She hated him.
Beautiful.
His miserable life was now complete.
God, she hated this. Hated the shaking. Hated the nausea. Hated the gnawing fear. Hated the chills. Hated the aches. Prolonged anxiety attacks affected her like a rabid case of the flu, and her body was being ravaged while she struggled to keep a grip on her mind. And that crying jag she’d just gotten a hold on had wiped her out.
Her automatic instinct was to lean on Troy. But she didn’t trust him. Not now. Not after all the Jekyll and Hyde shit he’d pulled. Which she still didn’t understand. But after that degrading dismissal he’d given her from his hotel room, she’d written him off as a major douche bag she no longer even wanted to know.
“How long does this amount of air last?” she asked.
“We’re not in an airtight container, El. We’ll be fine if we just hold tight. Rescue crews are probably already mapping out a plan.”
She fought to hold the questions back, but the silence crept in and pried them out like a crowbar. “How long have we been in here?”
“Maybe twenty minutes.”
“Why does it feel like hours?”
“Because you’re scared. And because you’re stuck with me.”
She wrapped her arms around her bent legs and rested her chin on her knees. “We’re going to be down here forever, aren’t we?”
“I imagine rescue efforts of this size take time, but they probably already know we’re missing. Depending on what happened up there, they may not be able to access the cave to start digging right away.”
“How did this happen?”
He didn’t answer right away. “I don’t know, but we’ll figure it out.”
His voice held an and-heads-will-roll edge that only intensified Giselle’s anxiety. “I don’t hear anyone else. Did they get out? Or are they…” Her stomach cramped. Her throat swelled. Her mind started to fray again. “Oh God…”
“Ellie, don’t. I think most people got out.” His hand stroked down her back. “We’re going to—”
She shrugged his touch away. “Stop. What is this? One of your nice moments?”
When he just hissed through his teeth, something inside Giselle snapped. Because even though her mind knew she should write him off, her heart still struggled with all his contradictions.
“Who the hell are you? Every time I see you, it’s like seeing a different person. You’re nice, then you’re mean, then you pretend you care, then you’re an ass, then you’re nice again. You’re like a psychotic yo-yo. Sometimes I think I see the man I fell in love with, then I’m sure there isn’t even a flicker of that man left in who you’ve become.”
“I’m not that kid anymore,” he bit out, sullen. “I’ve grown up.”
“Really.” She didn’t care how much attitude dripped from her voice. She was so done with the façades. “Because that kid was ten times as mature as you are. That kid had compassion and honor and loyalty and decency and fucking impulse control. Those are the things you’re supposed to gain when you grow up, not lose.”
“If that kid was so awesome,” he yelled back, “why’d you dump him?”
“That’s a stupid question, because you already know the answer. If you need to hear me say it, fine, you made it impossible for me to stay. After a lifetime of having nothing, you made me choose between you and my music.” She sucked a lungful of dusty air. “Now it’s my turn. If you hate me so much, why’d you fuck me at the club? Why didn’t you just walk away?”
Troy heaved a muttered, “Jesus Christ.”
“Or even better yet, why didn’t you let me walk away? I was headed toward the door twice. But no, you taunted me back. I want to know why, dammit, and I’d rather focus on this than on our potentially insanity-inducing situation.”
He winced. “Can you stop yelling? It’s really, really bad for your voice, my head is killing me, and I’d rather not have you dislodge more rocks.”
“Don’t pretend you care now.”
“I didn’t want you fucking some other random guy, okay?” he yelled, right after asking her to stop yelling. “You don’t know what kind of shit goes on in clubs like that, El. I could have been anyone. I could have gagged you in addition to cuffing you and done any goddamn thing I wanted, as long as I wanted, and there wouldn’t have been a damn thing you could have done about it. Didn’t you see the whips and chains hanging on the wall? Don’t you think half a dozen other people would have come running if I’d opened that curtain and snapped my fingers? If you don’t know what you’re doing in places like that, you could get physically and mentally scarred.”
That wasn’t what she’d expected him to say. And the pictures he painted made her shiver with disgust and unease. “Is that why you go? So you can do whatever you want with whoever you want?”