Page 64 of Rarely Pure and Never Simple
Damien cleared his throat. "Blaze—"
"Don't." Blaze held up a finger in Damien's direction. "Don't you fucking say it. You're not going on alone."
Damien settled nearby and handed over the medkit with the pain pills. He was willing to wait until Blaze came to what he thought would be the only sensible conclusion. Blaze surprised him once again.
He patted Shudder's cheek. "I'll carry you."
Shudder managed a weak snort. "Please. You can't."
"I did getting back to the vehicles, dimwit."
"Oh. I don't remember that."
"You were kinda out of it. But I even did it when we were kids. You remember. When we were trying to sneak out of school and you fell from the top of the wall. Lucky you only broke your ankle and not your fool head."
"Ha. Yes. That was a fun one to explain, wasn't it?" Shudder swallowed the pills with a little whimper.
"How the hell did we never get expelled?"
"I was an irresistibly charming young man, and you were my faithful sidekick."
"Like hell. I was never anyone's sidekick."
Shudder put his head on Blaze's shoulder. "Have it your way. But I was just a bag of skinny teenage bones then. I'm bigger now."
"Not a lot. And I'm a hell of a lot bigger than I was, too." Blaze eased his pack off and handed it to Damien. "See if we can combine everything in one. I can carry him on my back but not him and a pack."
Damien could only stare a moment, trying to process. This wasn't safe or advisable. It probably wasn't the best thing for Shudder. Blaze, though—he had no argument strong enough to combat Blaze when he made up his mind, so he redistributed and repacked. Blaze took Shudder up on his back, an odd sight with his long legs hanging down past Blaze's knees.
Damien glanced up at him. "You're sure?"
"Of course I'm sure. I can carry his skinny ass for days."
"Is not." Shudder contradicted him without lifting his head from Blaze's shoulder. "I have a gorgeous ass. You said so yourself."
Blaze, being Blaze, kept pace with Damien when he went on. If he felt any strain, he didn't show it, apparently determined to prove that he couldn't possibly have been wrong. He did begin to limp after another hour, his injured leg obviously bothering him, but he refused Damien's offers to stop and rest.
Stubborn. Deadly stubborn.
The canyon continued to narrow until they reached a spot where Damien despaired. The fissure closed in so tightly that he had to turn sideways to keep moving forward, the pack held in his hand.
"Wait there a second." He glared at Blaze when he saw the protest coming. "Just let me see if this ends or gets too narrow up here. If you're in there and can't get through, you might get stuck."
Blaze rolled his eyes but stayed put, letting Shudder down to sit on a flat rock nearby. Their injured Robin Hood didn't look well at all, and he immediately curled up on his rock, pale and shivering. They were close now. Maybe there would be help up ahead. Damien hurried through the claustrophobic passage, aiming for the light at the other end. His heart pounded as he had to wriggle through the last few feet, terrified that he would end up just as stuck as he had envisioned Blaze. But, no, it was simply a matter of crouching down to let his torso slide through the widest part of the fissure.
At the end, he stepped into late afternoon sunlight, into a tiny valley that was no more than a large sinkhole. He stopped, panting. This made no sense. The trail led to a dead end. He hadn't read the trail wrong. It continued in front of him. But how could it?
"Damien?" Blaze's bellow echoed off the rocks, strangely amplified through the narrow passage.
"Just a minute! Give me a minute."
He turned in a circle. What had he missed? Where had he gone wrong? If he kept following the trails, he would come up against solid rock. Damien took a step forward and then another. He put both hands against the rock face in front of him. It was this way. But no one could have passed through stone. Could they? Were there variants who could? Did they have someone like Putty who could manipulate matter? This would be to a far greater extent.
Something in the trails' pulls tugged his head up, and he choked on a laugh. There was no mystery here. He had been looking at the problem at the wrong angle. Several feet up the rock face, mostly obscured by hanging roots, a dark patch marred the red stone. While there was no stair or ladder, there were enough protruding rocks for hand and footholds, and he took these, one careful placement at a time, until he could peer into the darkness. A cave—no, a tunnel. There was a pinpoint of light at the back.
He shuddered at the thought of having to go underground, but it would be quick.I hope.
Damien scrambled back down, jumping the last few feet to the valley floor, then he rushed back to Blaze as quickly as the fissure allowed.
