Read Finder's Shore for Free Online Page A

legs. I open my eyes but it makes no difference to the weight of darkness. Arrows of pain ricochet back and forth within the bony confines of my head.
    “Ness?” The voice is farther away.
    “Here.” My voice isn’t my own. “I’m here,” I try again.
    Silence greets me, then a thin scrabbling sound, like rats in a wall. A sharp flare of light starts up and as quickly dies. A hand touches my side and I flinch.
    “Steady, girl, steady.” It’s Farra’s voice. “Are you all right?”
    “No.” My words follow slowly on my thoughts. “My legs are trapped.” 
    The light flares again, showing me the tunnel wall curving dark above my head. The weight shifts, pain slicing into my shin. I cry out. There’s a thud nearby and the pain is gone, though I can feel it crouched and waiting. Hands find my arms. “I’m going to lift you.” Farra’s voice is a whisper.
    He scoops me up in his arms. My head sways then steadies. “We hit something.” The memory comes scattering back into my head.
    “Sand and rubble on the line,” Farra confirms.
    “Everyone else — the children and —”
    “They’re all safe.”
    Footsteps hurry towards us. “You’ve got her? Is she all right?” The relief in the voice washes over me. I should know it, but my thoughts are too sluggish to give up any answers.
    “Aye. Can you guide us? One hand on my shoulder and the other on the wall.”
    As we begin moving, the identity of the voice comes to me. “Ronan?”
    “Here.”
    “Where did —”
    “Later, Ness. Hush now.” Farra hitches me higher.
    Ahead of us the darkness reveals a pocket filled with pinpricks of light like stars — except that it’s hours yet till nightfall.
    Farra lowers me to the ground, my back against the knobbly wall of the tunnel. “Wait here. I won’t be long.” His receding footsteps are quickly swallowed by the dark.
    “Ronan?” 
    “Right here.” He squats beside me, the warmth of his shoulder reassuring against mine.
    “How did you get here?” I feel as if I’m wringing dirty dishwater from my mind. “I thought the patrol was only going as far as the dead lake.” Ronan had been one of the first to volunteer. I remember the twinge of alarm I’d felt, that he might have been thinking of joining the Scouts.
    “The Decon team checking the tunnels had a run-in with a bunch of paras last night. A couple of them fought free and headed back to warn Truso, but they met our patrol on the way. We came as quickly as we could.”
    It’s too much information for my jangled brain to unravel.
    “Why weren’t you with the others on the jigger?”
    “I don’t know.” I can feel dampness spreading down my shin. “Someone — I suppose it was the Paras — rolled rocks at us from up on the ridge.” I search my memory. “I don’t remember what happened after.” I shake my head, and regret it.
    “Jofeia said you were in the jigger when she got out to clear the line, but no one knew what happened to you after that.”
    I don’t either. Behind me the tunnel wall is warty and cold. Gingerly I explore my shin, sucking a breath between clenched teeth as I find a jagged gash.
    “What’s wrong?”
    “My leg’s bleeding.”
    The comforting warmth of his shoulder disappears. Moments later he pushes something soft into my hand. “Here.” 
    Clumsy in the dark, I wrap the strip of cloth around my shin, wincing as I knot it tight. Ronan’s shoulder nudges back up against mine. “Do you want a drink?”
    My head aches. As I fumble for the flask, I realise my hands are trembling. “Thanks.”
    There’s a pulsing hum beyond the immediate silence of the tunnel, resonant as a heart beat, familiar somehow. I open my mouth to ask Ronan if he knows what it is when a closer sound freezes the words on my lips.
    Ronan’s fingers squeeze my arm. There’s a second whisper of sound and a muttered curse. “You there?”
    I start to breathe again as I recognise Farra’s voice. “Over here,” I