They fumbled around in the dark until they finally came to an opportunity, a chance to imagine that they might be safe. The darkness grew less dense . . . less dark. From ahead, Declan saw a dim shaft of light—not like a lamp or a flashlight . . . moonlight. Faint and dim, but better than absolute blackness. He was dammed lucky the two of them hadn’t gotten separated or fallen into an air shaft. Then again, he doubted if mining standards in Afghanistan matched even the worst in the U.S. Probably not too many air shafts, but that one ahead, well, it was a godsend.

For now.

“Up ahead,” he said softly, his chest heaving with exertion and controlled fear. Declan wouldn’t deny that he was afraid. He wouldn’t deny that he was in pain. Likely as much as Sophia. To not be afraid was to be foolish, to increase the chance of making a deadly mistake. “I see a ladder!”

Behind him, Sophia said nothing, but she did make a sound in her throat. Relief? Thinking that their way home was clear now? He reached the base of the ladder: wood and nails. Rusty. Old. He tested the stability of the ladder by reaching up and tugging on a rung. It held. Would it hold his weight all the way up? He wanted to send Sophia up first, just in case, but wouldn’t. He had to scope out the exit . . . for all he knew, their meandering way through the shaft had taken them right back to the structures they’d escaped from.

“I’ll go up, make sure it will hold the weight,” he said. “Check it out, see what’s out there.”

“No, don’t leave me—”

He pried away the fingers gripping his forearm as gently as he could. “I’m not going to leave you here, Sophia. I promise. I’m just going to check it out up there.” Declan took her hand and wrapped it around a ladder rung. “I’ll be right back.”

He took the first couple of steps slowly and carefully, prepared to come crashing down. He didn’t. Four more, and he could already tell the moonlight grew stronger. Five more, and he poked his head from the shaft, just enough so he could see. He saw nothing but darkness, the darker ground around him, the downward slope of the mountain, and above, a dazzling carpet of twinkling lights from millions of stars. He breathed a sigh of relief. Perhaps—

“Declan!”

He descended and spoke quietly and calmly to Sophia. “It’s dark out there . . . we’re not near the structures—”

Her arms wrapped around his waist, hugging him closely. He winced at the pain in his ribs but held it back. Again, he pried at her grip and spoke. “Let’s not waste any time, alright?” He wanted to hold her, to comfort her, but getting away, as far away as they could before the sun came up was imperative.

So up the air shaft they climbed, Sophia first. Before she reached the top, he warned her to stay low. As soon as her feet disappeared, he quickly followed. She rolled over onto her back, staring up at the night sky. The half moon gave a profile of her face. Even with a swollen eye and a puffy jaw, she looked gorgeous to him. She heaved for breath. Her frail voice asked, “Are we done?”

The words almost prompted a laugh. Almost. He didn’t want to tell her the truth yet, to tell her that they had a long way to go, and every one of those minutes would be a race against time. A race against discovery. A race against death. He heard her breaths, still erupting in harsh gasps. She was hyperventilating. Stress reaction. Delayed stress, whatever the hell you wanted to name it, she had it.

“Just keep breathing,” Declan said, placing a hand on her shoulder. He whispered soothing words. That last thing he needed now was for her to panic. “Slowly in and out,” he said. Sophia needed the instruction. He knew what would happen with a hyperventilating partner. And she’d done so well up to this point.

Finally, her breathing slowed, but every second waiting felt agonizing. They had to move. They had to keep going. Patience. Just a couple more minutes.

“I’m fine,” she said.

“No, you’re about to go blue and start seizing up on me. Just breathe, in and out.”

So she breathed in and out, calmly, slowly, with him. They breathed together.

Aside from the horrendous context, it would likely shape up to be a wonderful morning. The sun would rise soon, the east displaying a hint of a glow that presaged predawn. They had to get moving. Now. “Ready?”

She looked up at him and nodded, then slowly rolled on to her hands and knees. He knew what a struggle it was to get up. He felt it, too. “It’ll get easier as we work the kinks out of our muscles,” he promised. Liar, he swore to himself. But he had to give her hope. She needed some kind of hope, some kind of anything that wasn’t her being tied up and slammed with the butt end of an AK-47. The way she kept slipping over the rocks, falling, tired, and weak-kneed. Sophia had given up.

He grabbed for her hand, and they took off at a quick walk, sometimes a slow jog, heading west. They stuck to the low ground, avoiding ridges. The only problem was that by doing so, he couldn’t tell if they were being followed. He paused occasionally to listen. He heard nothing but her harsh breathing. On the move. Always on the move.

“Keep moving,” he said to her. “Come on, keep motoring, you got this.”

They sidled up and down the gullies and ravines etched into the mountainside. Every time they reached a point in the topography where they even had the slight chance of being silhouetted against the rising sun, to cast an elongated shadow downslope, or anything even close, he slowed down and moved inches at a time. Occasionally, they made their way upslope on their bellies, with him continually urging her to lie as flat as she could and use her hands and feet to propel herself forward. Declan knew she was exhausted. So was he. In his bones, he could feel that neither of them had reached any type of safety. From one point, he thought he could barely see the edge of one of the outlying buildings downslope and off to the west. A surge of disappointment took away his faint glimmer of hope.

“Damnit,” she said, “we should have gone further.”

Declan was staring behind them, in the direction they had come. It wouldn’t take an expert tracker to follow them. They had left a trail and would likely continue making one. “It won’t take long for them to find our tracks as soon as the sun rises.” He paused, giving her yet another chance to catch her breath.

A frightened sound escaped her throat.

“We have a little more time to get out of sight on this damned mountainside,” he calmed her. “They still have their morning prayers.” She leaned over, balancing her hands on her knees as she tried to breathe. He saw the tremors in her muscles.

He pulled out his compass from his leg pocket, letting the needle settle on north as he gazed out again toward the mountains. He pointed them out to Sophia. “We’ve got to get over there. Do you think we can pick up the pace?”

“That shouldn’t be too hard to do,” Sophia said. “We’re at a dead stop.”

She was game. He grinned. “Then let’s go. I know the army has some advanced positions somewhere up that hillside.”

“I don’t know how we’ll make it,” she said, “but I’ll try.”

“That’s all we can do.”