He frowned, shining his light upward. His eyes widened. “Just keep coming, Rush. Don’t look up. Take your time.”
“What?” She looked up.
Her stomach rolled. Above, the curved roof was dotted with small ledges.
And the ledges were all covered in snakes. As she watched, one fell down, tumbling into the gorge below.
God. One had touched her. She shivered.
“Rush. Look at me.”
She swallowed the bile in her throat. If one landed on her…
“Rush!”
Declan’s harsh voice snapped her head up. He moved his fingers in a “come here” gesture. “Just look at me and keep moving.”
She put one wobbly foot ahead. Then another. Her balance felt off and she felt a burning need to look up.
“Keep coming.”
Something flopped on her boot.
She stifled a scream and lifted her foot. The snake slid off…and Layne’s balance teetered precariously.
“Foot down,” Declan snapped. “Keep coming.”
She did and righted herself. She took another step, fighting not to rush. If she ran, she’d lose her balance. She looked down but the space was too shadowed for her to see the nightmare below. She had no trouble imagining it, though.
“Almost there, sweetheart.”
Just a few more feet.
A snake landed on her shoulder.
She froze. She felt the damn thing move, heard it hiss.
She whimpered.
“Flick it off,” Declan called out. “Keep moving.”
Layne shrugged her shoulder, trying not to cry out. She felt the creature slide away.
But she felt frozen. She couldn’t move.
Suddenly, trails of light winged through the dark space. Voices shouted.
“Ah, it is lovely to see you again, Dr. Rush.”
Anders’ cultured, icy voice made her close her eyes. She heard gunshots and lifted her head. They slammed into the rock wall behind Declan. He was raising his gun and returning fire.
“Rush! Get over here!” he roared.
The thought that he could get shot spurred her into action. She moved steadily and carefully, fighting down the competing feelings inside her body—to run, to scream, to cry.
She stepped off the bridge.
Declan grabbed her arm, his fingers biting into her skin. He yanked her away from the chasm, firing over her shoulder. The echo of the shots was deafening.
He pulled her through an arched doorway and Anders and his men disappeared from their sight.
“You okay?” Declan cupped her cheeks.
“Not really.”
He smiled. “You’ll do. We need to move. Fast.”
They sprinted down the long tunnel. At the end, it speared off into three different tunnels.
“Which way?” he prompted.
“Umm.” She was madly reading all the glyphs. “I can’t see a set-animal. All the hieroglyphs are just talking about Seth.”
Noise and voices echoed from behind them, getting louder.
“Come on, Rush. You can do this.”
She sucked in a breath and blocked out the sounds. The hieroglyphs came into focus. “The middle tunnel.”
They ran again.
The tunnel ended, opening into a small cavern.
“Careful,” Declan said, flashing the light above. “There’s a booby trap here. Looks like this spot on the floor triggers a slab of rock to slam down and seal this entrance.”
Layne carefully skirted the darker colored patch on the ground. Her heart pounded, and she half expected to see some ruins in the cavern, or more tunnel entrances, something.
There was nothing but a still pool of water.
It was a dead end.
Oh, God. “I must have gotten it wrong. Declan, I’m so sorry—”
“Shh.” He was looking around. “We need to hide.”
She guessed they could hide in the water, but she’d never be able to hold her breath long enough.
“God, I screwed up.”
“Hey.” He grabbed her chin. “No giving up, remember?”
She nodded. “If anything happens to us…”
“Rush, that’s giving up.”
“No, it’s not.” She remembered the terrible pain of not having the chance to say goodbye to her parents. She hadn’t been able to tell them how much she loved them.
It wasn’t happening again. Even if the man she was crazy enough to fall for didn’t want to hear the words.
“Declan, I want you to know that I’m falling in love with you.”
He went still, his gaze on her face.
She shrugged one shoulder. “I know, you don’t want to hear it, and this is really bad timing—”
“Shut it, Rush.” The grip on her chin turned to a soft caress. “You love me?”
“Yes.” Her lips trembled and she saw something warm in his eyes. “I see past all those defensive ‘I’m too bad for everyone’ walls you put up.”