“What do we do?” the girl asked.
Cole shrugged. “I don’t know. You don’t have a phone, do you?”
She shook her head.
“It sounded like they sent away the guys upstairs.”
The girl nodded.
Cole looked at the manhole. “They didn’t think they could be followed.”
“I didn’t understand why not,” the girl said. “A lot of what they said didn’t make sense. Where could they sell kids as slaves?”
“Some foreign country, I guess,” Cole said. He walked to the open manhole and stared down. Rungs descended as far as he could see, which was not very far. It got dark quickly.
“Look,” Cole said. “Why don’t you go for help? Call the police. I’ll go down and see if I can figure out where they’re going.”
“They’ll catch you,” the girl warned, her eyes wide. “They’re fast and strong. You should come with me.”
Cole folded his arms across his chest. She might be right. Then again, she was probably scared and wanted company. The kidnappers had seemed confident of escape. They had a ton of kids! They had Dalton! They had Jenna! “I’ll be careful. I’ll follow at a distance. I won’t get too close.”
The girl shrugged. “Up to you.”
Cole looked around the room. There were a couple of windows on one side. “Don’t go up the stairs. Use the windows. Break the glass if you have to, and run.”
“Good idea,” she agreed. “In case those other guys haven’t left yet.”
“What’s your name?” Cole asked.
“I’m Delaney.”
“I’m Cole Randolph. Tell the police where I went. Tell them they have to hurry.”
She nodded and ran over to one of the windows. Cole started down the hole. If he stepped lightly, the metal rungs were reasonably quiet. Of course, for anybody staring up from the bottom he was probably silhouetted against the light above. But the kidnappers hadn’t seemed like they intended to wait around. Besides, they had brought lanterns down with them. If they were still within view, he would see their lights below instead of the darkness.
Cole heard nothing as he descended. The space around him grew black. He looked up at the circle of light above him.
Suddenly his foot couldn’t find the next rung. He looked down and kicked around. There was nothing. The rungs simply stopped.
The kidnappers had told everyone to jump from the last rung. They had all come down here. The drop had to be relatively safe. How far would he fall? He could only see shapeless blackness below.
Cole peered up at the circle of light again. It wasn’t too late to head back up. But what if he saw something that could save everybody? The license plate of a truck, or the tunnel the kidnappers took. If they had lights and he was in darkness, they would be easy to follow and he would be hard to see. He had to try. He couldn’t desert his best friend and the prettiest girl he knew.
He tried not to imagine Jenna hugging him and calling him her hero. The thought embarrassed him, but it also helped confirm his decision.
Leaning away from the rungs, Cole dropped into the darkness.
Chapter 3
RESCUE
Cole was braced to land within a few feet, but instead he kept falling through darkness, picking up speed. Air whistled past him. With growing alarm he tried to prepare for a serious impact. Intuition suggested he might want to keep his body loose. Had the others who climbed down here all died? Was he about to join a pile of corpses? Could there be water at the bottom? With water he might fare better if he kept his body rigid and entered straight.
His speed kept increasing. He tucked his arms against his chest. At this velocity, simply clipping the wall would cause major injuries. Could there be an airbag at the bottom? If so, he should probably land on his back. He could hardly believe how far he was falling! He was going to die! Even if water waited at the bottom, nobody could survive a drop like this.
Glancing up he saw only darkness. Same when he looked down. His speed was no longer increasing. Only the air rushing by confirmed he remained in motion. Then the air stopped rushing, as if he were falling through nothing.
For a moment he became so violently nauseated that he lost all awareness of his other senses. It felt like his stomach was being folded inside out. He clenched his teeth to avoid releasing a stream of vomit.