Rex leaned forward and called out, “Avery?”
All four men held their breath as they waited for an answer. Waited to see if it was indeed the missing lieutenant they’d heard a second ago.
When they didn’t hear a sound, Rex again called her name.
Then they all heard the frantic response. “I’m here! Don’t leave me! I’m here!”
Rex’s heart felt as if it would beat out of his chest.
“We’re comin’ for you!” Rex yelled back, and all four men frantically began moving rocks, throwing them every which way, trying desperately to break through to the woman on the other side.
It took way too long, and Rex’s hands and back were killing him when he reached for a small boulder that weighed easily seventy pounds—and heard a small avalanche of stones and rocks falling on the other side.
They’d been removing rocks from high to low, trying to prevent the pile collapsing from above and negating any progress they’d made. Now, finally, praying the mini collapse hadn’t injured Avery anymore than she might be already, Rex used his hands to wrench that rock away—and a small opening appeared at the top. Rex peered down inside.
He saw nothing but darkness.
He didn’t take his eyes from the opening, but reached back with a hand and bit out, “Flashlight!”
Within seconds, one of his teammates had put a penlight in his hand. It was small, but the beam of light was surprisingly strong. Clicking it on, Rex pointed the beam down the hole.
What he saw almost took his breath away.
Avery Nelson was on her knees on the other side of the landslide. She’d turned her head and was shielding her eyes from the tiny shaft of sunlight streaming in through the hole they’d made, and likely because of his flashlight as well. She was covered in dirt from head to toe and was at least twenty pounds lighter than the last time he’d seen her. But she was alive. At the moment, that was all he cared about.
With a quick sweep of the beam, Rex saw rocks all around her inside the cave, some neatly placed along the edges of the area where she was kneeling, and others seemingly thrown haphazardly. It looked like she’d been doing the same thing he and his team had been, removing the rocks one by one. He wasn’t surprised she hadn’t sat in a corner crying or simply waiting to be rescued. She was actively doing all she could to save herself. And he had no doubt she would’ve made it out eventually. She’d made a hell of a lot of progress on her own.
“Avery?” he said, when several moments went by and she hadn’t moved.
She nodded, but she didn’t look at him and didn’t take her hand from her eyes.
Realizing he was an idiot, Rex lowered the light so it wasn’t in her face. The sunlight still streamed into the cave, but at least he wasn’t intentionally blinding her anymore. He turned to Phantom. “I need to get in there.”
“She all right?” his friend asked.
“I don’t know. But by the looks of her, she’s in rough shape.”
Nodding, Rocco, Gumby, and Phantom began pulling more rocks away from the hole they’d uncovered. Within five minutes, they’d made it big enough for Rex to wiggle through.
“I don’t like this,” Rocco said. “The last thing we need is for more rocks to come down and bury both of you in there. Get her the hell out so we can get off this fucking mountain.”
Nodding, Rex turned onto his stomach and put his legs through the hole, backing his way in. He eased his body down slowly, feeling smaller rocks giving way beneath his feet as he lowered himself into the cave.
It took his eyes a moment to adjust. While the sun streaming in gave him enough light to see, it was still black behind the wall of rocks compared to outside. He leaned over and placed his bright flashlight on the ground so the beam was facing the ceiling, lighting the area around him even more and allowing himself to better assess Avery’s condition and the situation in general.
Up close, she looked even rougher than she had from his previous vantage point above. Her skin was paper white and her hair was hanging limp and loose around her shoulders. Her face was covered in bruises, she had a split lip, and he saw her arms had bruises in the shapes of fingers on them, as well.
She didn’t have shoes, as they’d been told, and a metal cuff was around one of her ankles. Her fingernails were broken and jagged, with dirt caked underneath. The navy-issue, olive-green T-shirt she wore was torn at the hem and dirty, but he was relieved both the shirt and her pants were still intact.
Avery tried to look up at him from where she was sitting on the ground, but her eyes were squinted in slits so narrow, he didn’t think she could see much.
“I know it’s bright, give your eyes time to adjust,” he told her.
“I haven’t seen any kind of light in…well, I’m not sure how long. But it seems like weeks.”
Unable to stop himself, Rex reached out and took one of her hands in his own. She latched onto him as if he was the only thing between herself and certain death, which he supposed perhaps he was.
“Are you hurt? Can you stand?” he asked. He needed to get them out of there, not only because it made him sick to see her in this situation, but because he was ever aware that at any time, someone could decide to come back to check on their captive and make sure she was still where they’d left her.
“No and yes,” she said, getting up on her knees in preparation for standing. She hadn’t let go of his hand, and Rex wasn’t about to suggest it. He helped her to her feet—and realized how weak she was when she swayed.
“Sorry,” she muttered.
“Don’t apologize,” Rex said a little too harshly. He consciously gentled his tone when he asked, “Have you eaten anything?”
“Not really. I don’t think the moldy and stale crusts of bread they tossed at me for their own entertainment counted,” she said wryly.
“How in the hell are you standing?” Rex asked, more to himself than her.
“I’m stubborn,” Avery responded. “And they may not have fed me, but they stranded me in a cave with my very own water source.” She gestured behind her. “There’s a small trickle along a wall in the back. I’ve been hydrating as much as possible.”
“Good girl.” The words were slightly chauvinistic, but Rex couldn’t hold them back. With every second he spent with this woman, he was more and more impressed. He’d liked her back in California because of her smile and her looks and her wit. But as he was quickly discovering, there was a core of strength inside Avery that was a hell of a lot more attractive than the color of her hair or how straight and shiny her teeth were.
“If you can keep me from falling over, I’m ready to get out of here,” she stated.
Rex stepped closer and wrapped an arm around her waist. “Is this okay?” he asked, not wanting to contribute to any horrible memories she might have of what had been done to her while a captive.
She nodded and wrapped her own arm around him, keeping her head down and grabbing onto his shirt with surprising strength. “Yeah. Look, we’re the perfect height to win a three-legged race,” she quipped.
Rex snorted. It wasn’t quite a laugh, he couldn’t bring himself to laugh at a time like this, but he agreed with her assessment. They fit together perfectly. He walked them over to the hole where he’d entered the cave.