She figured that Maya would shine the flashlight toward the pole where Hannah had been tied, then maybe take a few steps farther inside the cavern, trying to see what was going on.
And then I'll do it. I'll come out of the darkness behind her. Jump and skewer her through the back. But I've got to time it right.
She held her breath as she saw light outside the mouth of the cavern. Her greatest fear was that Maya would hear her.
Quiet... quiet...
The light came closer. Hannah watched it, not moving. But her brain was clicking along in surprise. It wasn't the slanted, focused beam of a flashlight. It was the more diffuse pool of light from a lantern.
She's brought another one. But that means...
Maya was walking in.
Walking quickly-and not pausing. She couldn't shine the light onto the pole yet. And she didn't seem anxious to-apparently it didn't occur to her that she needed to check on Hannah. She was that confident.
Hannah cursed mentally. She's going too far-she's out of range. Get up!
Her plan in ruins, she flexed her knees and stood. She heard a crack in her knee joint that sounded as loud as a gunshot.
But Maya didn't stop. She kept going. She was almost at the pole.
As silently as she could, Hannah headed across the cavern. All Maya had to do was turn around to see her.
Maya was at the pole. She was stopping. She was looking from side to side.
Hannah was behind her.
Now.
Now was the time. Hannah's muscles could feel how she had to stab, to throw her weight behind the thrust so that the stake went in under Maya's left shoulder blade. She knew how to do it. ...
But she couldn't.
She couldn't stab somebody in the back. Somebody who wasn't menacing her at the moment, who didn't even know they were in danger.
Oh, my God! Don't be stupid! Do it!
Oh, my Goddess! a voice echoed back in her head. You're not a killer. This isn't even self-defense!
Frustrated almost to the point of hysteria, Hannah heard herself let out a breath. It was wet. She was crying.
Her arm drooped. Her muscles collapsed. She wasn't doing it. She couldn't do it.
Maya slowly turned around.
She looked both beautiful and eerie in the lantern light. She surveyed Hannah up and down, looking in particular at the drooping stake.
Then she looked at Hannah's face.
"You're the strangest girl," she said, in what seemed to be genuine bewilderment. "Why didn't you do it?
You were smart enough to get yourself out and make yourself a weapon. Why didn't you have the guts to finish it?"
Hannah was asking herself the same thing. Only with more expletives.
I am going to die now, she thought. And maybe die for good-because I don't have guts. Because I couldn't kill somebody I know is completely evil and completely determined to kill me. That's not ethics.
That's stupid. "I suppose it's that Egyptian temple training," Maya was saying. "Or maybe the life when you were a Buddhist-do you remember that? Or maybe you're just weak." And a victim. I've spent a couple thousand years being a victim-yours. I guess I've got my part down perfect by now.
"Oh, well. It doesn't really matter why," Maya said. "It all comes down to the same thing in the end.
Now. Let's get this over with."
Hannah stared at her, breathing hard, feeling like a rabbit looking at a headlight.
Nobody should live as a victim. Every creature has a right to fight for its life.
But she couldn't seem to get her muscles to move anymore. She was just too tired. Every part of her hurt, from her throbbing head to her raw fingertips to her bruised and aching feet.
Maya was smiling, fixing her with eyes that shifted from lapis-lazuli blue to glacier green.
"Be a good girl, now," she crooned.
I don't want to be a good girl....
Maya reached for her with long arms.
"Don't touch her!" Thierry said from the cavern mouth.
Hannah's head jerked sideways. She stared at the new pool of light on the other side of the cave. For the first few seconds she thought she was hallucinating.
But, no. He was there. Thierry was standing there with a lantern of his own, tall and almost shimmering with coiled tension, like a predator ready to spring.
The problem was that he was too far away. And Maya was too fast. In the same instant that it took Hannah to make her brain believe her eyes, Maya was moving. In one swift step, she was behind Hannah, with her hands around Hannah's throat.
"Stay where you are," she said. "Or I'll break her little neck."
Hannah knew she could do it. She could feel the iron strength in Maya's hands. Maya didn't need a weapon.
Thierry put the lantern down and raised his empty hands. "I'm staying," he said quietly.
"And tell whoever else you've got in that tunnel to go back. All the way back. If I see another person, I'll kill her."
Without turning, Thierry shouted. "Go back to the entrance. All of you." Then he looked at Hannah.
"Are you all right?"
Hannah couldn't nod. Maya's grip was so tight that she could barely say, "Yes." But she could look at him, and she could see his eyes.
She knew, in that moment, that all her fears about him not wanting her anymore were groundless. He loved her. She had never seen such open love and concern in anyone's face before.
More, they understood each other. They didn't need any words. It was the end of misunderstandings and mistrust. For perhaps the first time since she had been Hana of the Three Rivers, Hannah trusted him without reservation. They were in accord.
And neither of them wanted this to end with a death.
When Thierry took his eyes from Hannah's, it was to look at Maya and say, "It's over, now. You have to realize that. I've got twenty people down here, and another twenty on the surface waiting." His voice became softer and more deliberate. "But I give you my word, you can walk out of here right now, Maya. Nobody will touch you. All you have to do is let Hannah go first."