“I’m in a fucking hole,” I mumbled, awed. “I’m in a fucking hole!” I craned my head over my shoulder as far as I could get it. “Will, help me!”
Will had pummeled my attacker and was on top of him now, pinning him into the dirt, about to land a blow.
“Will?” I heard.
“Alex?” Will asked.
“Alex? Alex!”
“Lawson?”
“Oh, holy Christ.”
Will rolled off of Alex and pushed himself to standing, offering Alex a hand—which he didn’t take.
“What the hell are you doing here?” Alex spat.
“Why the fuck are you attacking her?” Will returned, throwing a gesturing arm my way.
“You’re trespassing at a crime scene.”
“Guys!” I yelled from my hole. “Guys!” I tried to dig my toes against the wall of the hole, but without the use of my hands—still bound by the narrow hole to my sides—all I could do was wobble back and forth uselessly.
“Sophie and I were here looking for clues. We were assigned this job.”
I rolled the abandoned flashlight with my chin so that both Will and Alex were illuminated. My stomach dropped when I saw the fire in Will’s eyes, the hard clench of Alex’s jaw. The guys were nearly nose to nose and spitting mad. Will’s hands were fisted at his sides, and Alex kept one hand resting on his holster.
“Guys!”
“I’m on this case. The SFPD is on this case, not the UDA. You shouldn’t be here.”
“I’M IN A FUCKING HOLE, HERE!” I screamed.
Both Alex and Will swung their heads to look at me as though they had just realized I was there.
“Why are you in a hole?” Will asked, calm as ever.
“I fell in.” I gestured with my chin toward Alex. “I guess you thought I was an intruder. He chased, I ran. I fell.”
Alex’s ice-blue eyes washed over me. “I was just doing my job. We were staking out the Battery.” He jutted his head toward me in my hole, then cut his eyes toward Will. “Doesn’t look like you were doing much of your job.”
Will’s nostrils flared. “I am doing my job just fine. She’s not hurt. The Vessel is still intact.” He took a half-inch step closer. “It’s not like I lost it.”
“Guys?” I asked, half to diffuse the spitting glares between Alex and Will, and half because I was still stuck in a goddamn hole on the Marin headlands in the middle of the night.
“I didn’t lose it,” Alex said, biting off his words—and completely oblivious to my stump of a head in the dirt.
They were talking about the Vessel of Souls—before it was me. Alex stole it, which caused his fall from grace. There is much more to the story as it’s rather long and complicated and I was praying to God, Buddha, and Oprah that they wouldn’t go over the details now, while I stood in my HOLE IN THE GROUND.
“Really?” I screamed. “Really, guys? I’m down here. IN A HOLE. I fell into a hole that’s about as big around as my shoulder span. I’m in a hole!” I could hear the hysteria and panic rising in my voice, but I didn’t care, because my mind was suddenly full of all the bugs and maggots that climbed around underground, mere centimeters from my exposed skin.
Suddenly, I was an upright corpse and I swear to God there was a worm on my arm.
“Get me out of here!”
“How’d you end up standing upright in a hole?” Will wanted to know.
“Just get me out!”
The guys stared at me and walked around the hole as if somewhere I was hiding a spring trap door.
When Alex and Will shared a shrug and a glance, I realized that I would likely have to spend the rest of my life in this hole, begging for people to bring me marshmallow pinwheels or dig me out with soup spoons.
“Can you get your arms out?” Alex asked.
My enormous, exasperated sigh was lost in ten inches of damp dirt. “I can’t do anything. This”—I think I shrugged—“is what you have to work with.”
“All right,” Will said over my head. “I’ll take this side. I think we can slide our hands in enough to reach under her arms and pull from there.”
“From her armpits,” Alex clarified.
Will nodded and counted to three, and suddenly I was being remarkably molested by four strong hands. I tried to help, squirming in one direction and then the other, but that only served to first lob one boob into Alex’s hand, the other into Will’s.
“Those aren’t my armpits.”
“Sorry.”
On three, there was a larger-than-necessary groan, and I was free from my upright tomb. The fresh air whipping through my clothes was cold but freeing. I would have run, but the guys were still holding me, my feet six inches from the ground, dangling.
“You can put me down. I’m free. I’m okay.” I swung my head, addressing Alex and then Will. “Nothing’s broken or anything.”
But neither Will nor Alex was focused on me. Each of their heads were bent downward.
“We’re going to set you down, but keep your right foot raised, okay?” Alex asked.