Page 53 of Fighting for Mallory

“That’s my girl!”

Finding the message left for him vindicated his recklessness. Luca studied the rocks again. From their placement he realized there must have been more to Mallory’s clue, but something or someone had scattered them. He couldn’t make sense out of the rocks’ present arrangement. Luca gazed up at the tunnel. Little water flowed from it now. Had Mallory been able to somehow climb up to it? If so, had she escaped only to become lost in a maze of tunnels?

“Talk to me, Mal. You were here. You marked the tunnel. What happened to you?”

Luca imagined the scene in his head. Mallory had been brought to this cavern and left here without any food or water. By the time the harvest moon rose on the twenty-ninth, she’d be too weak to defend herself. Somehow, she’d managed to climb out. How long ago? Without any light, how far did she get? If she were close to the surface, they would have detected a heat signature. Or maybe not if she’d wandered deeper into the system.

He decided to follow her logic and explore one of the exits from the cavern. Luca delved a few hundred feet into a tunnel and saw what Mallory probably discovered?a dead end. He returned to the main cave and chose another tunnel. This one went deeper. When darkness enclosed him, Luca retraced his steps for fear of getting lost himself. Too bad his duffel bag was on the surface. There were flares and rope in it.

If Mallory had come to the same conclusion he had, climbing up was the best option, Luca turned his attention toward determining the best route. He perused the stalactites and the cavern walls and saw places where one might gain footholds. It was a precarious climb at best, one he couldn’t attempt in his physical condition. If his woman made that climb, then she possessed the courage and strength of a lioness.

Luca backed away from the cavern wall and turned to study the space more closely. An area of stalagmites growing up from the cave floor interested him, and he wandered over to it.

His heart froze. He couldn’t mistake the rust-colored stains on it. Human blood.

“Mallory!” Her name burst from his lips. “No!” Luca refused to believe she died on those stalagmites.

She must have fallen, yes, that he did believe. But she wasn’t dead. Their spiritual connection was too powerful. If Death had claimed her, he would know it. He would feel her loss in every fiber of his being.

“God,” he begged, “I have to get out of here. Please help me save Mallory. Guide my friends to me.”

At this point Luca wasn’t too proud to shout for help. “Clayton! Can you hear me? I’m down here! Hutch! River! I’m here!”

Water no longer ran from the tunnel, so perhaps it had stopped raining again. Luca climbed a safe distance off the ground and continued to shout for help until his voice grew hoarse. He rested long enough to tear a strip from his shirt and bind his bleeding wounds before attempting to get the attention of his friends again.

Luca kept checking his waterproof watch for the time. The minutes, then hours ticked by and increased his anxiety. Not for himself, but for Mallory. He didn’t believe she would lose hope until the last possible minute when a knife sank into her heart or sliced her throat, and he wasn’t there to save her. In between yelling for help and resting, Luca tortured himself with these images.

Though the cavern was spacious, he began to feel claustrophobic. Something constricted his chest, and he found it difficult to breathe. The isolation, the silence except the fluttering of bats’ wings, oppressed him. When the panic overwhelmed him, Luca leaped to his feet and climbed up to his perch.

“Clayton! Hutch! River! Can anyone hear me? I’m down here! Follow the water! Follow the?”

“Luca! We’re here!” River shouted from above him.

A body appeared in the tunnel opening. Clayton lowered himself by rope to meet Luca where he clung to the cavern wall.

“Luca, are you hurt? You’re bleedin’.”

“No, not seriously. Just get me out of here.”

“I’ll meet you at the bottom. We need to be on solid ground. You’re barely hangin’ on to that rocky shelf.”

Luca climbed down with Clayton ready to grab him if he lost his balance. Once they gained their footing, Clayton secured the rope around Luca’s waist. He winced with pain and bit his bottom lip to keep from crying out loud.

“Listen, Luca, just hang on. The guys will haul you up first, then toss the rope back for me.”

“Okay!” Luca gasped.

“Pull him up!” Clayton shouted.

The strain of being slowly lifted into the air sent sharp stabs of pain spiraling through Luca, and he grew dizzy from it. When he reached the tunnel, River and Hutch hauled him into the opening and threw the rope down to Clayton. Hutch observed Luca’s condition and turned to one of Clayton’s men. “Help me get him up to the surface.”

Each of them wrapped an arm around Luca’s waist and draped his arms around their necks. Luca’s legs barely supported his weight. Blood now soaked his shirt. He thought he heard Hutch speaking to him, but he sounded too far away to answer him. He didn’t have the strength to form the words anyway.

Don’t pass out. Don’t pass out…

* * *

27 September

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