Page 50 of Stealing Mercury
As the dust settled, Samantha’s chest grew tight. Something at the back of her throat made her gasp for air. Her eyes stung. Too long. They had to have come down with the collapse. They should have been up and moving.
Before she made the decision to move she was running back. “Mercury! Lo!”
She dropped to her knees at the edge of a pile of mud and roots that nearly filled the space where Carn had been laying. She dug, dragging big handfuls of the stuff down and pushing it to the side. A yawning gap loomed overhead. She could hear the storm above clearly now. The wind in the trees. The rain pounding the ground.
She was vaguely aware of the trickles of water plopping down on her from above and the moisture on her cheeks. Carn was there beside her. She didn’t know how he’d made it back across the floor of the fissure when he could barely stand, but he was digging with purpose.
Something shifted in the now sodden muck where she’d just shoved her hands. She pushed in further until her arms were buried above the elbows. She felt firm flesh beneath her hand.
“Carn.” A whisper, both hopeful and panicked.
His hand shoved in beside hers and he pulled back hard, knocking her to her ass. It didn’t matter. Not one bit. All that mattered was that Mercury came up, clutching Carn’s arm, gasping and shaking muck from his face. As his shoulders and chest emerged, he scrambled forward, pulling Lo free behind him.
All four of them ended up in a heap, like the tangle of silk thread she’d always ended up with when she’d tried to learn to weave. Mercury was in her arms and Lo and Carn were there, too. For a moment, she felt the sort of connection she’d always imagined she’d one day have with her father and his crew. She’d only known these men a few weeks, but she already felt a part of them. It had to be an illusion, a mix of adrenalin and euphoria. Like that heap of thread, one good shake and it would fall apart.
***
Alone, Mercury crouched in the wider part of the cavern while the others slept around the bend. He looked up to the gouge in the dark roof and the steady streams of muddy water trickling down. At least the chunks of muck and mud had stopped sliding down on top of the mound below. When he’d been lying beneath that pile of muck he’d had no fear of dying. He’d known they’d dig free, but Samantha hadn’t known that. She’d thrown herself into action to save them. He hadn’t been surprised when her hand brushed against his. Some part of him had known. Known she would offer aid. Known he could rely on her. She’d proven it time and time again. And that was something he’d never had from anyone except his brothers. The feeling left him uneasy.
“Can’t sleep, brother?” Lo hunched nearby. That Mercury hadn’t heard him approach said a lot about how unsettled he was.
Mercury shifted his gaze to the sky beyond the gap overhead. “I want to get moving as soon as the rain stops.”
“It’ll be slow-going with Carn’s injured knee.”
Mercury made a noncommittal noise in answer. He didn’t want to think of Carn’s injury, or the competent way Samantha had diagnosed and treated the swelling. She was so damn competent at everything. They had relied on her for so much. Even here in this place she called wilderness. “Samantha didn’t take water or food when we ate.”
Lo shifted his weight. “You think she can’t hold it down?”
“I think she fears she can’t. She gets worse every hour.”
“She didn’t want you to know.” Lo tilted his head, ears alert. “Why?”
“She doesn’t want me to feel guilty for pushing forward when turning back could end her suffering.” Her attempt to ease his guilt was wasted effort. He hated the choice he’d had to make.
“Perhaps,” said Lo. “Or perhaps she does all to gain your trust for her own reasons.”
“Reasons? What reason could she have for any of this?” He held out his hands to indicate the obvious lack of comforts. “What profit could there be for her that would be worth this risk?”
“I don’t know, but that doesn’t mean it isn’t true.”
Anger became a choker tightening around Mercury’s throat. “Do you really think she’s capable of such a plot when she is more apt to jump head first into every dangerous situation?”
No. Mercury didn’t believe the woman who recklessly tackled a guard to spare him pain or fought her fear to climb into a hole to save his brother could be calculating enough to plan their downfall. But in moments of too much thought, he also questioned why she would do so much for them. Could a woman with so much skill and knowledge and passion truly care for them or was it simply in her nature to aid those in need? He hated the insecurity that made him need to be special to her. To know that she saw them as more than animals to be set free. Worthy only of her pity.
He hated that tiny seed of doubt, but the doubt in Lo’s eyes lurked as large as the mountains of wilderness. “What did she do to hurt you so deeply?”
The shutter that closed off Lo’s emotions fell so fast Mercury knew Lo understood they were no longer talking about Samantha.
“You know what happened.” The pain hidden in the slow cadence of his words extinguished Mercury’s anger.
“No,” he said. “I only know she betrayed you. I don’t know how?”
Lo’s face tightened, drawing attention to his powerful jaw. “Now? You ask me this now?”
“I think it’s time, brother.”
“Grah.” Lo shook.
