“Out in the fucking car.” Hatterson cast a glance down the passage, toward the direction he’d come from. “It’s stronger this way. Maybe a brush fire outside?”
“Whatever, it doesn’t matter. Gallagher should be here any minute.”
“Doesn’t matter? A fire means firefighters.”
“Out here?”
“We’re not far from a town. And someone could see the smoke from the highway.”
“Is there a lot of smoke out there?”
“I don’t fucking know. But maybe we need to up the timeline.” Hatterson glanced at me.
A renewed jolt of fear shot through me. The acrid tinge of smoke in the air was unmistakable now, but a fire—wherever it was—wasn’t exactly my biggest concern.
“Go ask Felix,” Stoneface said.
“You go ask him.”
I heard a faint rumbling sound, like the noise of faraway traffic.
Hatterson glanced back again. “Must be Gallagher.”
A single blare of a siren echoed off the walls, the muffled whoop startling me.
Stoneface glanced at me and picked up his lantern. “She’s not going anywhere.”
The two men disappeared around the bend in the passage, plunging me into darkness.
This was not better.
The smell of smoke grew and faint noises I couldn’t place seemed to bounce around me. I swallowed hard and bit the inside of my lip. It was so dark, I could barely see my hands in front of my face. Squeezing my eyes shut, I fought against the disorientation, willing my stomach to stay steady.
More noises. Was that coming from the other direction? I couldn’t tell.
“Fiona.”
My eyes flew open at the barely audible whisper behind me. Oh my god. It couldn’t be.
Evan.
I whipped my head around, but before my brain had time to catch up, he was cutting through the bonds with a pocketknife. A bewildering mix of relief, elation, and heart-squeezing love exploded inside me, driving out the fear. With my ankles free, he sliced through the tie at my wrists, then cupped my face.
“I love you,” he whispered. “I love you so much. Are you okay?”
I nodded and he surged in, quickly pressing his lips to mine.
Another voice. “Let’s get her out of here.”
Evan took my hands and helped me to my feet. Asher stood a couple feet away, holding a flashlight.
Asher? Was this even real?
Without a word, Evan scooped me into his arms, picking me up off the ground. I held on around his neck, vaguely wondering if I was hallucinating. Because Evan Bailey couldn’t be carrying me through a pitch-black stone passageway, following the beam of his brother’s flashlight.
But the warmth of his body and the feel of his thick arms around me were very real.
Faint voices reverberated in the passage behind us. Evan carried me as if I weighed nothing. I had a million questions—starting with how on earth had he found me—but the answers could wait. For now, I just held on.
We followed the beam of Asher’s flashlight through what seemed like a never-ending maze of tunnels. Asher stopped at a turn and he and Evan quietly conferred, checking a map on Asher’s phone. My sense of direction wasn’t great on a normal day and waking up down here—wherever this was—had left me totally disoriented. They agreed on a direction and we kept going.
A man’s voice shouted somewhere behind us, and Evan’s arms tightened around me. I had a feeling Stoneface had just realized I was gone.
Asher slowed, glancing over his shoulder.
“Keep going,” Evan whispered.
Fast footsteps echoed, getting closer. He was going to catch up with us.
“He’s armed,” I whispered.
“Yeah,” Evan said without stopping. “Can’t go too fast or we’ll get lost.”
The footsteps grew louder. Stoneface was running. My heart beat so fast I thought it might burst.
“Wait,” Evan said, and Asher turned. “Let me see the map.”
Asher held out his phone. A second ticked by. Two. Three.
“That way.” Evan gestured with a nod of his head. “I think there’s a shaft leading down a level. Hopefully it still has a ladder.”
Without hesitation, Asher followed Evan’s lead. We rushed down the dark passageway until we came to an old wooden barrier in front of a wide hole. A ladder led down into the darkness.
Asher went first, then we heard his confirmation from below. “Go.”
Evan set me down gently and I scrambled over the side. The rungs of the ladder were cold and hard. Firmly telling myself not to worry about what was down there—if there were rats or bugs, Asher had to have scared them