Rage and Ruin by Jennifer L. Armentrout Page 0,138
told him.
He chuckled as he walked forward and stopped at the hole, holding out his hand. “Let me get you down there.”
I shot him a look. “I can make the jump now that I’m prepared for it.”
“I know you normally can,” he said. “But you promised to take it easy, and taking it easy isn’t jumping down ten feet.”
I opened my mouth.
“And you were limping.”
“Was not!”
“You were,” he argued. “A little. I saw you.”
“You were totally limping,” Layla shouted from the hole.
“No one asked you,” I yelled back.
“Trin,” Zayne all but growled. “Let me help you.”
Part of me wanted to refuse, though I knew I was being ridiculous. But I did stomp on the way over to him, which didn’t go unnoticed, because Zayne grinned in an infuriating way when I took his hand. He pulled me to his chest, and I tried not to think about how warm and wonderful and just right it felt being this close to him. I tried not to feel at all as he lifted me about a foot and folded his other arm around me. I tried not to inhale that wintermint scent of his, and I really, really tried to not think about how it had felt the last time we were this close.
“Hold on,” he said, voice rougher than before, and before I could attribute that to what he might be feeling, Zayne jumped.
The moldy, musty smell seemed to reach up and grab us. His landing was hard, but not jarring, and as he straightened, I realized the tunnel wasn’t dark this time. There was a soft orangey glow.
Zayne settled me on my feet, his hands gliding over my back as he let go. Shivery, I turned toward the source of the light.
“Torches.” Roth held just that, a thick stick about half the length of a baseball bat. “They’re spaced every few feet out.”
“I didn’t see them last time,” I admitted.
Layla grabbed one and tipped it toward Roth’s. The top sparked and flames grew. She handed it to Zayne. “Is this where you came down?”
“I think so.” I turned around, spying the greenish-gray stone walls. “But I ended up moving a bit, not sure in what direction.”
Zayne took the torch toward the wall. “I don’t see any writing.”
“Maybe this isn’t the section.”
“There’s a mound of dirt down here,” Roth called several feet to our right. “This could’ve been where she landed, but there’s no writing around here, either.”
The corners of my lips turned down as I went from one wall to the next. There was nothing. “I don’t understand.”
“Let’s keep walking. There’s a chance you ended up farther than you think,” Zayne suggested, keeping the torch close so that I could see.
We walked on, past a couple of halls that branched into other tunnels. “I really hope there are no LUDs down here,” Layla said.
“LUDs?” I asked.
Roth sighed. “Have you never seen The Princess Bride? Little Ugly Demons? Like Rodents of Unusual Size?”
I looked at Zayne and he just shook his head. “I’ve never heard of LUDs.”
“They look like little baby Ravers,” Layla explained, stopping. “Just as ugly and somehow creepier when they’re smaller. They live in tunnels.”
“Oh, great,” I murmured.
“There’s a door here,” she said. “It’s sealed somehow.”
She was right. There was no handle or lock, and when she pushed on it, it didn’t budge.
“There’s another one here.” Roth tipped the torch to his right. “We’re going to see a lot of doors and they’re probably best left closed.”
“It has to be fifty degrees cooler down here.” Zayne looked up at the ceiling as we passed yet another opening into a dark corridor. “Do you feel anything?”
“No. I feel nothing.”
“That doesn’t mean we won’t find anything,” he reasoned.
“I don’t understand, though.” We passed more doors made of stone and easy to miss. “I know I saw something written on those walls.”
“Could it have been dirt?” Roth asked.
“I don’t think so, but Hell, I don’t know. I really thought this would lead us to something.”
Zayne touched my arm. “It did. You discovered who the Harbinger is.”
“Yeah, but...” It was hard explaining the disappointment I was feeling. I didn’t know what I’d been expecting to find, but an endless maze of tunnels wasn’t it.
“One of these tunnels, I’m betting, leads directly into the school.” Roth stopped and stepped back as he looked both east and west. “Probably opens up in the old lower gymnasium and locker area.”
“Where the Nightcrawlers were?” Zayne asked, and I shuddered.