She remembered hearing that, as a general rule of thumb, a person could survive three days without water. She tried to calculate how long she had been without watera day now? A day and a half? And before that, shed been drinking alcohol, which was hardly the best way to stay hydrated.

You need to keep calm and stay still, she told herself. Keep your heart rate down.

This strategy, however, was predicated on the hope of rescue. If she had no reason to believe anyone was coming for her, why should she stay still? What good would it do?

She was still listening to these feverish thoughts when she noticed a crack of light high on the opposite wall. How had she not seen it before?

Emboldened, she scrambled to her feet and rushed toward the wall. Her hands were still tied behind her. She had spent hours trying to free them, without success, but now she tried something else.

Squatting down, she looped her hands behind her thighs and then rocked back on the ground like an overturned beetle. She scrunched her legs and forced first one foot and then the other through the circle of her arms. She whimpered in pain as the grit on her sneaker scraped her chafed wrist, but she managed to complete the exercise without serious injury.

With her hands in front of her now, she pressed her fingers to the wall and began to dig.

The earth was surprisingly soft. It fell in clods to the floor of the mine, then began to slide freely. The dirt filled her shoes and gathered around her ankles, but she didnt care.

She kept her eyes on that crack of light. If she could only dig a path to it, if she could widen it

Suddenly an avalanche of earth broke loose, throwing her backward. She hit the ground hard and felt dirt and rocks pour over her like a river, pinning her down. She gasped for air, coughing as dust filled her lungs. She felt a strange, sharp pain every time she took a breath.

Youre so close, she told herself, staring desperately up at the crack of daylight, which had indeed widened. If you can just dig a little more…

The earth, however, had pinned her arms to her chest, leaving her paralyzed from the neck down. She could move nothing except her head, which she wiggled back and forth, causing little tendrils of dirt to spill down from the hill covering her body.

As she whipped her head back and forth, sped on by panic, her head struck a hard object. It gave a strange, hollow rattle.

She turned her head toward it.

In the light coming through the crack high along the wall, she could see the object far more clearly than she would have wished.

She was staring into the hollow eyes of a human skull.

CHAPTER TWENTY FOUR