Chapter Eighteen

VEN

“These guys don’t fool around.” I looked down, trying to see the bottom of the hole. It seemed bottomless.

“You wouldn’t either if you had something precious to protect,” Emmy said. “Do you think we can swing across?”

She pointed to the trap, which turned down when we approached the hole. Plummeting to our doom wasn’t bad enough. Someone wanted to make sure we were impaled and killed twice.

“That doesn’t seem safe.”

“Stop acting like I’m crazy because I make different decisions than you.” Emmy’s eyes flashed. She was furious. I guess I thought of her as crazy, but she imagined herself as persistent, inventive, and courageous.

“There’s got to be a better way to get across.” I started looking around.

“What do you suggest?” She could have sounded sarcastic, but she was sincere. She only wanted to know what I thought.

I thought for a moment. “You said these catacombs had monks living in them, guarding the ladle after they set the traps, right?”

“That’s my understanding, yes.”

“They must have had a way to get across.” An idea flashed into my brain. Excited, I started feeling around the walls and stepping on the floor stones leading up to the hole.

“It’s a sound theory.” Emmy followed my lead, doing the same thing along the other wall. “What’s your degree in?”

In the past, her question would have made me feel like a failure and an idiot. I would have become angry, and either yelled at her or ignored her. But I had no anger attached to my education any longer.

“I was in the military and liked the ground assignments better than sitting in the classroom. I could have gotten a degree, but I didn’t.”

That was the truth. I made a choice. It wasn’t the same as others, but it was the right one for me.

She glanced at me, meeting my eyes. “Have you ever thought about getting your archeology degree? You’d be a great asset.”

I laughed.

“I’m serious. You’ve got the right sort of mind.”

“What do you mean? I’m a soldier. All brawn, no brains.” I flexed my bicep.

“Yeah, right,” she said. “You’d be perfect. You’re intelligent. You aren’t afraid to go into strange places, and you can think through problems.”

At that moment, I got lucky and pressed the right place. Stones slid out from the wall, making a narrow path along the left side of the abyss.

“And find answers that weren’t obvious. Brilliant. You’d make a great treasure hunter.”

No one had ever told me I was smart in this many different ways. When I gazed into her eyes, I could tell she meant her words. It was a revelation. I no longer believed I was stupid, and the woman in front of me thought I was smart, too.

“I thought you said calling someone a treasure hunter was insulting.”

“It is, but I wasn’t talking about me.” She grinned. “Who goes first?”

“I will. If anything happens, I want to bear the brunt of the damage. You have critical information in your head.”

She blushed, then frowned. “Don’t talk like that, Ven. We’re both going to make it out of here alive.”

“Sure.” I wanted to seem agreeable. She could think whatever she wanted, but her ideas might not match up to reality. I had gone on missions where the team thought everyone would come out alive. I had been lucky before, but you never knew when your number was up.

I wondered if I would die protecting Emmy. It wouldn’t be the worst way to go.

I gingerly put some of my weight on the first stone, testing to see if it would hold before committing my body. I slid my foot over, keeping my back pressed against the wall. I didn’t look down. The stones seemed stable, but I wanted to be careful. The first three rocks held, but the fourth one fell into the abyss. I paused for a moment as my heart pounded in my chest. I had to reassure myself that I hadn’t dropped with the stone.

Emmy and I locked eyes as we listened for the sound of the rock hitting the floor. I strained my ears for almost a minute but heard nothing.

The next challenge was maneuvering over the gap where the stone had fallen. I felt myself begin to lose my balance and frantically grabbed at anything that would keep me upright. I slowly moved my right foot past the gap. No more stones were damaged. I made the rest of the journey across without incident.

When I reached the other side, I felt a profound sense of relief but tried not to show it. I didn’t want Emmy to know how nervous I was even though it would be difficult to hide anything from her. She seemed to see through me already, and her mind penetrated directly into my soul.

Her passage across the narrow path was nerve-wracking. My trip was difficult, but at least I was in control of my destiny. When she reached my side safely, I immediately pulled her into my arms. She clung to me, gripping me as tightly as I was holding her. Then she pulled back and gazed into my eyes.

“Don’t worry. I’m right here,” she said.

I closed my eyes, and drew in a deep breath, placing a single reverent kiss on her forehead. She bit her lip.

“Come on.” She cautiously moved forward. “The fun’s just getting started.”

