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JADE LAID IN A TUNNEL with only her calves and feet sticking out when her flashlight yellowed and dimmed.
“Damn it.” She beat the flashlight against her other palm and its brightness returned. That meant she only had a few minutes before she needed batteries. Which were down at the campsite. But this was the third hole she’d made, and it had taken that many long days of digging and hammering and chipping, and she wasn’t leaving today until she was satisfied.
Twenty minutes later, even whacking the light didn’t help. It dimmed to a weak yellow, then sputtered out, leaving her in darkness.
She rested her sweaty forehead against her gritty arm and closed her eyes. The mountain was being stingy with her. She was hitting dead end after dead end.
Yesterday when she’d hit this pocket, she’d thrown a triumphant look in Micah’s direction and then dug with excitement until she laid in a hole almost as deep as she was tall. But she’d been at it for hours today and had yet to see anything worthwhile. So far, there were only junk rocks in this pocket. Either they were misshapen and poor quality, or they were pretty but worthless. In previous years she would have taken a few of the pretty one’s home, displayed them. But she needed money, dammit.
Maybe if she dug a little more, those junk rocks would lead to better-shaped and more valuable crystals. She always had the feeling that if she was patient a little longer, if she dug a just little farther, she’d find what she was looking for, hit that big strike. A pocket of gems so plentiful, she and her mother would be set for life. It was a tease, a lure that kept miners digging until they reached a dead end.
And sometimes a deadly end.
Even so, she wasn’t immune to it. She wanted to keep digging, get past this wall of rock to see what lie behind it.
But she couldn’t do that in the dark.
With a heavy sigh, Jade shimmied backwards out of the narrow hole until she could push herself up.
Muscles protesting, she stood and shook out the dust and dried mud from her braid and bangs.
Pushing her safety glasses up on her head, she peeked over at Micah. He was still in his spot, still looking in the same direction. Sunset rays bathed his brown skin with a copper light, reflected off of little beads in his hair. For a moment she couldn’t look away.
Even though he was wearing a t-shirt and jeans, he looked like a warrior from another time and place. There was something so wild and striking about him. As if he would run into battle at any moment, wielding a spear or a club. Or, say, the really long knife holstered between his shoulder blades. But he was a contradiction. Physically imposing, yet he had a quiet demeanor. And gentle eyes.
He glanced toward her, and she had to think up a reason for staring at him. Again.
“Why do you only look in one spot? Couldn’t claim jumpers come from anywhere?”
With a hand motion, he gestured north. “If there is any danger to you, it will come from that direction.”
He sounded so sure that her eyes followed his. All she saw was rock, peak after peak of broken stone. Thousands of feet of scattered rocks and boulders and cliffs.
And shadows, that seemed to gather and lengthen as she watched. Did the shadows seem darker there? She wrinkled her forehead. Why did she get a bad feeling all of a sudden, after seeing this same scene dozens of times before? The crawl between her shoulder blades that said that something was wrong over there.
Which was silly, because the only real threats here were nature and man.
And nature was telling her it was time to go.
“I’m done for today. It’s getting too dark.”
In just that few minutes since she’d crawled from her hole, the sun had sunk behind the peaks of the mountain, casting their side in shadow. The tunnels were always dark inside so she had difficulty judging the hour, and today, she’d miscalculated. She’d be lucky to find her way safely down the mountain.
Which normally wasn’t a concern, of course, except she’d used up her flashlight batteries looking for a sign. For any sign, that she wasn’t wasting her time and energy and effort, only to fail.
Jade finished packing her stuff, and with the palm of her hand, rubbed her tired eyes. Squinting into the semi-darkness had strained them, and she hadn’t been sleeping that well, anyway. Usually, she had no trouble falling right to sleep when she got to camp. The physical exertion of mining guaranteed she slept like a baby. But not this trip.
It must be the pressure she was under to succeed. Her mother’s state had deteriorated so much since her last trip, even though only a year had passed. Taking home gemstones was no longer about personal or professional pride, or the joy and sense of accomplishment of getting minerals out of the earth.
It was life and death.
Death for her mother at a cheaper, less quality care home. Or life, as much as she could have, at a great one.
Jade gritted her teeth, her frustration and fatigue making her eyes burn more. But crying would help nothing, and she’d be damned if she’d put the energy into that. What she needed were a hearty meal and a good night’s sleep, and to come back tomorrow and kick this mountain’s ass.
Her pack felt heavier than it did this morning despite the lack of minerals in it, but she slung it across her back, buckling the straps.
“Let’s go.”
Micah held out his hand, the way he always did. But she ignored it, like she always did. It was getting harder to see that tiny wrinkle of disappointment appear between his eyebrows, but he didn’t understand. She didn’t either, but... she shouldn’t touch him. Not because of anything to do with him, but because she couldn’t keep him off her mind, out of her dreams.
Honestly, it was probably her fault for giving him such a thorough once-over when they first met. She could kick herself for that. But if she found a huge, rare crystal, a truly amazing specimen, she’d need to look closer. She’d have to touch it.
And dammit, Micah was an amazing specimen. She’d love the chance to run her hands all over his planes and surfaces.
But she didn’t need the distraction. She didn’t come up here to sigh over a handsome man, she had work to do, and a firm deadline. Winter came to the mountains about a month earlier than it did the plains. And in between spring thaw and the first heavy snow of winter, there were plenty of days of bad conditions that would keep her from mining. Rain, hail, sleet, snow. High winds, lightning. Bad weather could shave a week or more off her mining season. She had to have as many high-quality gemstones in her hands as she could before that time came.
