The ledge they'd collapsed on was a mockery of safety—a lip of stone barely wide enough for two people to stand side-by-side. Above them, the shaft continued, its walls now sprouting irregular, glass-smooth protrusions that made the rope the only viable path. The climb had become a pure test of grip and will.
Chloe was just below the ledge, her arms shaking with a deep, muscular tremor. The Halvern defiance was a fading echo in a body pushed to its limit. Her foot slipped. She cried out, her grip on the rope slipping, her body swinging wildly.
Elijah, on the ledge, didn't think. He dropped to his knees, his upper body leaning out over the void. His arm shot down, his hand clamping around her wrist just as her other hand lost its hold. The jolt nearly pulled him off. He grunted, his spine locking into a rigid, dystonic arch against the strain. He hauled, not pulling her up to the ledge—there was no room—but swinging her laterally onto a slightly wider protrusion a few feet below and to the right. She landed hard, gasping, clinging to the rock.
"Stay there," he ordered, his voice tight.
He looked down. Vivian was failing. Her climb had devolved into pathetic, trembling hitches. She was sobbing openly, her hands bleeding, her legs kicking uselessly at the air. Richie was below her, moving with a slow, pained determination, his eyes vacant.
Elijah's internal monologue was a cold, swift river. Chloe is safe. For now. The blonde one is dead weight. She'll fall. She'll take Richie with her. The rope might snap. Chaos. Chloe could be lost in the chaos. The calculation was brutal and amoral. I'm not a hero. I just need to get her out. The rest are variables. Mostly negative.
His eyes flicked to the main screen embedded in the wall across the shaft, showing the live feed and the chat.
User 'Vulture': Let the blonde go! She's dragging them all down!
User 'GossipGoblin': If he lets her die, his 'relationship' with the Halvern girl gets simpler.
User 'MaskFan': The quiet one is calculating. Look at his eyes. He's running numbers.
The comments were a mirror to his own dark logic. The thought of saving Vivian felt like a moral tax, a waste of energy better spent on Chloe. A hot, private shame flared in his gut, followed by a colder, more pragmatic fury. For the sake of saving face. For the narrative. For the audience that decides if we get parachutes or acid. I have to play the hero. Even if it's a lie.
"Marcus!" Elijah barked.
Marcus, having just secured himself on the far side of the ledge, looked over.
"Richie's flagging. Get him." Elijah's command left no room for debate.
Marcus's jaw tightened, but he gave a curt nod. He began descending with a controlled, spider-like grace, bypassing Vivian to reach the fading Richie.
Elijah turned back to the problem of Vivian. He couldn't pull her up to Chloe's perch. There wasn't enough space for three. The only way was to bring her to him.
"Chloe," he said, his voice low. "When I give the signal, you need to let go and jump to me. Can you do that?"
Chloe, pale and breathing hard, looked at the gap between her perch and his ledge. It was a leap of faith over a hundred-foot drop. She met his eyes and nodded, a fierce, trusting gleam in her own.
"Now," he said.
Chloe pushed off. She flew across the gap. Elijah caught her around the waist as she landed, absorbing her momentum, spinning her to safety behind him on the ledge. The move was fluid, a choreiform adjustment of limbs executed under extreme duress.
Immediately, without pause, he leaned out again. Vivian was directly below, a weeping mess.
"Vivian! Look at me!"
She looked up, her face a mask of tear-streaked terror.
"I'm going to swing down. You will let go of the rope and grab onto me. Do you understand?"
She shook her head wildly. "I can't!"
"You will. Or you die here." The cruelty in his tone was deliberate, a shock to her system.
He didn't wait for consent. He secured his footing, then, holding the rope with one tremor-ridden arm, he leaned out and down, his body describing a controlled arc. He came level with her.
"Let go. Now."
Paralyzed with fear, she did nothing. Elijah, his patience gone, simply reached out and pried her white-knuckled hand off the rope. She shrieked, falling—but only a foot, onto him. He absorbed her weight with a pained gasp, her arms instinctively locking around his neck in a stranglehold. He was now holding the rope with one hand, Vivian with the other arm, his body screaming in protest.
User 'ChaosEnjoyer': HE'S CARRYING HER! THE ABSOLUTE MADMAN!
User 'RomanceBot': He saved her! He does care!
I don't, Elijah thought savagely, his muscles burning. This is for the cameras. This is for Chloe. This is transactional.
With a Herculean effort, using a combination of leg pushes against the wall and agonizing one-armed pulls on the rope, he began to haul them both back up to the ledge. His world narrowed to fire in his ligaments and the pounding of his heart. Every movement was a myoclonic battle, a fight against total muscular failure.
Meanwhile, Marcus had reached Richie. The younger man was barely clinging on, his eyes glassy. Without a word, Marcus grabbed the back of Richie's collar in a fist so tight the fabric strained. He didn't offer encouragement; he provided brute-force assistance, half-dragging, half-pulling Richie upward, using his own body as a scaffold. It was an inelegant, merciless rescue.
User 'BallHog': Okay, even the jerk is pulling his weight. What is this, teamwork day?
They regrouped on the slightly wider ledge, a shattered, gasping tableau. Elijah set Vivian down; she crumpled into a ball. Chloe checked her wounds. Richie sat with his head between his knees. Marcus leaned against the wall, his chest heaving.
Richie let out a sound—a wet, hollow laugh that held no humor. He lifted his head, his face etched with a profound, self-deprecating emptiness. "You know," he whispered, to no one and everyone. "All of this… doesn't it feel like retribution? Like I'm finally paying the bill for all the nasty shit I did back in Ever Thorne? The cyber-bullying. The cruel jokes. That girl… I broke her. For fun." He laughed again, the sound tearing at his throat.
Marcus, wiping sweat from his eyes, didn't look at him. "Stop your melodramatic bullshit and focus," he snapped, but the anger was thin, covering something else. "I'm doing the heavy lifting here, so shut the hell up."
Richie's gaze slid to Marcus, a flicker of ancient, knowing contempt in his dead eyes. You too, Marcus, he thought, the words echoing silently in the chamber of his skull. Are you feeling any remorse for that girl? I wonder. You've always been better at pretending. A master of the performance. You were like that even back in Ever Thorne. Nothing's changed.
No one spoke. The only sounds were their ragged breaths and the deep, vibrational hum of the giant around them. The climb wasn't over. The emblem above glowed, waiting.
They had reached the chest. The final chamber—the head—was somewhere in the darkness above. And the clock continued its inexorable descent.
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