'Four!'
Kai twisted sideways as the woman shoved her through the crack. Rock scraped her back, her cheek.
'Three!'
She fell to her knees in the tunnel, wrenching her shoulder.
Rafael lay crumpled next to her. He held his arm out to her.
'Two!'
Ashanda pushed her large form into the crack-and stopped.
Rafael stared up at her, some understanding filling his eyes. 'Don't,
Kai didn't understand.
'One!'
Ashanda smiled softly as the world exploded behind her.
6:04 A.M.
Painter dove forward and shielded Kai with his body. The blast sounded like the end of the world, accompanied by the burst of a supernova from within the far cavern. Brightness blazed into the tunnel, piercing through the small gaps like a flurry of sodium lasers around the form of the woman who was jammed into the crack.
He pictured the volume of nanotech erupting, tearing a hole in the universe and collapsing the tunnel. But he also remembered the first explosion in the Utah mountains, how the concussive force of the blast was minor, killing only the anthropologist and none of the nearby witnesses.
That wasn't the true danger.
He rolled off Kai as the detonation echoed away and the blazing light dimmed back to darkness, leaving only traces burned into his retina. He blinked away the glare.
Kai sat up from where she'd been pinned down. 'Ashanda...'
The woman hung limply in the crack, but she still breathed.
'Help her, please...' Rafael begged.
Painter stepped past Kai, who still remained tethered to the woman. Reaching up, careful of where he touched, he drew her out of the crack and let her weight pull her to the floor. He leaned her against the wall next to Rafael.
Moving back, he stared past the crack into the far chamber. Chin had returned and pointed his flashlight. It was unable to penetrate that darkness. A black fog seemed to fill the space: rock dust, smoke, and something Painter feared should never be in this world. The nano-nest. As some of it settled, he noted a deeper shadow back there, the mass of the ancient temple. But rather than growing clearer as the fog continued to dissipate, the dark shadow faded, dissolving away, as if it were an illusion.
A groan drew him back to the tunnel.
Ashanda's eyes fluttered open, her head lolled back, as she struggled to regain consciousness.
'She was trying to protect us,' Kai said.
Painter suspected that her altruism was meant more for Rafael than for anyone else-but maybe not. Either way, they'd all benefited.
'She did protect us,' he agreed.
Even now, he watched the woman's clothing on the side closest to the blast begin to lose color and drift down in flakes of fine ash. The dark skin beneath grew speckled as if it had been sprinkled with fine chalk-then those dots grew bigger, spreading, beginning to weep blood.
She was contaminated, whether by Chin's nanobots or some other corrosive process. Using her own body like a shield, she had blocked the rain of particulate corruption from reaching them.
But the tunnel would not be safe for long.
The choke point at the end had begun to crumble, the rock turning to sand and sifting away.
'It's happening much faster than in Utah,' Chin said. 'A nano-nest of this size will likely grow exponentially from here.'
Painter pointed up the tunnel. 'Grab Kowalski. You know what you have to do.'
'Yes, sir.' Still, Chin's eyes looked longingly at the sight of the process as it began to spread, eating its way through all matter, his expression at once fascinated and horrified. Then he shoved around and headed up, collecting the others and herding them ahead of him.
Only Jordan refused to comply. He slipped under the geologist's arm and came back down. 'Are you okay?' he asked Kai.
She lifted her tethered arm.
Painter returned his attention to Rafael. 'Give us the code for the handcuffs.'
But the Frenchman's gaze remained fixed on his woman. She had regained a dazed, weak consciousness, her head leaning crookedly against the wall, staring back at him. Her breathing was shallow and rapid from pain. Blood flowed down her contaminated side, which was missing skin now, showing muscle.
'What have you done, Ashanda?' he murmured.
'Rafael, we need the code for the handcuffs.'
The bastard seemed deaf to Painter's pleas, but Ashanda lifted her good arm a trembling fraction of an inch and let it drop, her desire clear.
Painter remained silent, knowing he could offer no better argument.
So he waited, watching the world slowly dissolve around him.
6:07 A.M.
Shattered on the stone floor, Rafael gazed into Ashanda's eyes. She had sacrificed all for him. All of his life, he'd fought to prove himself, to others, to his family, even to himself-to rise above a shame that was no fault of his own. But in those dark eyes, such effort was never necessary. She saw him, watching in her silences, always there, always so strong.
In this moment he finally truly saw her.
The knowledge shattered him worse than any fall could have done.
'What have I done to you?' he whispered to her in French.
He reached to her cheek.
'Be careful,' Painter said, sounding far away.
Rafael was beyond such concerns. He knew his injuries were severe, that he was growing cold and slipping into shock. He tasted blood on his tongue with each breath, coming from a ripped lung and fractured ribs. Both legs had multiple breaks, likely his hip, too.
He was done for, but he would last long enough.
For her.
He brushed his knuckles along her cheekbone, down the line of her jaw, touching the hollow of her throat.
Her eyes closed ever so slightly.
Her lips shifted into a ghost of a smile.
He pulled her gently into his arms, felt the hot blood along her back, the tremble of agony. She tried to push him away, ever protecting him.
Whether hearing his plea or simply too weak, Ashanda collapsed with a sigh against him. Her head rested on his shoulder, her eyes looking up at him with a joy he'd never seen before. He cursed himself for denying such simple happiness to her-and to himself.
A voice nagged in his ear.
