CHAPTER SIX
“Can I borrow a light?” Now that the danger had passed, there wasn’t enough money on the planet to pay her to hand-feel her way back into the cubby hole she’d been hiding in.
“Still afraid of spiders, huh?”
She nodded. He better not start teasing her about it, or she might lose the tiny fingernail grip she had on her sanity. “Something like that.” She gratefully took the penlight he handed her and switched it on. Once she caught an eyeful of all the spiderwebs, she swallowed hard against the lump in her throat.
Shit.
They are all in my hair. I just know it.
But she refused to look like a wimp in front of Draven and resisted the urge to shudder because he’d tease her about it for sure. Indy forced herself to keep moving forward, as if those spider houses didn’t exist.
Close your eyes and pretend you are about two hours back in time.
That’s not going to work.
She dug deep into the reserves inside her, just as she had when she was in training at Langley and the instructors gave her a hard time. She would not allow herself to be beaten by a freaking spider. Nope, that was what hours under a hot shower were for. To scrub every inch of her skin until she couldn’t feel them crawling all over her anymore.
“What’s wrong?”
“I—” Crap, so much for not letting Draven see she was hesitating, “I forgot where I stashed something. Give me a minute.” She scanned the wall, looking for the fissure she had stuffed the papers into. “They all look the same.”
“What does?”
“The holes in the wall,” she explained. “I put the important stuff in one.” He huffed in what she was going to assume was annoyance. But he would just have to deal. She was not leaving without those papers. They were the reason she’d ended up in this pickle in the first place.
“Gimme the light.” He held out his hand. “And come back here and start at the beginning with your eyes closed. Just like you had the first time you came in here. Maybe it will jog something loose.”
She’d been afraid he was going to suggest that. It was what she would have suggested too. But it didn’t mean she liked the idea any better. “Okay.” She squeezed her eyes shut when he positioned her in front of him, facing into the back of the cave.
“I’ll keep the webs off you.”
His husky whisper in her ear did what she’d refused to let the spider webs do, and she had a full body shudder wracked through her. “Thanks.” She placed her hand on the wall next to her, trying to remember the nuances of the rock wall as she’d felt them before. “It’s further down where we were a minute ago.”
He stood close enough to her back that he was almost stepping on her heels as they moved. “Trust the process. Concentrate on the memory of coming in here earlier.”
“I was concentrating on not giving my presence away,” she whispered back. “I knew there was someone outside, I just didn’t know who and I didn’t want to risk that it was someone who knew who I was.”
“Letting people know you work for a three-letter agency is never advisable,” he agreed. “How long were you in here?”
“About two days, I think. Maybe it was three.” She ran her fingers along the cool rocks, wincing every time she skimmed over an opening. Now she knew for sure the spiders were here, she couldn’t get them out of her mind. The knowledge screwed with her ability to remember. “I don’t know. I just don’t know…”
“Shh,” he cut her off. “You can do this.”
She wasn’t as confident about that as he was. But having him here helped push the urge to bat at everything and anything which touched off her. She inhaled and blew out a long slow breath, striving for a calm she didn’t feel.
Those papers are in here. They couldn’t have walked out of here as you were right in the way.
She jumped when Draven wrapped one arm around her waist and pressed against her diaphragm, his fingers tapping out a slow, steady beat. “Wha—?”
“Breathe with me.
“Stay calm.
“You can do this.”
His order cut off her protest. At this point she had nothing left to lose. She already trusted him. They both knew it. She gave in and followed the slow beat of his fingers on her stomach, breathing in time with them until her panic receded enough that she could try to focus. “Okay, I’m ready to try again.”
“Then, let’s do it, brat. I’ll stay right here with you every step of the way.”
And you expect me to concentrate with you all pressed up against me like THAT?
Is he insane?
Yes. Yes, he is. Remember Lizz has been telling you that for years.
“Ready?”
“Yeah.” She ignored his chuckle in her ear. Maybe she’d even remember to kick him in the shins or the balls for laughing at her later. Or maybe she wouldn’t because he’d come running to save her the minute she’d asked him to. She took one step and then another, and just like he’d promised, he kept one hand wrapped around her waist as he moved in time with her. Her fingers ran over the stone, brushing over lumps and bumps. She kept probing just as she had the first time she’d come in here. When the tips of her fingers dipped into an opening big enough to fit her hand in, she paused. “I think I found it.”
“Let’s see.” He removed his hand and flipped on the light again. Both of them blinked against the brightness. He ran the beam down over the opening. “That looks like it would fit something as long as it wasn’t bulky.”
“It’s papers,” she admitted.
“Then let’s see.” He nudged her to one side and peered into the opening. “I don’t think my hand is gonna fit in there.”
“It was tight for me and I don’t have your muscles.” She slipped under his arm and peered into the opening and reared back as soon as she saw what was in there with her papers. “Uh, Draven, that’s a snake…”
“Yeah, I saw that.” He thumbed on his comms. “Bravo Three to TOC.”
