Free Her Kind of Trouble by Evelyn Vaughn

with "kuh?"
    As in,
okay
?
    "I'm fine," I called. "There's water down here. It broke my fall."
    I thought I heard a rush of relieved breath, though I may have imagined that part.
    "How are you?" I asked. My concern echoed hauntingly back at me.
Ooo? Ooo
?
    I didn't like that he said nothing. They'd kicked him pretty hard and, considering that Hani seemed to have been jealous, they hadn't been playing nice. Rhys could have broken ribs, internal injuries. "Rhys?"
    No way could I understand his muffled response, but at least he was conscious.
    "I'm going to try to call for help," I announced, hoping the leather of my fanny pack had protected my phone enough that it would work. Wet. Underground. Okay, so it was a long shot but, if nothing else, I wanted the comfort of the lit display in this thick, suffocating blackness.
    I still cursed, loudly, when I realized the phone was gone. So was my change purse. "Son of a bitch!"
    Rhys's next muffled noise was inquiring.
    "That son of a bitch Hani stole my cell phone.
And
the cash I had on me." I patted my chest and sighed in relief. "At least he didn't take my passport, but still… "
    Oh, no! In the darkness, I clapped my right hand over my left—and sagged in relief to sense the ring still there. I might well resent it… but that didn't mean I wanted to lose the damned thing.
    Rhys's response was a single grunt, like
Oh
.
    "I'm going to try to find a side to this… this wherever I am. Maybe I can climb back up to where you are."
    Being blind sucks. Heaven only knew what I was wading through as I headed in the general direction that I'd heard Rhys, but when I called again, his return noise sounded farther away. I realized by my own echo that I was apparently under something and had to backtrack. Through an extended call-and-response exercise, like a deadly serious game of Marco Polo, I finally bumped into what felt like a column. It seemed to have enough pits and cracks in its stone face for me to tentatively climb.
    I tied my wet skirt up around my waist and started up, scrubbing my open hand across a curve of unseen rock for every grip, not allowing myself to imagine what kind of dirt I felt, gritty, under my palm. I was about ten feet up when one sandaled foot slipped off its supposed toehold, and I plummeted backward.
Stupid stupid stupid
.
    Again I splashed, submerged—and had to, with Rhys's help, start over. This time I took off my sandals, too, stowing them in my open fanny pack. I concen-trated on Rhys as I climbed, groping blindly for each finger hold, sliding the sole of each foot across curved, unseen rock for each toehold. He was still tied, and probably injured. He needed me to do this, damn it.
    My legs and arms trembled from the strain. At times like this, I wished I
were
magic.
    Higher…had I gone fifteen feet? Twenty? Higher…
    "Rhys?"
    His response sounded comfortingly nearby, just over my head… and sure enough, my reaching hand slid over the edge of the drop-off from which I'd fallen.
    I grasped crumbling rock and then the edge of thick plywood. I said a little prayer to Isis and whoever else could help me past this last precarious maneuver, and used the leverage of my feet to drag myself over the edge.
    I only allowed myself a moment to flop wetly onto the planking that had welcomed me back to consciousness, panting. Then I pushed up onto my knees. "Rhys!"
    He responded with three weary syllables. Probably, "Over here."
    I crawled in that direction and—blessedly—my hand reached warm, dry flesh. Yes!
    Except that he couldn't swallow back his groan from my touch. He
was
hurt! I tried to be as gentle as possible as I felt down the length of one long, corded arm to where his wrists were bound. The knots fought me; I finally had to lean across him, trying not to put too much weight on him, and bite the damned material to start it ripping. He felt so solid under me, and I felt so wet. And then—
    Free. He accidentally hit me on the head as he raised his hands