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“It’s going to be okay,” he says evenly, placing his hand over mine. It’s warm and large, and for a split second something very strange happens. I feel a pulse of awareness of him—of his body in the dark and his hand layered over mine and the feeling of his fast-beating heart. Of his scent too—nothing special, just a clean soap smell. Practical, like Danny, but also manly. Tingles shoot through my hand, layered under his, and zip around my body like they’re soda bubbles, and I feel myself leaning in closer. Maybe it’s just because he’s another person, and it feels like we’ve been dropped into a void where only the two of us exist.
I should hobble back, but I can’t bring myself too. It feels like I’d fall off the edge of the world. “Danny, I’m scared,” I hear myself admitting.
Surely it must be someone else saying those words, because I can’t remember ever saying anything like that to anyone before.
“I am too.” It’s not exactly reassuring, but at least he’s honest.
“Can you feel for the call button?”
He lifts his hand from mine, and in my panic, I almost snatch it back before realizing he’s doing exactly what I asked.
A second later, he says, “I pressed all of them.”
“All of them?”
I can practically feel him giving me that half smile, almost patronizing but not. “There are only four buttons. Nothing happened.”
“Yes, I can see that nothing happened.What are we going to do now?”
“I’m going to try the door to see if we’re close to the nearest opening. Maybe I can climb out.”
“No,” I hiss, fisting my hand in the fabric of his shirt. “You’re not climbing out. What if the elevator falls while you’re halfway out, and you get cut in half? I’ll be left in here with half a body.”
“That’s what would upset you most about that scenario?” he asks, almost amused but not quite, like he’s working his way up to doing something heroic and stupid. No thank you, I’m keeping ahold of that shirt.
“Your eyes staring blindly up at me from your severed torso? Yes.”
“Look on the bright side,” he says. He’s leaning down, so his voice is close to my ear, rumbling through my body. I get that strange feeling again, like I’m both terrified and a little turned on. “If I got chopped in half, you’d be left with my bottom half.”
“Great. A dick without a brain. You’d think I’d be used to that, but no thanks.”
He swallows, which I feel because I still have my hand pressed to his chest like some kind of freak. “Do you have your phone?”
“Holy shit, why didn’t I think of that?” I say.
“Because you’re full of adrenaline. It dulls your ability to think clearly.”
“Okay, Dr. Phil.”
“You know he’s not actually—”
“Yes, goddammit.” Leaving one hand wrapped around his shirt to make sure he doesn’t magically leave me alone in here, and also so I don’t fall. I reach into my right pocket with the other and take out the phone, immediately turning on the flashlight.
“Shit,” Danny says, flinching and turning his head from the light like he’s a vampire. But he doesn’t move away from me, probably because I’ve still got a death grip on his shirt. “You got it directly in my eye.”
“Sorry,” I say, switching it off. It’s too bright anyway. We’ve been in here long enough that we’re becoming used to the dark, which only adds to my terror.
What if we’re stuck here all day? What if we’re stuck here forseveraldays?
“You wouldn’t eat me, would you?” I muse.
“What the fuck?” he asks, suddenly swear happy. I guess I bring it out in people. I can’t say I’m sorry for it.
“I mean, if we’re stuck in here for a week.”
“We’d die of thirst before we did hunger, and why would we be in here for a week? Your sister would get worried way before then. And people would start wondering why the elevator’s not working. There are more lazy people in the world than you’d think.”
He’s right. A sigh of relief escapes me, and then I realize I’m holding the phone like an idiot, not doing anything with it.
