As for the pendants—they, too, were gone, and the ceremony of repentance had yet to be performed.
She groped along the floor, scraping her hands on rough edges where blocks met unevenly. She felt up and to the side and connected with a wall—flat and damp and uncarved. She oriented herself by that and crawled in what she thought was the way she’d come.
No carved glyph-wall met her searching fingers. But the flashlight rolled against her knee, and she grabbed it with a gasp of relief. A quick test showed that it was still working, though it had been switched off sometime in the fall.
She swept the beam ahead of her, pushing to her feet. Sure enough, the walls were there on either side of her, exactly the same as they’d been before. But the glyph wall wasn’t there, and neither were Liam’s bones nor the pendants. Either she’d gone flying yards into the tunnel, or she’d become totally disoriented in the darkness.
Panic was not a familiar emotion, or one she had any desire to become better acquainted with. Okay—the glyph wall had to be either one way or the other. Once she bumped into it, she’d know where she was.
She played a quick mental game and chose one of the directions. After a minute she knew it couldn’t be the right one. She turned around and marched back the other way with a speed that was just a bit reckless in the dark.
When she hit the next firm, hard surface it was definitely not a wall. Her hands came up to steady herself and pressed against warm, damp fabric covering equally warm and unmistakable contours. Hard, sculpted contours. Masculine. Definitely masculine. And they didn’t belong to the skinny boy who’d guided her to this place.
The smell of sweat and green and earth and man filled her nostrils. Deep, harsh breathing gusted past her ear. She dropped her hands and backed away, holding the flashlight low so as not to blind him.
“Am I glad I ran into you,” she said. “I’ve been wandering inside this tunnel for what feels like hours.” She heard the rapid patter of her own words and realized how nervous she sounded. She had absolutely no idea who this guy could be. “I… seem to have gotten myself turned around. I thought I was alone here.”
He gave a low grunt. In the faint illumination radiating from the flashlight, all she could see of him was solid height, light-colored clothing, and a glitter of eyes.
“What are you doing in here, boy?”
She stiffened, every other concern momentarily wiped clean from her mind. The lapse was brief. How many times had this happened to her during childhood? It wasn’t such an easy mistake to make now that she’d grown, but in all fairness she knew she contributed to the problem because of her preference for loose, comfortable, practical clothing.
This guy couldn’t see her clothing, or much of the rest of her. She knew her voice was husky and low, a little rough now with nervousness. That must account for it. She made herself relax and decided that perhaps it wasn’t such a bad idea to let him think she was male. At least for the time being.
A hard, very large hand caught her arm. “You’re American. How did you get here?”
She held her arm very still in his grasp. “Yeah, I’m American.” As if it’s any of your business, buster. “I came to see the ruins. I walked. I didn’t know this tunnel went so far.”
The man felt up the length of her arm. “Just how young are you? Where’s your party?” His voice was deep, with an edge of roughness—eminently masculine, like his grip and size. She began to feel more than a little annoyed.
“Party? Did I miss the celebration?” she quipped.
He gave a bark of laughter, but in the dim glow she could see his eyes narrow. “Who did you come with? I didn’t see anyone else in the jungle. The Indians said no one’s been here for months.”
No one here for months? She snorted and pulled her arm free. “Look, friend, I don’t know who you are or where you’ve been, but if you go a mile or so south of here you’ll run right into Tikal. Which is where I intend to be very shortly.” The minute I’ve finished what I came here to do, that is.