Page 86 of Leashed

Chapter Thirty-One

Bo glanced behind him in the blackness of the cave, blinking into the nothingness before he slid his foot forward and adjusted his hands on the rocky walls. With nothing but his own labored breathing and the padding of his sock feet in the silence, he continued the gradual climb, his body primed for an attack that had yet to manifest itself.

The silence burrowed deep in his head, the solitude pricking at him from all angles. He paused every few steps to assess the height of the ceiling, prepared for his fingers to meet an unwelcome sensation with every graze of the stone.

Anticipation truly was a bitch.

By his calculations, he was three miles into the cave. With no sign of light behind him or in front of him, he had no way of knowing how much farther it went on, no hint as to when the claustrophobic isolation would come to an end.

And he hated it.

He was slowly losing track of time and distance, his internal compass at odds with the underworld’s proximity to the heavy metals in the earth. He knew he’d lost time under the influence of the lake water hallucinations, knew time had slowed while he struggled against the quicksand. His exhaustion weighted him down, but whether it was brought on by exertion, time, or the combination, he couldn’t tell.

Hunger hummed alongside the fatigue, the growling of his stomach periodically breaking the silence of the cave and putting him on edge until he was certain there wasn’t a beast coming for him in the dark.

But it wasn’t the emptiness of his stomach or the heaviness of his eyelids he focused most on.

It was the thirst.

He was hitting a point where if his fingers were to search out anything wet, he’d probably latch on like a newborn pup.

Stopping to assess the walls and ceiling again, he cleared his throat. The sound bounced through the cave, echoed back to him tenfold until the silence bore down again and he resumed his trek.

“Once upon a time,” he muttered, lowering his volume to keep the echo at bay. “Once upon a time, there was a dumbass hound dog who had a weakness for the forbidden.”

He narrated his meeting with Lachesis aloud, keeping the steamier details under wraps as he practiced the tale for Sage. Backtracking every so often as more details popped into his head, he could almost pretend he was sitting in Bean There, Done That, Sage’s dark eyes narrowed in uncertainty as he rattled off stories of his younger, stupider days.

Younger, stupider days that, if he were being honest, probably had yet to see their end.

Hours passed, his parched throat leaving him with little more than a rasping as he spoke in the blackness. “Scylla shouldn’t have been a surprise,” he mused. “As you know, I have no poker face, so if anyone was going to draw her anger, it would be my idiot self.”

“Tell me more?”

He froze, cocking his head to pinpoint the voice. “More?”

“Yes,” the voice laughed. “Tell me another story.”

Sage.

Swallowing, he moved forward, the familiar voice leading him ahead at a hastened pace. “Where are you?”

“Close,” she called out, echoing through the tunnel and boring into his head. “Are you coming?”

Struggling to quicken his movements, he couldn’t quite get a handle on where she was amid the reverberation of her voice and the pounding of his heart in his ears. For all he knew, she could be behind him, growing farther from his reach with every step he took. “Fast as I can, baby.”

“Not fast enough!”

Another laugh, the pitch slightly off and too bold.

He narrowed his eyes, his feet slowing. “Tell me where you are.”

There was a faint whispering before Sage’s voice bounced through the cave again. “I’m close. So close, Bo. I need you.”

Bullshit.

He silenced, taking extra care in his movements while he continued his advance.

Responding to an Eidolon apparition only gave them ammunition against you, provided them with the clues they could use to warp your senses and break your mind while they wormed through your thoughts and memories, plucking their plan of attack from your own head. They were masters of disguise, spirits who drew power from weakness.

---