LITMIR.BIZ

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had to shut down everything but the core need to concentrate.

      Hold to the count of three…

      After that she could make a careful assessment of her situation. Decide what action to take. If ever there was a time to use everything she’d learned—to block out emotion by fixing on what had to be done, making a plan and carrying it through, this was it. If she once succumbed to mind-numbing, will-sapping terror…

      Easier said than done.

      Control was easy when you were calling all the shots, when you were the one directing events. But it was a long time since she’d been thrown entirely on her own resources.

      In the metaphorical dark.

      At least this dark was physical. Not that it was much comfort. She was miles from anywhere and even if any of her party was capable of making it to the nearest village it would take time for help to arrive.

      She blotted that out.

      She mustn’t think about that.

      Breathe, breathe… The air, at least, was fresh. For now.

      She tried to swallow but her throat was dry. There was water in her bag. She had to find her bag. Concentrate on what she could do to keep herself alive because it was far too soon for any serious attempt at rescue.

      If she was ever going to get out of here, the important thing was to keep calm. Conserve her strength.

      She listened for the smallest sound.

      The silence was so dense that it was like a suffocating weight against her eardrums, her chest and once again it almost overwhelmed her and she had to force herself to focus on normal, everyday things. Good things.

      Ivo and Belle.

      Daisy.

      The precious new babies…

      At least they didn’t know where she was. Wouldn’t be glued to news reports, worrying themselves sick. Ivo wouldn’t be flying here to take charge…

      No. On second thoughts that didn’t help. She needed someone out there moving heaven and earth to find her. Lots of earth and stone.

      But it wasn’t going to happen.

      She’d cut loose, broken the ties, had wanted to prove that she was capable of standing of her own feet.

      Great timing, Manda…

      Maybe she should see if she could stand up, try exploring her surroundings. Maybe she could find her own way out.

      ‘See’ being the operative word.

      Alone in the dark, it was as if she had suddenly been struck blind and deaf. She lifted a hand but couldn’t see it until it was right in front of her face and even then she wasn’t sure if she could actually see it, or whether her brain was providing a picture of what she knew was there.

      She’d never been in such absolute darkness, the kind of darkness that made an overcast night in the depths of Norfolk seem bright as day.

      Maybe, she thought, with a rising tide of panic, she really was blind. Or deaf. Or both. Maybe she’d banged her head harder than she’d imagined and lost those precious vital senses. Maybe she’d been unconscious for hours.

      In a sudden desperate need to remind herself that this wasn’t so, she shouted, ‘Help!’

      Trapped in the confined space, her voice echoed and reverberated back at her, again and again until she covered her ears.

      There was nothing wrong with her hearing.

      She was just alone and in the dark. It might be her worst nightmare, but she wasn’t about to wake up and find Ivo waiting to pick up the pieces and put her back together again. Not this time.

      There would be no Belle to reach wordlessly for her hand.

      No Daisy to grin at her, say something utterly outrageous.

      A groan escaped her and suddenly her precious lucidity did not seem such a prize.

      Muddle-headed, her memory would not be quite so painfully sharp. Confused, she wouldn’t be quite so aware of the danger of her position.

      Fear, real icy-cold fear, began to seep into every pore as she realised that, separated from her companions, no one would even know where to begin looking for her…

      ‘Shut up, Manda,’ she said. Then tried to decide whether talking to herself was a good sign or a bad one.

      Rubbing briskly at her arms, she made a determined effort to exclude the building terror by thinking of something else.

      Working out exactly where she was.

      Okay.

      She’d been standing on a forest path, so logic suggested that she should now be buried beneath tons of earth and vegetation. But she wasn’t. Which was a good thing.

      Instead, she was in a dark, echoing space, which presumably meant she had fallen into one of the temples.

      Which was not…

      The path had twisted and turned as they had climbed up the side of the hill and she tried to remember the temple they had visited before she had rebelled against so much enforced culture. Tried to remember which way the path had turned, but the darkness was confusing, blocking her thoughts.

      If only she could see!

      ‘Stop it, Miranda Grenville,’ she told herself sternly. So she couldn’t see. Tough. For her it was just a temporary inconvenience. There were millions of people who were forced to live with it every day of their lives. They coped and so would she.

      Her eyes would adapt to the darkness in a few minutes.

      She’d get herself out of there…

      She stopped the thought before it reached the inevitable…if it was the last thing she did.

      There was no point in tempting fate. Fate, it was clear, was already on her case in a big way. She had to treat this as if it were some organisational problem. The kind she’d handled for Ivo every day of her working life until she’d made the move to set up her own television production company with Belle and Daisy. Proving to herself, to everyone, that she no longer needed her brother as a prop.

      Except that so far it had been a one-show wonder and without Belle…

      No! Belle was brilliant in front of the camera, but she was the one who’d made it happen. That was what she did. Give her a goal, a project to bring in on time and she’d deliver the goods and she’d get herself out of here, too.

      Breathe!

      One, two, three…

       Get up!

      Rubble rattled off her as she finally managed to sit up; small pieces of stone, along with what felt like half a ton of fine cloying dust that rose up to choke her.

      Coughing as the dust filled her nose, her throat, filtered down into her sensitive bronchial passages, Manda groped around for her bag. She’d been holding on to it as she’d taken off after the rest of the party and it must have fallen through the gap in the earth with her, although obviously not conveniently at her side.

      Her left arm buckled a little as she eased herself forward to spread her arc of search, her elbow giving way when she put weight on it. Prompted by this, all her other joints decided to join in. Her left knee began to throb. Her shoulder. Her fingers were already stinging…

      She stopped making a mental inventory when she realised that she hurt pretty much everywhere and instead congratulated herself that nothing seemed to be broken, although she hadn’t actually tried to stand up yet. She flexed her toes but nothing too bad happened.

      She had, it seemed, been lucky.

      The last thing she remembered was the ground heaving upwards, shifting sideways, tipping her through into the earth’s basement

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