Page 27

‘No.’
‘Will you help me?’
‘As much as I can. I cross my heart.’
She smiles. The effort brings tears to her eyes. ‘That’s really kind. Really brave, too.’
Elijah’s lungs fill, a sound like wind over dead leaves. ‘He’ll test you. Most people fail.’
‘What kind of test?’
‘I don’t know. But you’ll have to figure it out. You won’t get a second chance.’
Elissa licks her lips. She glances at her wrist, scarlet and glistening. Wishes she hadn’t. ‘If I do everything right, will I survive this?’
Behind his light, Elijah remains motionless, as if he’s listening for something. Abruptly, he scrambles up.
‘What is it?’
‘Gotta go.’
‘Why?’
‘Because,’ he says. ‘Out of time.’
Her stomach clenches. ‘Are you coming back?’
‘Soon as I can.’
He goes to the candle and kicks it out.
‘What’re you doing?’
The yellow beam of his torch swings close. Onlyexhaustion prevents her from cringing away. Then the light winks off, plunging the cell into full darkness.
Elijah’s shoes scratch across the compacted dirt floor. She hears something being unfastened – a belt, or perhaps a strap. A metal zipper is tugged open. Fingers touch her hair, cradle the back of her head. Her heart’s thumping so violently it threatens to tear loose from her chest. Now there’s something hard against her lips. And shallow breathing, close to her ear.
‘Here,’ Elijah whispers. ‘Drink.’
The object is the lip of a bottle, from the feel of it the kind used for fizzy drinks. She thinks of the wet cloth in the van and feels a scream coming. Panicked, she rears away. ‘What is it?’
‘Just water.’
This time, when Elijah guides it to her lips, the urge to drink is irresistible. The water tastes clean, untainted. She guzzles it down, heedless of the splashes that soak her dress. When he tilts the bottle away, she gasps for more. He presses it back to her mouth. Their blind intimacy is as awkward as it is undeniable.
Sated, Elissa leans away. Elijah gets to his feet. At the cell door, his torch winks back on.
She angles her head from its glare. ‘You can’t leave the bottle?’
‘Sorry.’
He grows motionless again, as if he’s zeroing in on something she can’t hear.
‘What is it?’ she asks, but he doesn’t answer. ‘Elijah?’
Speaking his name seems to cut through whatever fears have overtaken him. When the torch beam whips back to her face, she says, ‘Promise me.’
‘Promise what?’