Page 96 of Chasing Paradise

Little by little, the tightness in my chest eased, and the fuzziness in my brain moved away.

“I don’t want to die in here,” I said, my voice quavering.

“We’re not giving up,” Wick said, pressing his forehead to mine. “But for a little while, we are going to pretend to.”

“Why?” I squeezed my eyes closed, trying to focus on the feel of Wick instead of my own panic.

“Sotheythink we’re dead and move on.”

“But we’ll run out of air.”

“Violet, focus,” Wick demanded, reaching down for my hand, then raising it up in the air. “Feel that?”

I didn’t at first, too focused on my inner world than the exterior one.

But suddenly, I did feel it.

A small gust of wind.

“We won’t suffocate in here,” he said. “We have water and food. And slowly but surely, I will get us out of here. Either from where that wind is coming from, or pulling the rocks out of that hole. We arenotgoing to die here.”

“I want to believe that,” I said.

“You don’t need to believe me. I’ll show you. But for right now, let’s sit, breathe, try to focus.”

This little alcove was even smaller than the cave we’d slept in the night before.

When we moved to sit, Wick couldn’t stretch his legs all the way out.

He pulled me up at his side, then over his lap.

His fingers slid through my still-wet hair, sometimes stopping to rub my scalp.

Slowly but surely, the touch had some of my anxiety slipping away.

It was a disorienting kind of dark in our alcove, so that even as my eyes adjusted, I could barely make out Wick. Or anything else for that matter.

That low vision seemed to make time slow. And with nothing to do but sit there and overthink, I seemed to think myself to sleep.

But my rest was fraught with equally terrifying nightmares—falling into sinkholes, sinking into quicksand, being mauled by a jaguar—and I shocked awake still in Wick’s arms.

“You’re okay. I got you,” Wick said, arms squeezing me.

We did have that.

Each other.

Even if we were trapped in a cave.

Likely where we would die.

From a cave-in.

From dehydration.

From some weird virus from our careless waterfall bathing.

“Vi?” Wick asked as I suddenly moved my legs off of him, body wiggling as I struggled out of my shorts and panties.

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