Jade picked her way over the trail as fast as she could manage. It got fully dark faster than she anticipated. She could already see the glow from the town in the dusky light. There were no such lights up here, and with nothing but meager starlight, soon it would be pitch black. It was much too risky to stay this long again. If she was alone, she might break a leg in the dark and not be found for days.
Thankfully, she wasn’t alone. But Micah, damn him, didn’t seem to have the same trouble navigating the trail as she was. He’d started out behind her, but now she struggled to keep up with him.
He didn’t say anything, just waited silently every time he got too many steps in front of her.
She wanted to tell him to go ahead, not to wait for her. She knew the way back to camp, and she could make it back on her own. Eventually.
But with tired eyes and the chill of night coming on, the threat of hurting herself if she didn’t pay close enough attention, and the fact that she could hardly focus from fatigue... she couldn’t tell him to go on without her. Wouldn’t.
Her pride was as drained as her flashlight batteries.
––––––––
MICAH SETTLED IN FOR another hour of surveillance even though the sun was setting when Jade crawled out of her hole.
Her cheeks were red with cold and effort, and she was breathing heavy. She looked tired.
She’d had some small luck in the new hole she’d dug, but nothing of great value. If only she’d mine the spot he’d showed her...
With one last pulse of power toward the portal, he turned away. He would eat and then make his way back to his post after Jade was asleep. His duties extended to nighttime too, but he didn’t need much sleep.
When Jade shrugged on her pack, he held out his hand.
“Let’s go,” she said, ignoring his outstretched hand and starting down the rocky trail towards the camp at the bottom of the mountain. His fingers curled into a fist. He’d gained her gratitude, but not her trust, by moving the boulder.
Twenty minutes later, he led the way, Jade carefully picking her way through rocks and shadows behind him. It was that strange part of dusk where the sky above them still had light, but the ground below their feet was a field of black and gray. Individual stones were impossible to pick out. He paused a step to let her catch up. Not long after that, Micah had to stop again and wait for her.
“How can you be so much faster than me, Micah?”
He lifted a shoulder. “Better night vision.” Technically, not a lie. His Earth powers gave him the ability to sense the rocks, the boulders and loose gravel in the dark, but her powers were too weak, buried too deep for her to do that.
She harrumphed, and he turned back down the path.
Minutes later, Jade was swearing under her breath trying to keep her footing.
He stopped and reached out a hand again. Jade almost ran into it before she looked up. Stubbornly, she just looked at it, keeping her hands on the straps of her pack.
“I don’t need help.”
He kept his hand out and didn’t move out of her way. “My job is to protect you.” His job, and his mission. One a cover for the other, but they both condensed down to the same thing. Keep Jade safe from anything that might harm her, including herself. He used the one thing that would change her mind; her desperation. “If you break an ankle, you cannot mine.”
It would likely be safer for her to be at home recovering from an injury, away from the Chaolt and the portal, but he knew she wouldn’t agree.
She slapped her chilled hand in his, and he waited until he turned away to smile. But his smile faltered because there seemed to be a new sensation inside him, caused simply by touching her. A warmth, a pleasurable hum, and it had nothing to do with powers or draining. He was... happier holding her hand.
But he still had to drain her.
He led her down the path his senses picked, finding the safest and most stable route. As he did, he slowly absorbed power from her. Where their hands joined, he felt her power like a thread of molten gold, traveling from her depths into his.
Thank you. He always thanked Erratics in his mind because they didn’t know what they were giving up. It was safer for them, safer for the world. However, it added to his own power, and for that he was appreciative.
Suddenly Jade seemed to stumble, to lose her footing though the path was more level here. She was still holding on to his hand, and she recovered quickly, so Micah only paused a second and then kept walking. But...
Had he drained her too much, too fast? Maybe he had, and she felt weak. Or maybe she was overly fatigued from the day’s work and wasn’t paying close attention. He cut off the flow of power from her just in case. Balancing her physical and mental health against his need to drain her was challenging. Maybe she couldn’t tolerate being drained tonight when she was already mentally and physically depleted. That was what he’d worried about, the physical danger she could be in from draining and mining at the same time.
Micah sighed. She was finally letting him touch her, and yet it was too great a risk to drain her.
At the grassy, even part of the path, somewhat visible in the light of the rising moon, he expected Jade to release his hand, but she didn’t. And even though he wasn’t draining her anymore and she could likely make it all the way back on her own, he didn’t let go either.
When they got to camp, faintly lit by the porch light on her trailer, he stopped. Jade looked up and around, like she hadn’t realized they were there yet. And then she tugged her hand from his, their fingers sliding across one another in a way that sent soft static up his arm.
“Thank you.”
He nodded, and then started building a fire, expecting her to go past him into her camper as usual. To his surprise, she dropped her pack with a thud and sat with her arms crossed on one of the logs by the fire-pit.
Micah stood until the wood caught with flame and then sat across from her, both staring into the fire. He glanced up at her often, noticing how the firelight made her look softer, and yet more exhausted, at the same time.
Something was in her eyes. A sorrow, a hopelessness that pulled at him. He couldn’t stand when people were hurting, and Jade was definitely in pain.
Was it that pain that made her exhaust herself chipping away at a mountain for crystals? Or did she simply need the money?
And why did he care so much? He needed to drain her and go back to his original mission.
Jade showed signs of trusting him some. Her allowing him to lead her down the mountain was a big one. But it still wasn’t enough.
You know what helps to earn the trust of a woman? Talking to her.
Ajax’s words were the only reason he opened his mouth to ask. Or at least that’s what he told himself.