Luke's. Ashamed, she realized that all he would have to do was make a gesture that even remotely resembled an invitation and she'd be in his arms like some 'hysterical female,' and that was the last thing she wanted. She had to hold it together somehow. Regaining the precious control she had lost could mean the difference between surviving or dying in this awful place.
Luke interrupted her silent struggle for composure. "Look, it's not so bad."
"Not so bad?" Abruptly angry, she jerked away from him. "How can you say that? We've been all over this place, and there's nothing but rock and tree roots and more rock. There are only two exits, Luke; the one we came in through, and that one." She thrust an angry thumb upward even though he couldn't see it. "I can see the sky. And I don't want to die in here when I can see the damn sky!"
"Nobody said anything about dying," he said softly, his hand moving in a caressing stroke down her back. "Tomorrow, when the sun comes up, you'll be able to get a better look at what's in the corners of this place and maybe find another way out."
"But we just crawled all around it!"
Micki shook off Luke's touch, defying the conflicting emotions that swelled within her. Her need for him terrified her nearly as much as the storm outside. A tear slipped down her cheek, forcing her to her feet. Wiping the wetness from her face with the back of her hand, she paced away, not wanting Mr. Macho to know she'd finally cracked. "Face it, Luke, just like Reynolds' note said—there is no other way out of here."
Luke's head cocked as he followed the sound of her voice. "Then we can double back the way we came. Maybe we missed something."
"Oh no, I can't go back down there." Hugging herself, she turned to look at the darkness yawning open like a ravenous beast, just waiting to devour them. "I can't go back into that passage without a flashlight—I can't!"
Luke was silent for a moment then said, "I take it the battery's dead."
She didn't answer.
"You should have told me earlier," he insisted.
"Why?" She'd been trying to act as if everything was fine in an attempt to convince him—and herself—that things weren't as hopeless as they seemed. "So you could pat me on the hand and tell me everything would be all right? Well, I've got news for you, Yank. None of it is 'all right.'"
As the echo of her words faded about them, Micki bit her lower lip. She suddenly felt selfish and ashamed. At least she'd had the comfort of the flashlight for a few hours. For Luke, there was only darkness.
"Come on, Micki," he said with an understanding that twisted the knot in her chest. "You're exhausted. Sit and rest for a bit, then we'll figure this out together."
The lightning flashed again, turning their underground jail into a nightmarish scene from hell. Micki shuddered. How could Luke sound so calm and composed when they were most certainly going to die, probably slowly and painfully from hunger or... something worse.
Guessing her silence was deliberation, Luke held out his arms. Her heart turned over at the gesture. She longed to go to him now, just like the night they spent in the fishing shanty. It was only the constant, ingrained need to prove she was capable of taking care of herself that kept her away.
Micki turned away before the vulnerable part of her surrendered. If she sat down now and yielded to the necessity of being held by Luke Hardigan, then she wasn't sure she would ever be able to get up and face the struggle again. She was too tired and too hungry, not to mention freezing her butt in her girlie girl clothes and terrified of the storm raging above them.
With a deepening sense of despair, she thought of her makeshift pack, left on the dock in the smuggler's cave. It wasn't supposed to work like this. Micki Jacinto was a survivor, always prepared for any emergency. How had she ended up here? Like this? And how could she possibly trust the instinct that drew her so strongly to Luke when something very near to it had led her to Dirk, and ultimately to this misery?
"Micki, hon..."
"Don't you dare patronize me!" she shouted, her voice ringing off the walls and flinging itself defiantly up at the one thing in the world that scared her senseless. The storm mocked her with a muted growl of thunder and she drew a deep, ragged breath, determined to remain in control. "I am not some hysterical female who can't handle herself under pressure."