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“I don’t know. I can’t move.”
“Maybe if I try…” He tries scooting over, but that only causes our bodies to rub, his upper thigh sliding against the back of my ass.
His breaths come out faster. “Ziva, I don’t like this.”
I’m momentarily pulled out of my fascination over the way his body feels against mine. He doesn’t like this? But I thought— Oh, wait.
“Small spaces,” I whisper.
“I hate them.” He starts shifting, his arms tapping against our enclosure. He’s trying not to panic, but I can tell his movements are becoming more frantic.
And then the space becomes even smaller as a third body joins us.
Petrik’s stepped through the portal. I want to tell him to go back, but Kellyn’s arm is shoved between my shoulder blades.
A light burst of air. Falling forward. And then the weight of two bodies crashing atop of me.
I feel as though my lungs are forced from my body. I cannot breathe, even after the weight is removed.
“Ziva!”
I start to panic because I still can’t breathe and I’m in a strange place in the dark.
And then the air finally comes back. I take the two hands offered to me, and the boys haul me up.
“A damned wardrobe,” Kellyn says.
“Of course, a wardrobe,” Petrik says. “These portraits have to be hidden. Otherwise, anyone could stumble upon them.”
When my eyes adjust, I take in the new space, illuminated by silver light from the single window. We appear to be in some sort of storage space. I can spot vanities and mirrors and chairs.Rolled-up rugs, wardrobes like the one we just came through, bed frames.
I cough, try to muffle the sound against my elbow.
Everything is covered in a thick layer of dust.
“Now what?” Kellyn asks.
“Let’s find our way out of the room. I need to orient myself,” Petrik says.
We fiddle along blindly against the walls. Someone knocks over a lamp, candles breaking and rolling across the floor. Kellyn hits his head on something. I nearly trip over a frame that’s flat against the floor. Then my foot comes down on the glass, shattering it when I try to catch myself.
I pray that we’re far enough away from those living in the palace not to be heard.
“A door!” Kellyn calls. I weave through the maze of furniture until I’m at his side.
He tries the latch. “Locked.”
Of course.
Kellyn steps back from the door a few feet and then throws his weight against it.
I slap his back. “What are you doing? Someone is going to hear that!”
“Do you have a better idea?”
“Yes.”
Petrik reaches us as I start picking at the hinges on the door, pulling the pins out.
