James Axler – The Mars Arena

In the sudden light, Ryan saw Krysty as the wreckage of a helicopter emerged from the cracking stone wall above her, disgorging its trapped prize like a heifer giving birth. Krysty was struggling to maintain a grip, but Ryan knew the falling helicopter would rake her from her precarious perch the instant it ripped free of its earthen womb.

Then the torch disappeared into the yawning abyss below, not scattering in all directions from an impact. It simply kept falling, drawing farther away. Everything went dark. The scream of tortured metal continued, letting him know the helicopter was still in motion even though he couldn’t see it.

Ryan glanced over his shoulder and saw that J.B. was already tying a rope around an outcrop nearly six feet from the lip of the fissure.

“I volunteered to go down in her stead,” Doc said, his face pale and drawn. He didn’t move from the edge of the fissure. He gazed back down into the dark hole. “I truly did, but she would have none of it. I am very sorry, friend Ryan.”

“She’s not dead yet, Doc.”

Ryan grabbed the free end of the rope. “Jak, get that light shining into that hole. I need to see.”

The albino quickly moved into position. The flashlight came on with a burst of incandescence as he pointed it into the fissure. “Help’s coming,” he yelled down to Krysty. He couldn’t throw her the rope; she was using both hands to hang on.

“How much rope are you going to need?” the Armorer asked.

Ryan peered into the hole, trying to gauge the distance from the fissure’s mouth to Krysty’s position. “Give me twenty-five, thirty feet beyond the lip.”

“Fifty-foot rope,” J.B. said. “I get you shored up good and proper, that’s going to cut it close to what we’ve got to use.”

Ryan nodded.

“Lover,” Krysty called. Her voice was almost calm, but Ryan could hear the fear in her. “Give it up. I can’t make it. There’s no sense in losing both of us.”

Working the end of the rope around his boots, Ryan watched Krysty as she scrambled along the moving incline and tried in vain to find purchase. She fell, and for a second he thought it might be the end of her. But she made it back up, just in time for the helicopter to take away another foot of precious space.

“Hold on, dammit!” Ryan shouted. He cinched the rope around both boots, just above the ankle. There was no time to try a controlled hand-over-hand descent.

The tremors subsided for a moment, long enough for Ryan to think they’d quit completely. The helicopter kept sliding, breaking out bigger sections of the wall that had held it for so long.

“Ryan!” Krysty called.

He peered over the edge, then rolled down to hang from his hands. The rope dangled in a loose coil between his tied feet, looping back up and out of sight. He was still twenty feet from Krysty, another ten in horizontal distance. “J.B.”

“You’re tied on,” the Armorer said. He poked his head over the edge, face tense.

“I can’t let you do it,” Krysty told Ryan. “I’ll jump off the edge myself before I let you get killed, too.”

“You jump off,” Ryan told her, smiling with a cockiness he definitely didn’t feel, “hell, you’ll only be making it harder, not stopping me.”

“I don’t want you to die, lover.”

“I’m not going to die, and I’m not going to let you die, either.”

PHAEDRA LEMON bit Dean’s hand.

“Shit!” he whispered. “Don’t be biting me!” He used his other hand, pulling at that gold hair from behind to turn her face up to his. The vanilla smell of her swarmed around him and clouded his mind. Most of the fear inside him went away as he realized he’d unconsciously covered her body with his.

She tried to bite him again, her saliva running across his palm. Twisting in the bed, she tried to escape him.

Dean was all too aware of the soft flesh just on the other side of the lavender blanket, almost trapped in some tantalizing fashion beneath his body. “Hot pipe!” he croaked.