Page 139 of The Search

“But I think I can wriggle around it.”

“Stay where you are.”

“Shut up. Are you hurt?”

“A few cuts and bruises.”

“Better than you deserve.” She squeezed into the blocked passage. Monty whimpered eagerly and tried to come after her. “No, boy, you found him. Good boy. Now go tell Galen and Donner.”

“You go tell Galen,” Logan said.

“Go, Monty.”

Monty looked at her uncertainly.

“Go.”

He turned and started crawling back through the tunnel.

She spoke into her wire. “I’ve found Logan. I think he’s okay. I’ve sent Monty to show you the way back.” She switched off her wire, then turned the flashlight on Logan. “Now, where are these cuts and bruises that— You liar.” She crawled closer to where he was lying. “It’s broken?”

“I suspect.”

“Anything else?”

“Isn’t that enough?”

“Yes.” Her hand trembled as she took out her first aid pack and got a good look at his arm. She cut the ropes binding him and then opened her pack. “It’s not a compound fracture. I’m surprised because you never do things simple, do you?”

“The pot calling the kettle black.”

“It could have been your idiotic head.”

“That occurred to me. I didn’t expect Rudzak to set a surprise charge before he left. I thought I had everything covered. I had the blueprints changed before he stole them to make the basement lab seem the perfect target. I knew he’d choose to—”

“Shut up and grit your teeth.” She splinted the arm and then bound it. “Okay. It’s done.”

“I’m very . . . glad.”

“So am I.” She sat looking at him. “But I’ll break your other arm if you ever try to keep anything from me again.”

“It was necessary.”

“Bull. Even if you didn’t know about the second charge, you had to blow that pipe, didn’t you? You had to take a chance that could—”

“I couldn’t let him live. Not after Kai Chi. I just hope I got him.”

“You did. Monty found him before we got here.”

“Thank God.”

“I thought he was you. I thought you were dead.” She lay down beside him, not touching him. “I don’t want you ever scaring me like this again.”

“I think you could call this an extraordinary circumstance.”

“I don’t care what you call it. It’s not going to happen. I don’t want you hurt or broken or dead.”

“Neither do I.”