EMMY

When we arrived at the guard’s room, I felt like sinking onto the bed and going straight to sleep. I was exhausted. I didn’t know if it was because of the longer day on Heralla or all the activity. I had started by leaving Ven’s house in the middle of the night. The chase happened in the afternoon. We had arrived on Heralla in the early evening, and the party started at eight at night, Earth time. It felt like past two o’clock in the morning for me.

I had been awake for over twenty hours. I wasn’t sure I could keep my eyes open for much longer. Ven didn’t seem to be doing much better. For the past hour, we had been triggering each other’s yawns.

“Is this place safe?”

I shook my head. I wished it was. “This room is vulnerable to attack. There’s something the matter with it. Another place exists and it might even be accessible through this one.”

“That makes sense. How do we get to it?”

“Who knows?” I was too tired to think. “Whoever constructed this room was clever and had a lot of time on their hands to think of new ways to make my life difficult.” I yawned and covered my mouth. My eyes were watering.

Ven walked around the room, picking up objects and pushing random spots on the wall. “Do you have any idea what I should be looking for?”

“It’s probably a pull trigger. You tug on something in the room, and it opens a rotating door.”

He tentatively lifted a lamp. “Isn’t it possible that my actions set off a trap?” He gave me an inquisitive look.

“Of course.”

“Great,” he muttered. “Just great.”

I felt my eyes closing as I watched him. I forced them open. We couldn’t fall sleep here. As my mind drifted toward unconsciousness, I had an idea.

“Try ornaments.”

“Ornaments?” A framed picture caught his eye and he walked over to it. I had an ominous feeling.

“The picture’s crooked,” Ven muttered to himself. He reached up to straighten it.

“Don’t do that!” I was suddenly wide awake as I realized the danger in front of us. My warning came too late. He had already adjusted the frame.

Nothing happened.

I stopped for a moment, feeling confused. There might be a time delay, which would give us seconds to react. I grabbed his hand and pulled him to the door as an explosion rocked the room, throwing us against the wall of the passageway.

We lay on the ground for a moment with our bodies immobilized. My ears rang and my forehead stung from a cut.

“Ven?” I couldn’t tell if I was shouting or not. He had been behind me and took the brunt of the explosion. “Ven?”

I heard a groan, and he sat up. “What was that?” He looked angry.

“It was a trap. They were designed to kill raider leaders. Only upper-class people would be concerned about a misaligned picture frame. They intended the explosion to take out people in command.”

“That’s disgusting. I need to learn how to leave a mess.” Ven rose to his feet. I stood up too and peered back into the room.

“It is peculiar, but look.”

We entered the room again. I was apprehensive about additional traps. I peeked into the hole made by the old-fashioned bomb. There was a second room behind the hole, inaccessible by any door.

“Let me guess. Is that the real guard’s room?” Ven said looked at me for confirmation.

I nodded.

“Let’s hope there’s nothing dangerous in this one.”

He was cautious enough to check things out before moving into the second room. When we were inside, we found a complete suite with a bed and a functioning bathroom.

I took off my shorts and tank top and crawled on the bed in my underwear. Ven fiddled with something near the hole we had accidentally blown in the wall.

“What are you doing?” I stretched out and curled up on the bed.

“Setting an alarm with a small force field, just in case. I came prepared, too.”

“What will that do?”

“If anyone finds us, the force field will prevent them from entering and give them a mild shock. It will alert us to their presence.”

“That’s brilliant. I’m about to drop and can barely keep my eyes open.”

He nodded and took off his suit jacket and button-up shirt. His pants came off next. Dust and dirt covered all our clothes. I swallowed as he climbed onto the bed next to me. It was just as hot in the catacombs as it was outside. We didn’t need any covers.

“Keep your hands to yourself, mister.” I gave another yawn.

“Of course. It’s your move, anyway. I’m so tired that I’m ready for sleep. Seduction is the last thing on my mind.”

“It’s a good thing we have that settled.” I tried to keep the sound of disappointment out of my voice. Wasn’t he going to try anything? I rolled to my side away from Ven, already dropping off to unconsciousness.

A moment later, I felt Ven pull me against him, spooning me. His arm wrapped around my body, and I relaxed completely. I felt like I had to put up a minor protest.

“No sex.”

“We’re snuggling. There’s a difference. I’m just keeping you safe.” Those were the last words I heard before drifting off to sleep.