E L A R A
The dark presses close. Water moves against the rock, steady and cold. My hands don’t feel like mine; even my pulse sounds far away.
Adrian’s lamp sputters and dies. Blackness swallows us. Air thins in my chest before I can stop it. I hear water forcing through cracks and his breathing, rough and fast.
“Elara.” His voice cuts through. “Talk to me.”
“I’m … here.” My jaw won’t work right. The cold climbs faster now, numbing fingers, toes, jaw.
Metal scrapes as he digs through the pack. “Water’s rising. There’s a shelf, we need to climb.”
I tried. But my knees gives. He catches me around the waist, heat shocking through soaked fabric.
“Easy,” he murmurs. “Stay with me.”
“I’m fine.” A lie.
“You’re shaking too hard.”
“I can.”
“No.” He lifts me until my boots scrape rock. Ev
