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I had lost track of time. How long had Bella been gone—an hour? Two? Or maybe only ten minutes? It might take her time to find Marcus, particularly if he and Ian had decided to go for a long ride. Knowing Bella, that wouldn’t stop her—she’d simply filch one of the cars. She’d been doing so since she was twelve, and I had complete faith in her.
I don’t know if I slept. It seemed to me I might have. It took me a while to realize I was starving—this doomed adventure had started in lieu of lunch, and adding to my misery was the growling of my stomach.
I tried to lie back down on the ledge, but lying on rubble-strewn stone was even worse than sitting up. I leaned my head back against the wall, cried a little, and slept.
When I awoke, I was freezing. I don’t know whether the temperature had dropped or it had simply taken that long for the cold to seep in, but the moment I realized it, I started shivering, and once it began I couldn’t stop. I tried to clamp down on my quivering muscles, wrapping my arms around my body and hugging tightly, but it did no good. My teeth were chattering, my fingers and toes icy, and I knew beyond a doubt that Bella had been gone too long.
She must have fallen on her way to get help. That, or gotten lost. Even if she couldn’t find Marcus and Ian, she would eventually turn to Mary Alice for help, and she would manage everything with her usual ruthless efficiency. If Granda found out he would be furious, but he never stayed angry at Bella for long, and she would protect me from his wrath. If she hadn’t returned, then something had happened to her as well.
For a moment panic swept over me, as I contemplated my imminent demise. And then I calmed down. Granda and everyone who worked at Mariposa, a small army, would move heaven and earth to find Bella, and once they did, they would find me. Unless she’d fallen and hit her head on a rock and was either dead, in a coma, or with a full-flown case of amnesia, in which case I would most definitely die, and considering how cold and how hungry I was, it might be in the next five minutes.
At first, I didn’t even hear the noise. The distant scrape of wood against the rock, the merest sense that the stygian darkness was lessening. And then I heard his voice. His voice.
“Kitty! Where are you?” Ian’s voice was furious.
At that point, I didn’t have Bella’s facility with cursing, but I uttered a profound “fuck” when I recognized him. As if things weren’t bad enough.
“I’m here,” I called back. “Be careful or you’ll fall...”
“I’m not fool enough to come in here without a torch,” he snapped, sounding closer. “How long have you been down here?” The light was growing nearer, a blessed pool of battery-powered electricity.
“I don’t know,” I snapped, irritated. “I’ve lost track of time. Where’s Marcus?”
His laugh was harsh. “I should have known that would be your first thought. He’s back at the house. Apparently he and Bella got distracted on the way to rescue you, and they dispatched me. Sorry for the disappointment.”
I fought back the crushing betrayal. “I don’t care who rescues me, just get me out of here.”
The light came down over me, and I blinked up, blinded. “Shit,” he swore under his breath. “You look like holy hell. Move back against the wall if you can. I’ve brought a ladder.”
“Thanks,” I muttered, glad the tears and all trace of them were long past as I made myself as narrow as I could. The last thing I wanted was Wretched Ian’s pity.
The light was taken away as he worked with the ladder, and I almost cried out at its loss. And then he slid the ladder down till it settled against the narrow ledge, and I heard him curse again.
“What’s wrong?” I demanded, unable to keep the fear out of my voice. If I didn’t get out of this place soon I was going to turn into a blubbering, frozen baby.
“The ladder’s too short. I should be able to pull you up the rest of the way, but you’ve got to be very careful not to knock it or you and the ladder will go over, and I don’t know how far down it is.”
“Too far,” I said. I wasn’t going to be able to stand up, I knew it, any more than I could climb that ladder. But there wasn’t really a choice. I shifted onto my knees, gingerly. They hurt like hell, but the main problem was my right leg, which wasn’t going to support my weight. That’s all right—I had a left leg and two arms that would get me up there, not to mention sheer panic.
I pulled myself up and tried to put weight on my leg. The pain was so intense I almost fainted, and I started to sink down again, then managed to stop myself with sheer force of will. It didn’t matter how much it hurt, I had to get up there. I stumbled toward the ladder, and heard Ian curse overhead.
“Are you able to get up the ladder?” he asked in a quieter voice.
“I have to,” I said grimly.
“Hold on a moment.”
That was the last thing I wanted to do. Standing up had been hard, staying there was just about impossible. I put my hands on the ladder, then resolutely set my left foot and all my weight onto the first rung, leaving my right leg dangling. So far so good, but there was no way I could hop my way up this rickety ladder, especially considering the narrow angle at its base. I put my right foot on the next rung, planning to use it as a tiny bit of leverage, when the pain slashed through again, and I cried out before I could stop myself, starting to fall back, the ladder coming with me.
Something caught it, stopped its descent into darkness, with me clinging to it like a desperate monkey. “Damn it, Kitty, I told you to hold on,” he snapped, sounding no more than slightly harassed. “I’ve got a rope I’m going to toss down to you. I need you to tie it around your waist. That way I can pull you up if the ladder doesn’t work.”
“Pull me up?” I squeaked. I should have been too far past vanity, but I was fifteen and fragile, and I could just imagine the mockery I’d get from all of them. “I can manage.”
“Take the fucking rope.”
That was the first time that word had been directed at me in anger, and it shocked me enough that I caught the rope as he dropped it. He’d tied a loop, and I put it up around me, pulling it tight.
“That’s right,” he said in a calmer voice, soothing me. “Now start up the ladder again. Carefully.”
