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“How’d you get caught?”
“The fence. He ratted me out—a patriot. But the Swans got to me first. I was in Morocco when Pike picked me up.”
“Pike?”
“He’s the founder and boss, although he died a few years ago. He, along with a woman named Ziggy, talked me into a life of sanctioned heists and undercover gigs.”
“And you said yes, just like that?”
They’d neared the edge of the tunnel, the light spilling into the darkness, cresting over Stein, illuminating his soggy attire, casting his hair a deep bronze. He turned, eyebrow raised.
She met his eyes. “I had my reasons. But the biggest was that I could start over, reinvent myself. Let’s get out of here.”
“Hence the name Phoenix. What is your real name?”
She stepped out into a space approximately six feet wide, and as she looked up, the height hollowed her out. “It’s probably two hundred feet up to the surface.” Still, light streamed in, and above that... dawn. It bled gold and pink and lavender across the sky.
Now she wanted to weep too.
He touched the edges of the rock. “These are lava blocks. They get ejected from the volcano already formed, and then the lava flows on top of them. They’re much harder to cut through than an old lava flow.”
“Which means what?”
“Which means that something blasted these out.” He searched the rock.
“What are you looking for?”
“Old bolt anchors or pitons that might have held a cable—like this one.” He pointed to an anchor protruding from the rock, affixed into the stone at two points, with what looked like a pulley securing them together. “My thought is, we climb up these to the top.”
She spotted the next one, about four feet higher. “That’s a tough climb. No three-point anchor holds. And one of us isn’t eight feet tall.”
He glanced over at her, handed her the flashlight.
Then he reached up and grabbed the higher point. Put his stocking foot on the lower anchor and lifted himself up. He grabbed the next higher point, put both hands on the anchor, and walked up the wall, hand over hand, feet bracing on the anchors.
“Okay, Spidey, that works for you. But I can’t reach the taller anchor.”
He kept moving.
And it occurred to her then that... He wouldn’t just leave her, would he?
He kept ascending.
She stepped back. “Just for the record, I can’t catch you.”
“You could if you tried.”
For a guy with bad knees, he could scale walls like an Olympic climber. Or perhaps desperation just added a little oomph to his antigravity powers.
He reached the top. And she stepped back, waiting as he disappeared.
A minute. Another. “I hope you have a plan!”
Nothing.
Perfect.She walked to the wall. Jumped. Caught her hand on the anchor a foot above her but now dangled and scrabbled to get her foot on the lower anchor.
She’d have to jump for the next one.