She wouldn’t be able to hear the other side of the conversation, but it sucked not to have both sides of it.
“TOC, if I send you a picture of a snake, can you tell me if it’s venomous or not?
“Yeah. It’s gonna take me a hot minute, I need to take off the wrist-held.” As he spoke, he pulled on the tabs of the device she knew was used for everything from intel to GPS to taking photos. “Yeah, I got her. She’s good.”
She wondered if the TOC he was talking to was the same person who’d been on the other end of the comms unit when she’d been rescued in Eastern Europe.
He’s going to think I can’t do anything but land myself in trouble and need rescuing like some damsel in distress. Dang it.
Draven angled the rectangular device into the opening of the crevice and pressed a button. “Did you get that, TOC?
“Shit. Hell no, I’m not getting closer. That fucker is hissing at me.”
“What’s happening?”
“The photo isn’t clear enough as my wrist-held doesn’t have a flash.”
“Will a phone work?” She remembered she’d switched it off and stuffed it into the bottom of her rucksack. “I have one.”
“Yes, please.”
She checked over the bag before grabbing it and digging inside to search for the phone. Where there was one snake there were often more, and she didn’t want to add losing a limb or her life because she wasn’t careful enough. “Just give me a second to turn it on.”
“No worries,” he replied to her. “TOC, how do you want me to send the number to you? Does email work?
“Okay.”
She breathed a sigh of relief when the phone turned on then glared at the screen. “It’s only got twelve percent battery, once it hits ten the flash won’t work.” She placed the phone in his hand. “It’s open on camera, just point and hit the button.”
He nodded in response and pointed the phone at the snake, taking a shot. “I need you to email that to this address if you can do it.”
“Okay, let me try. It allowed a text to get out, so email might too.” She opened the app for her throwaway personal account and attached the image to it, filled in the address he rattled off to her, and hit send. She watched the circle in the center of the screen and then the phone died.
“It died.”
“Fuck.” Draven pinched the fingers of one hand into his eyes as if his head was going to explode. “Repeat that?”
“It die—”
“Not you.”
He could growl at her any day of the week he wanted to, as long as he wasn’t mad at her. The growl… that was sexy… the mad… not so much. “Sorry.”
“What’s your login and password?” he asked her. “TOC is gonna log in from his side and see if the message is in your drafts folder.”
Shit.
She chewed on the corner of her lip. Now what was she meant to do? She didn’t give logins and or passwords to anyone. Not even a tactical operations center.
“Now, Indy! Unless you want to stick your hand in there with the fucking snake before we know if it can kill you or not.”
It’s a throwaway, never use it for anything again.
She huffed in annoyance but gave him the information he wanted, and he passed it on to his tactical operations center. She kept one eye on the opening and one eye on Draven. It would be just her luck that the snake would decide it no longer liked hiding in there and slithered out on top of them.
“Okay,” Draven replied to whatever TOC said to him then turned to her. “It’s not poisonous, but it has a nasty bite, so we’re gonna have to move it.”
“Ugh—just ugh.”
“Thanks, TOC. I’m leaving you live until we get this thing out of here.”
She wasn’t sure which of them he was warning that the comms was open. Probably both. Either way, she appreciated it. It was one thing to be all kinds of familiar with Draven, and a whole different one to do it when there was someone on the other either of a comms unit, especially when she didn’t know if it was being recorded or not. She watched him move his weapon up and poke it into the hole. “What are you doing? You can’t shoot…”
“I’m not going to shoot it.” The you idiot was implied in his tone. “I don’t have a stick and I figured if I can get it to wrap around the muzzle, it will work. If not, then I can shoot it.”
“As long as it’s in a place where you can shoot it and not snapping on your nose and chomping it off.”
“Seriously?” He turned toward her with the muzzle of his weapon in the hole. “You are going to make me nuts by the time we get back home, aren’t you?”
“Of course,” she quipped. “Why change a good thing now?”
“Fuck you, TOC, just fuck you.”
Whoops, she’d been so engrossed in teasing him in an effort to keep herself from losing her mind that she’d forgotten all about his comms being open. “Sorry.” She mouthed the word but didn’t think he’d be able to see her in the dark despite his night vision having the dim light omitted by the penlight to give him extra help to see.
He grunted, which let her know it had been enough for him to see, and went back to concentrating on the snake. He pushed his weapon further into the hole while trying to peer over the top of the muzzle.
She was going to be forever grateful that her fingers hadn’t skimmed off that snake when she’d pushed the papers in there. She shuddered in revulsion, there wouldn’t have been a hope in hell she’d have been able to suppress a scream if she’d known that snake was there. The men who’d been outside would have had days to play with her and that just didn’t bear thinking about.
“Fuck.”
India didn’t wait for directions or orders; she moved her happy ass out of the way as Draven jumped back. She screamed as the snake launched itself at Draven.