A way out. A breadcrumb trial.
My chest constricts. Our sneakers squeak over the tile floor and darkness shelters us once again once we’re out from under the glow of fake sunlight.
Rather than heading forward, RJ pulls on the string, the glow disappearing through a wall.
Aimee lifts the lantern high and magic pulses. A panel in the wall swings open, leading us down. A low moan rumbles my throat.
“After you,” RJ adds.
Chaos, dead vampires, and dangers at every turn. Now they want me to go into the black first? If I can’t trust the witches then I’m screwed anyway. What else do I have to lose at this point?
Aimee glances behind her. “Better get a move on, Mandi. More of them are coming.”
“See you on the other side.” I duck my head, stepping into the panel and over the threshold.
Hoping it leads us out the other side and not somewhere worse.
Chapter
Two
Even with my sharper eyesight, it’s difficult to make out the path ahead. Not when the hole in the wall leads to nothing but a black abyss.
Are you sure? I want to ask, but why bother, when this is the way out?
RJ and Aimee step into the gloom behind me and a cold wind gutters the flame inside the latter’s lantern. Ghoulish shadows flicker on the stone walls, tendrils of moisture and algae throbbing like thick veins.
“It gets a little crazy ahead, so watch out. Step carefully,” Aimee warns.
The floor juts down to steep steps, forcing me sideways so my foot lands flat.
“According to Colt, the place is riddled with secret halls like this. Funny. Why do rich people always want a honeycomb in their walls?” RJ says in a hushed tone. “Safety measures, he called it. The unseen hive, in case they’re ever under attack. This one is kinda gross so it’s not as closely monitored as some of the others.”
I lose my balance, my knees jellied, and my shoulder slams into a wall. I swallow down a cry. “Works in our favor.”
This has to.
If we don’t make it out now, something tells me we’ll never have another chance.
I clamp down, grinding my teeth as instinct drives me forward.Move, hurry, find the exit.
A clean breeze filters through from somewhere ahead of us. Another set of steps cut to the left and then down. At the bottom, the path narrows, closing in like a swollen throat. It forces us to our knees and the rough stone ceiling brushes the top of my head.
If RJ and Aimee are wrong, we’ll suffocate.
I won’t see my own sister again.
Adrenaline keeps me moving when I lose sensation in my extremities. It surges, animates me, keeps me going when sludge seeps through my jeans and chills everything it touches.
We could lose everything.
If the tunnel traps us and the vamps catch up, if the witches are wrong…
Those awful thoughts of everything that can go wrong break when the tunnel finally blows wide. It opens at the mouth with bars like fangs blocking us from the outside world. The moon and stars.
The expanse of night sky stretching across the top of the trees.
A sob catches and the edges of my eyes go damp. Holy shit.I won’t take the moon for granted again.