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Please no…

For a moment, she was weak. For a moment she was the old Fiona Lavelle.

Then she thought: No way.

It was Arana Braveblade who picked up the five-pound rock. And rose.

One edge was jagged. It would easily cut flesh and crack open a skull.

She kneaded it in her hand.

As if she were gripping thehandleof a Rendingsword.

Yes, definitely steps, getting closer.

Then she paused.

She took the reading light in her left hand and with the rock in the other she stepped a few feet closer to the entrance.

The light would blind him.

Could she actually strike him?

Fiona couldn’t.

But her hero could.

All in a day’s work for Arana Braveblade.

And soshecould too.

Then she started at the sound of a man’s voice.

“Fiona? Hello. It’s all right. I’m a friendly.”

Something about that word,friendly, made her more comfortable than if he’d said “a friend,” because that would have been a lie. She had no friends here.

She was silent.

“I have a flashlight. I’m going to turn it on. But I won’t shine it in your face, just at my feet. I don’t want to fall, and my eyes aren’t accustomed to the dark. I don’t think you have a gun. Do you?”

“Yes, I do.”

“What kind is it?”

A pause. “All right I don’t have a gun. But I do have a big fucking rock.”

“I’m not a threat. I’m coming in now. Don’t hit me.”

A light came on and the beam swept across the floor and grew brighter as he approached.

Then he was inside. While he kept the beam at his feet, as promised, she turned the reading light on and hithimfull in the face.

He was a handsome, athletic blond man in his thirties, with blue—now quickly blinking—eyes. Though his face was unthreatening, there was something ominous about his clothing—all dark. She gripped the rock more tightly.

“Fiona, my name is Colter Shaw.” He swung the beam over her nest—the bags and backpack and notebook and pens, the food and drinks. “I’m here to rescue you, though I have a feeling you don’t really need rescuing, now, do you?”

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