Page 65 of Kind of a Dirty Talker

I glance up at her over my shoulder. “Shit? Did you fall in the shit, too?”

“Oh yeah. Covered in the stuff,” she says. “But on the upside, I caught myself before I came sliding into the hole after you. And I found your phone when I fell.”

My brows shoot up as I touch my pants, realizing my cell isn’t tucked into my back pocket where it usually is.

“Don’t worry, it’s fine,” she says. “I mean, it’s filthy, but not broken.”

My shoulders relax. “Good. Thanks.”

“No problem.” She makes a disgusted sound I feel at the back of my throat. “I think we’re going to need showers before the emergency room. Surely, as long as we get the shots sometime tonight, we’ll be fine, right? Do they still make you get a circle of rabies shots in your stomach? Or is that an urban legend?”

“I’m not sure,” I say, turning back to the stones. “But I can look it up on my phone once we have cell service. I had two bars for most of our ride.”

“Good idea,” she says as I begin to dismantle the pile in earnest, shifting larger and larger rocks to one side. “I should have brought my phone, but it wouldn’t have done us much good. Since Freya unplugged the charger last night.” She makes a worried sound. “I hope she’s okay. And won’t be too mad at us for showing up stinking of bat poop and then leaving again. But I can’t take a ferret to the emergency room, not even on a leash. Sorry, I know I’m babbling. I’m just nervous. Logically, I know this isn’t the part of the movie where the intrepid adventurers make the mistake of continuing to pursue the treasure, even after they should have run away—we’re not in a movie; this is real life—but my gut is screaming that we’re about to be attacked by hungry outlaw ghosts.”

I grunt, not wanting to admit out loud that I’m feeling the same way. Instead, I ask, “What would outlaw ghosts be hungry for?”

“I don’t know,” she says. “But it wouldn’t be something we’d be keen on giving them. Probably our blood or our souls. Maybe the skin on our faces. I have an irrational fear of losing the skin on my face.”

“I think that’s a perfectly rational fear. It would be really unpleasant to live without skin on any part of your body, especially your face,” I say, my pulse picking up as I near the bottom of the pile, and something dark gray and smoother than the stones comes into view.

I move faster, depositing the rest of the rocks in the new pile as Tessa asks, “What is it? Is there something there?”

I take a beat, catching my breath before I shift to one side, letting her headlamp beam fall on what we’ve discovered.

She sucks in a breath. “Am I crazy or is that an antique lockbox?”

I smile. “You’re not crazy. I think we might have just found Butch Cassidy’s long-lost treasure.”

Tessa emits a soft squeal that makes me laugh. “Should we open it? Or take it outside first? I’m putting on a brave face, but honestly, I’m ready to get back out into the sun, where me and the bats have more room to stay away from each other than we do down here.”

I try pushing the buttons on the front of the box, but they’re rusty with age and the lid remains firmly closed. “I can’t open it. It’s either stuck or we need some kind of combination. I’ll put it in my pack and we can work on it later.”

“Sounds good,” she says, squealing softly again as I slide my backpack off my shoulders and angle the large rectangular box inside. It’s made of some kind of iron and isn’t light by any means, but I think the nylon fabric will hold long enough for us to get back to camp. “Could be slipping in poop was the best thing that happened to us today!”

I zip my bag and slide the straps back on, grinning up at her as I start to climb. “As long as we don’t die of some kind of exotic poop-borne illness.”

She makes a gagging sound. “Oh God, I didn’t think of that. We should research that first. First, bat poop illnesses. Then the protocol for rabies shots.”

“Sounds good,” I grunt, pulling myself up the wall, wincing as my bruised hip twinges in protest.

“Actually, you have bars down here,” Tessa says from above me. “Crazy. What’s your passcode? I’ll start googling while you climb.”

“Five, four, three, two, one,” I tell her, earning a judgmental huff I deserve.

“Yeah, you’re going to have to change that,” she mutters. “A passcode like that is a good way to…” She trails off, going so silent that I call out after a moment, “You okay up there?”

“I’m fine,” she says, but her voice is tighter than it was before, all the fun, and even the anxiety, gone out of it.

I want to tell her that she doesn’t sound fine, but I’m currently using all my strength to cling to one rock while finding a foothold higher up the wall. The next few minutes pass in almost eerie silence, building the anxiety swelling in my chest. By the time I pull myself over the edge, I half expect Tessa to be gone, stolen away by those hungry ghosts she was worried about.

But she’s crouched a few feet back from the edge of the pit, my phone in hand.

As I emerge, she looks up, her wounded features illuminated by the blue light as she asks, “So, were you going to tell me that Darcy texted you and we were fine to go home? Or were you going to lie about that, too?”

Chapter 26

TESSA

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