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She rose up on her toes and pulled his head down and kissed him. It was hard and fast and desperate, and she tasted salt, and she didn’t know if it was hers or his. His arms came around her and crushed her against him for one long moment, so tightly she couldn’t breathe.

Then, finally, he let her go. He stepped back into the darkness of the channel, and the water closed around his legs. She could only see the faint gleam of his eyes in the shadow, watching her. She turned around, wiped her face with the back of her hand, and squeezed down the passage and into the light.

It was chaos. The chamber beyond the passage was small and dry and roughly round, and it was full of light and noise and people. A thick metal casing jutted down through the ceiling in a spray of broken rock, and a harness line hung beside it, still swinging. Floodlights set up on tripods blazed white, so bright that she threw up her arm to shield her eyes. A generator was roaring in the corner, and the winch motor whined overhead. There were four or five people in dusty survey suits and masks. Two more wore the black armored suits of GenCon security, with the Special Projects insignia on their shoulders. Somebody shouted and somebody else pointed, and a light swung around and hit her full in the face.

“There! She’s there!”

And then Ethan was running across the chamber towards her. He crashed into her so hard that she staggered. His arms went around her and he hauled her against him, pack and all, and held on. He was shaking violently. In three weeks, she had never seen Ethan Mercer shake. She had never seen him lose his temper or his composure.

“You stubborn…” he said into her shoulder, his voice thick behind his mask. “You stubborn, impossible…”

He didn’t finish. He simply held on, and she realized that he was crying. She closed her eyes and gratefully let him hold her. She was crying too, and she wasn’t sure who for.

“I’m okay,” she said into his shoulder. “Ethan, I’m okay. I’m right here.”

“We thought you were dead.” He pulled back and held her at arm’s length and looked at her, his eyes red behind the mask. “When we lost the beacon, we thought… God, Frankie, look at you. You’re so thin.”

“I’m fine.”

“You’re not fine. You’ve been down here for nearly two weeks.” He turned his head and shouted over his shoulder. “Medic! Get over here!”

A woman in a medic’s suit hurried over, and suddenly there were hands on her everywhere. Someone was pulling off her pack, and someone was shining a light in her eyes. Someone else was wrapping a thermal blanket around her shoulders and asking her questions she barely heard. They wanted to know how she felt, whether she was dizzy, when she had last eaten, and whether she knew what day it was.

She answered as best she could. And all the time, she was watching the narrow gap in the wall. The passage was dark, and the water roared faintly beyond it. With the generator running, nobody seemed to notice the sound except one of the security men.

He was standing near the gap with a heavy rifle slung across his chest and a handheld scanner in his gloved hand. He turned his head towards it and took a step closer, and then another, and lifted his flashlight.

Her heart stopped, and she acted without thinking. She swayed on her feet, let her knees buckle, and sagged against Ethan with a faint moan.

“Frankie!” Ethan caught her before she could hit the ground. “Hey. Hey, stay with me.”

“Sorry,” she mumbled. “Head’s spinning.”

“She’s probably dehydrated,” the medic said sharply. “And hypoxic. We need to get her up now.” She waved at the security man. “You. Help me with the harness.”

The security man hesitated uncertainly. He glanced back at the dark passage one more time, frowning. Then he turned away and came over to help. She let out a long, shaky breath and closed her eyes.

They got her into the harness, and it seemed to take forever. There were straps and buckles and clips, and a helmet, and the medic checking her mask seal twice. Ethan stood beside her the entire time, holding her arm as if he was afraid she would disappear again if he let go.

When they were nearly done, the security man with the scanner came to stand beside her. He looked down at her, and then at the rough walls of the chamber, and then at the dark gap again.

“Anything else down there, ma’am?” he asked.

She looked at the gap. It was only a dark crack in the rock. Beyond it, there was nothing but shadow and the distant sound of rushing water. Nobody would see anything there without knowing exactly where to look.

She knew exactly where to look.

Just inside the gap, low in the dark, there were two faint points of light. They were deep blue and slit-pupiled, and they were watching her. She couldn’t see anything else of him. But she knew he was there. He had waited to see her safe.

“Just rock,” she said.

The security man nodded and stepped back. Someone called out, and the winch above them began to whine. The line went taut, and her feet left the floor, and she rose slowly towards the metal casing and the square of light far above. She twisted in the harness and looked down.

The chamber dropped away beneath her. The floodlights and the tripods, and Ethan’s upturned face, and the security men, all grew smaller. And the dark crack in the wall grew smaller too, until it was only a thin black line in the stone.

The two points of blue light were still there, and they didn’t move. They watched her all the way up. She pressed her hand to her mask, and spoke without making a sound.

I’ll come back, I promise.