Page 105 of One Last Stand

They’d climbed five or six flights of stairs into the passageway to the tunnel, the ceiling a good twenty feet over their heads, the floor muddy. The white limestone walls turned weirdly blue and translucent when Shep shone his light on them. The air hung like a damp sheet around them, and water trickled in the darkness. Their breath seemed to catch in the air, their voices swallowed by the expanse. They’d passed a giant lake in the recesses of the cave, so maybe mountain water fed the lake, which ran out under the castle.

She shivered. Her feet were ice. Still, she’d stepped on something back there, and now she had to get it out of the heel of her foot.

Shep’s eyes widened as he knelt down in front of her and pulled up her dress. Just above her ankles, but enough—“You’re barefoot!” He looked up at her, his eyes dark. “What were youthinking?”

She blinked at him. “When? When I was getting ready to go to the ball? Did you expect me to think, hey, you know, I might get kidnapped, I guess I’ll wear my best wool socks and hiking boots? Of course I wore heels. I lost them when they took me.”

“For the love, sit down.”

He practically pulled her down onto a nearby rock. “And you don’t have a sliver—your entire heel is cracked open and bleeding. It’s probably full of bat guano and is going to get infected and fall off.”

“You’re in a good mood.”

He looked up at her, his mouth tight. Stared at her for a moment, then breathed out. “Yes, yes, I am.” Then he sat down next to her and unlaced his boots.

“What are you doing?”

“What does it look like?”

“I can’t walk in your boots. They’re too big?—”

“Socks. I have wool socks. Because, you know . . . I think ahead before I go to a ball.” He lifted a shoulder.

“Was that a joke? Are you trying to be funny right now?”

He smiled.

“You get kidnapped in your tux and see how you feel about it.”

He looked back at her, something of horror in his eyes as he took in her flimsy dress. “I’m a complete jerk.” He pulled off his boot, then his sock, then put his boot back on and did the same with the other.

Then he stood up, unzipped his jacket, and pulled it off, put that around her. Zipped it up, all the way past her chin. Met her eyes. “I am so sorry. I was so focused on getting us to the tunnel?—”

“Hey. Me too. I wasn’t even cold until now.”

“You’re such a liar.”

He probably meant it to be funny, but suddenly, her throat tightened and she looked away. “I am. I am such a liar.”

A beat, just the dripping of the water plinking around them. Oh, she couldn’t look at him.

“Hey—what’s going on here?”

“In the avalanche. If I’d told you then, then maybe . . . I don’t know. Maybe we wouldn’t be here, you know?”

“No. Too many what-ifs.” He grabbed her foot and shoved his sock on it, pulling it up almost to her knee. Her feet still throbbed, but it helped.

He did that with the other foot too. “We were just trying to stay alive in that bathtub. Just trying to keep each other awake and lucid and find a way free. So . . . no what-iffing. We survived. That’s all that matters.”

Then he took her face in his hands and met her eyes. Even in the dim light, she saw the earnestness in them. “And the other lies . . . no more, right? You said that, and I believe you. And it’s done. You’re alive, and we’re going home.”

Right.She nodded.

“Okay. Now, your dress is going to make this tricky, but I’m going to carry you on my back.”

“I can walk.”

“You’ll wreck my socks.”

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