Page 184 of Empire of Shadows

“Wrapping what? Oh blast!” Ellie exclaimed as his movement revealed that a fair amount of blood soaked the upper half of his arm. “You’ve been shot!”

“It’s just a graze,” Adam returned stubbornly.

“A bullet has gone through your arm,” Ellie retorted, glaring at him. “When exactly were you going to inform me thatsomeone had shot you?”

“Once you were done talking,” Adam replied. “And it didn’t go through me. It just kinda… skimmed along the outside.”

He splashed some water up onto the wound, washing away the immediate gore and revealing more of the actual injury. In the admittedly bad light, Ellie thought it looked like a particularly nasty burn.

“That is not cleaning it,” she complained. “It needs soap at the very least, and preferably a bit of carbolic.”

“Fresh out of carbolic,” Adam replied. He poked the wound and tried to crane his neck to get a better look at it.

“Stop that,” Ellie said as she slapped his hand away.

“We’re in a hole in the ground, Princess,” Adam pointed out. “How about you just wrap it up for now?”

Ellie had no good answer to this, even though it was a glum thought. She took the soaked length of Adam’s shirt and used it to bind the wound.

The effort required her to move even closer to him. She found herself alarmingly aware of his large, bare body just inches from her hands… her lips…

She snapped herself to alertness. Where on earth had those thoughts come from?

Ellie tied the knot in the fabric a little more tightly than necessary.

“There,” she finished awkwardly and took a step back.

Silence settled in as the cool water lapped at Ellie’s chest.

“Just how bad off are we?” she finally asked.

“I have a couple of friends in the camp,” Adam replied after a brief, telling pause. “If they figure out we’re down here, they’ll try to come and find us.”

“And if they don’t figure out we’re down here?” Ellie prompted.

Adam didn’t answer.

Ellie could puzzle the rest out easily enough. They couldn’t shout for help. They would be just as likely to be heard by one of Jacobs’ men as they would anybody else. Letting Jacobs know they were alive and anticipating a rescue wouldn’t work out well for anyone he came to suspect might aid them. Ellie remembered how Charlie, Lessard, and Flowers had conspired together to get her Adam’s knife, and then distract the guards to allow her a chance to escape. It would be desperately unfair to put the three of them in danger.

But where did that leave her?

The thought was more than depressing. It was…infuriating. Ellie’s temper sparked dangerously as she leaned against the wall beside Adam. She pushed from the stone and whirled to face him with sudden purpose.

“Absolutely not!” she declared.

“Huh?” Adam blinked in return.

“I am not going to die in this well,” she asserted. “Youare not going to die in this well. We are going to find a way to get out of this, together, without endangering your friends. And when we do get out, we are going to make Dawson and Jacobs rue the day they everconsideredillicitly buying stolen government property to come and loot a priceless piece of Mesoamerican history!”

Adam remained still as he leaned against the wall. He had lowered his head, but he raised it slightly to look at her.

“Sure we are, Princess,” he said.

He said it with a smile—but it wasn’t his usual reckless, charming grin. It was smaller and ever so slightly sad. A sharp, cold panic flared to life in Ellie’s chest.

“Oh no,” she said. “You arenotallowed to do that. You are not allowed togive up!”

“Ellie…” he started.

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