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“You don’t...need to tell...me that,” I gasped, grabbing hold once more, gritting my teeth. I could handle pain. It would only last a few seconds, as I made my way up the ladder, and then I could scream and cry all I wanted, and it didn’t matter if Ian mocked me. I’d be safe.
I was past tears—I must have cried them all out earlier in my imprisonment. I gritted my teeth, fighting against the dizziness, and climbed the first rung. Then the second. I even managed the third, when my leg gave way completely, the ladder bucked out from under me and I was hanging by a rope, swinging over whatever lay beyond the edge of the ledge as I heard the wooden ladder splinter below me as it followed Granda’s lighter.
I didn’t call out. I heard Ian above me, cursing with great inventiveness, and the rope bit into my middle, cutting off my breath, as I felt myself being hauled upward. I was going to die, and I knew it. Ian didn’t have Marcus’s splendid muscles, he was only seventeen, not strong enough to haul me up that distance.
“Don’t...drop...me,” I managed to cry out despite the constriction of the rope, which had now slipped up to my armpits and was choking me even more effectively.
“I’m not fucking going to,” he ground out, and I could only hope he was using something for leverage or I wasn’t going to be around for much longer. I bounced against the stone wall, slammed my head against the rock, and cried out, feeling the dizziness come over me once again.
“Don’t pass out, Kitty,” he snarled. “I need your help. I can’t handle a dead weight.”
I forced myself back. I couldn’t climb up the rock, but I could use my hands, my fingers, searching for any kind of handhold, something that could propel me up, taking at least a bit of the strain off Ian. If only he hadn’t come alone. Embarrassing as it was, he and Marcus and Bella could have hauled me up with ease, instead of Ian trying desperately to drag me out of the valley of death.
Another yank, and my knees slammed against the rock. I could hear him cursing, a litany of words so foul I didn’t know some of them. If I survived, I was going to find out what they meant and use them myself.
And then, wonder of wonders, I felt the edge of the drop, and while some of it crumbled against my desperately grabbing fingers, Ian must have seen me, for he pulled once more, one ferocious yank, and I was lying on the floor of the cave like a landed fish, and Ian had collapsed beside me, muttering “shit shit shit” underneath his breath.
I don’t know how long we lay there. I was unable to move, not even to loosen the rope that was biting into my armpits and chest. All I could do was thank God I was still alive. And wish it were Marcus who had rescued me.
Ian sat up first, no longer gasping for breath, and reached for the rope. I tried to slap his hands away, more than capable of untying it myself, but I couldn’t even lift my arms. All I could do was lie there and let him deal with it.
Something was wet against my chest, wet and warm, and I recognized the smell of blood. “I’m bleeding,” I choked out in horror.
“Not unless you’ve got your period,” he said, and I could feel my face heat. “That’s my blood pouring all over you. I gashed my arm against the rock while I was hauling your ass out of there.”
Guilt and concern assailed me. “Are you all right? Do you need a bandage?”
“Since neither of us has one, it hardly matters. I’m not going to bleed to death, if that’s what you’re worried about,” he said with his usual lack of charm. “I’ll get you back to the house, though I can’t promise Granda won’t find out. Bella and Marcus were supposed to distract him, but there’s never any guarantee that will work, and Mary Alice is always snooping around. So, what the bloody hell did you think you were doing, coming out here? You know it’s off-limits.”
“Bella...that is, we thought it would be fun.”
But he’d caught my slip. “Bella’s idea, was it? I should have known. You know, Podge, you’re the biggest idiot I have ever seen in my entire life. You think Marcus is a god and you watch him with those sad eyes of yours, hoping he’ll notice, and he never will. Marcus isn’t the noticing kind of person—you have to hit him over the head to get him to pay attention. And you think Bella is your friend. She’s not. She’s a snake in the grass.”
“Go to hell,” I said. For some reason the fact that he called me Podge was almost worse than his warning. “You’re just jealous.”
“Of whom? Marcus? He’s a kind-hearted lunkhead, and you’re smart enough to know better, but you’re too blinded by his pretty face.”
“Of Bella,” I snapped. “You’re in love with her, and she only has eyes for Marcus, and you’re not half the man he is.”
It was the one thing I never should have said. Bella had confided in me, last summer. How Ian had tried to kiss her, and she’d rebuffed him. That it wasn’t the first time it happened, and it explained all his hostility.
I couldn’t see his face in the darkness. He was still fiddling with the rope, but for a moment his hands stilled. “When I fall in love with someone, Kitty, you’ll be the first to know.” I could feel him rise, towering over me as he pulled the rope free, and I didn’t have to see him to know he was winding the rope up in neat, mechanical movements. “Give me your hands.”
I had managed to sit up, coughing a bit, and I glared up at his shadowy figure, secure in the fact that it was too dark to see expressions. “I can take it from here. Why don’t you head back to the house and I’ll follow on my own.”
“Don’t bother giving me dirty looks,” he said. “I’m not leaving you until you’re safe inside the house. I don’t trust you not to wander over another cliff.”
“The cave floor gave way beneath me!” I protested, incensed. “It was hardly my fault.”
“You’re right about that,” he said grimly. He reached down, caught my arms, and hauled me up to stand in front of him. Or he tried. My leg immediately gave way, and he caught me, pulling me against him.
I had never felt a boy’s body against mine, a boy’s arms around me, and I almost cried. I’d wanted it to be Marcus, I wanted my first kiss to be from Marcus.
Not that Ian had any intention of kissing me. Instead, he simply picked me up into his arms, holding me high as he carried me out of the cave.
And into darkness. Night had fallen—I had been trapped in that cave for hours, and it was little wonder I was still shaking from the cold.
The moon was high, and we could see each other more clearly. He set me down on the ground, more carefully than I would have expected from bad-tempered Ian, and I could see his arm beneath the rolled-up shirt sleeve was dark with blood.
