Anger flashed across Fletcher’s face, a match to my own. “And what if he gets killed somewhere else because we messed up and got ourselves stuck in a hole?” She seized a fist-sized stone and flung it at the wall. It hit with a loud crack and tumbled to the ground, spitting tiny shards of shrapnel. Fletcher’s chest heaved, but the sudden action seemed to have bled most of the fury out of her, leaving only fear behind.
I reined in my own emotions. “Which is why you should get on my shoulders and try to open that hatch. I won’t drop you, okay?”
Fletcher took a deep breath and nodded, steeling herself as she walked over to me. I crouched down so she could put one foot and then the other on my shoulders, hands braced against my head. Immediately, my right side began to pulse and throb, but I ignored it, gritting my teeth.
“Ready?” I hissed.
“Ready.”
I pushed off the ground and forced myself to my feet, my thighs screaming in protest as I wobbled slowly upright. I almost fell backwards, and Fletcher’s breath caught, but I steadied myself, spreading my feet wide for balance.
“Go,” I said through gritted teeth.
Fletcher’s hands left my head, and then her full weight bore down on my shoulders as she slowly stood. Her weight shifted, and I struggled to compensate for it against the drum that had taken hold in my head, sending waves of pain through my body with each beat.
“Hurry up.”
Fletcher reached her full height and stretched her hands for the wooden hatch. She grunted as she pushed against it. “It’s stuck!”
“What?” I snapped, and the force of my question nearly threw us off balance.
Fletcher caught her fingers in the edges of the hatch and helped steady us. “It won’t budge. They must have put something on top of it.”
“You can’t force it?”
She tried again, but between our poor balance and her lack of leverage, she couldn’t manage it, and she huffed out a sigh of defeat. “I can’t.”
“Okay. Get down.”
“How?” she demanded, a small squeak in her voice.
A good question. I didn’t have an answer for her.
Fletcher slowly crouched down until her hands were on my head again, and then I began to lower the two of us to the ground. I only made it halfway before my legs gave out and I lost my balance, spilling us the rest of the way. Luckily, we didn’t have far to fall, and I got away with only another bruise to the tailbone.
“I guess we wait for that backup,” I said, and Fletcher’s glare clearly said that she wanted to shoot at me.
“I guess we do.”
“What was that outside?” she asked a few minutes later when she’d wrangled her emotions back into place.
“What was what?” I asked. I’d gone back to lying flat on my back as I stared up at the ceiling, feeling utterly drained.
“You kind of… tortured that guy.”
“I didn’t torture him,” I snapped without much venom since when I thought back to that moment, I began to feel a bit sick, my gorge rising.
“You stuck your finger in his injury in order to get information from him,” Fletcher said flatly. “What else would you call it?”
I was silent. She was right. “I shouldn’t have done it,” I admitted. “I don’t have an excuse. I was so amped up from the fight and so worried about Finn that my temper slipped away from me. I’ve always struggled with controlling my anger.” I laughed sourly. “Which is not a good trait for a police officer.”
“It’s not,” Fletcher agreed quietly.
I turned my head to look at her. I wanted her to see the sincerity in my face. “But I’m working on it. I promise.”
“I believe you.” She stuck out her pinky for me to take. “How about you also promise to listen to me next time I tell you to dial it back?”
I crooked my finger around hers and squeezed it. “Deal.”
Backup arrived some ten minutes later. Dimly, through the thick stone walls of the basement and the earth surrounding us, I heard the rumble of several cars pulling up the hill. I hit Fletcher’s arm to grab her attention from where she lay on the ground with her eyes closed, and she quickly sat up, half a smile catching her lips when she realized what was going on.
Quickly, we stood up and began to shout, aiming our voices at the hatch in the hope that Dunnel would hear us. After a minute, boots tramped by overhead, and I could hear the murmur of voices, though I couldn’t make out the words through the stone. Fletcher grabbed a couple of rocks off the ground and chucked them at the ceiling as we continued to yell. Something scraped against the hatch, and then light poured into the basement, blinding me.
Once I’d blinked the stars away, I saw Dunnel’s face peering down at us, holding a high-powered torch. “Didn’t need back up, eh?” he said.
“I get it!” I snapped.
“Catch this,” Fletcher said, and she threw one end of the rope up to Dunnel.
He snagged it out of the air and barked over his shoulders at the constables accompanying him, “Help me with this!”
I motioned for Fletcher to go first, and she wrapped the rope around her arm, holding tightly to one of the climbing knots while her feet hooked around the one at the bottom. Dunnel and the constables worked together to pull her out of the hole, Dunnel reaching out a hand to help her climb through the hatch when she reached the top. Then they dropped the rope back down to me and repeated the process, Dunnel’s fingers tight around my hand as I dragged myself free of the sticky darkness.
The three police cars spilt strobing light across the hillside, though the sirens were mercifully silent. The Castle of Old Wick was packed to the brim with us,
