I drew in a breath and started climbing again. The walls narrowed to form a sort of circular point where the opening was. I was going to have to let go of the kudzu vines, reach for the edge of the hole, and hope the earth didn’t crumble under my weight.

I found a good toehold and rested a moment, gathering my strength once more. For the final time. When I felt strong enough, I bent my knees, kicked up, and reached for the lip of the opening. My hands scrabbled for purchase. At the last second, my fingers clamped around another kudzu vine, this one anchored somewhere above the surface.

I hung there in midair, supported only by my clenching fingertips. At this point, I was weeping openly from the pain in my hands, arms, shoulders. But somehow I hung on.

I slid one hand up the vine. Then the other. Hauling myself upward. Snarls and half screams spewed out of my lips, like I was possessed by some evil spirit. Maybe I was.

Because my will to survive was a powerful thing. Alexis James hadn’t been able to overcome me. Neither had Tobias Dawson. I wasn’t going to let some damp, slippery kudzu vines stop me now.

So I hung there and inched my way up, like a spider climbing up its own web.

Finally, my right hand stretched up into the clear air. I placed it on the edge of the opening, testing the ground.

Solid stone, more than steady enough to support me. I scuttled upward and managed to hook my right elbow up and out of the hole. Then the other one. I drew in a breath and strained upward. My head cleared the tangle of vines covering the opening, and the early morning sunlight slanted across my face, blinding me. I closed my eyes and enjoyed its warmth, meager though it was.

And with a final burst of strength, I pulled myself up and out into the dawn.

32

32

I crabbed away from the hole on my hands and knees. I made it twenty feet before the last of my strength gave out, and I did a header into the ground. For a long time, I just lay there on the forest floor breathing in the earthy scent of the leaves that formed a rough, crackling blanket beneath me. There was noise twittering above my head. More bats?

No, I realized after a moment. Birds. The birds were singing. Which meant I’d definitely, finally, escaped from my underground labyrinth.

A smile stretched across my battered face. I let go, and the world faded to black.

———

Some time later, I woke up in the same position I’d been in when I’d collapsed. One cheek planted on the ground. Arms and legs splayed out at awkward angles, heavy and numb. I tried to get to my knees and immediately groaned as pain filled every single part of my body.