by Helen Scott
I could maybe take on a couple of them at once, but that was my max. After all, I was used to sparring with humans, not shifters, whose movements would be faster, stronger, and more likely to knock me on my ass.
I took another step back and shook my head when Clark reached for me. If I went out there with him in any capacity then the shifters would immediately attack him, and probably kill him, so they could take me without issue. They had plenty of people who would clean up something like that, besides if the place was going up in flames they could always toss his body in there and make it look like he died in the fire.
Clark's death would not be on my conscience, no way, no how. When he reached for me again, I pushed at him. "Get out! And stay away from the men out there. They will hurt you." I practically screamed the words at him, hoping that not only would he take me seriously, but the shifters outside wouldn't hear me.
The smoke was really starting to roll into the building by that point so when I backed up a few paces and the smoke curled around my form I knew that Clark wouldn't be able to see me anymore. I didn't wait to make sure he left, I knew he would, that man was not about to risk his life for me. He was selfish by nature, I'd always known that. One of the main reasons he was willing to pay people under the table was because he said the Feds were robbing him blind otherwise. It most certainly wasn't out of the goodness of his heart.
Vaguely, I heard the front door open and close and knew he was gone. I grabbed one of the cleaner rags that we had, since none of them were actually clean, and ran it under some water from the sink in the bathroom before putting it over my nose and mouth. I knew from Clark that there was an entrance to the old city tunnels somewhere in the building.
He'd loved the fact that this place had been used during prohibition, said it gave the place character, of course, no one else cared about that kind of character in an oil change shop, but that was Clark for you. He'd been very proud of it when he told me, and I'd almost completely forgotten about it. The tunnels were used for travel and shipping once upon a time and then for smuggling.
A nearby lake flooded one year. It was after a particularly bad winter where there had been multiple record-breaking snow falls, and then when all that snow melted and combined with the spring rains it was too much for the drainage system to keep up with so the tunnels backed up and were, for the most part, destroyed.
I always suspected that the entrance was the large hatch in the floor, but it was boarded over, like that could hide it. The tunnels had been sealed off after the flood since it destroyed so many different parts and left others structurally unstable. I had a feeling that Clark had poked around at the "sealed" door and that was why it was so shoddily boarded over. If I was wrong about this then I might end up burning to death or dying from smoke inhalation.
After grabbing a crowbar I shimmied under the car that was currently parked over the boarded up section of the floor and shoved the straight end under the first board. I levered it up inch by inch until it came away. It was lucky it had been so dry recently, when it rained the garage turned into a sauna, and I knew that these panels weren't resistant to all that moisture. With them being dry they were lighter and easier for me to detach and move in the small space.
Each board took longer than I thought it would to get off, and by the time I had them all free the garage was filled with smoke. My eyes stung as I looked for the latch to open the thing. Smoke was filling my lungs, and it was getting harder and harder to breathe. If I couldn't get the thing open in the next couple of minutes then I was done for, and if I wanted to live at all then I'd need to run outside, if I could even make it. The whole place was on fire, I could feel the heat licking my skin as flames raced over a variety of surfaces.
Finally, I was able to find the handle even though I was barely able to see and was about to cough up a lung. It stuck. The damn thing wouldn't budge so I shoved the crowbar in there and heaved with everything I had in such a cramped space. The heat shield on the underside of the car pushed against my back as I used as much of the available space as I could to wedge and lever and curse and coax the damn thing until it gave way and I fell with the release of the tension.
I slid the lock open and lifted the metal plate that was more like an oversized manhole cover than a shipping and deliveries opening. The thing weighed a ton but I shifted it open enough for me to be able to squeeze through. Not that I jumped straight in.
Oh, no, I thought it would be best to take a look first. What the hell I was looking at was a whole different question since everything beyond the initial opening of the hole was pitch-black. A shudder ran down my spine even though I was sweating from the heat of the flames around me.
I looked out from under the car, checking each side. There was no visibility, smoke was thick on the ground even, and the only open area was the underside of the car itself. On the other side of the smoke was an orange glow, and I knew that my window of opportunity for leaving any other way had passed.
After taking a second to gather my courage I shimmied my way down through the opening into the blackness beyond. The darkness swallowed me whole and as I fell the light from the shop above seemed to move much further away than I'd expected. When I landed my joints shook and cracked from the impact. Since I hadn't been able to see the ground coming I wasn't prepared to brace for the impact, and pain shot up my legs when I hit.
The stench hit me after the darkness. Not only was the air musty, but it was foul, like something was rotting away down here with no cross breeze to help move the smell along, so it just lingered, coating my tongue and nostrils. There was a clamminess to it as well, like I'd just run through fog. The most surprising thing was the temperature difference. Immediately I felt a chill run over my skin making me break out in goosebumps.
I'd always heard these areas referred to as the tunnels, but that was a vast understatement. They were more like underground canals judging from the size of them. The idea that large buildings sat on top of these things was extremely unnerving. I moved around, stretching my arms out on either side, and had to take multiple steps in each direction before I reached a wall. These things really were big enough for boats.
As I stepped forward into the murky darkness I knew I'd need to rely on my shifter eyesight more, which was all well and good, except for the fact that my wolf was currently not speaking to me after the run-from-our-mate stunt I pulled this morning. I mentally begged and pleaded with her to loan me her sight and when my vision cleared minutely I was beyond grateful. With how dark it was down here something was better than nothing.
Even with the help from my wolf, I couldn't make out much. I tried not to flinch every time a rat ran over my foot, but it was hard. I moved to one side of the tunnel, trying to stay out of the rats' way and that was when I saw all the different water damage lines that coated the walls. The initial flood must have only been the beginning, judging by those marks.
The highest level was almost as high as I was tall. My brain filled in the details of what it would be like to be down here with that much water flowing, and my chest began to feel tight at just the thought of it.
There was also way more debris than I expected, and not just natural stuff either. It was like someone treated this as their own personal dumping ground. My mind flicked to what people could hide down here that they didn't want people to find and I suddenly felt very wary about everything I was walking over and on to try and find a different entrance or exit. How I was going to reach that exit I wasn't sure yet, since the tunnels were obviously designed with water, and boats floating on said water in mind, but that was a problem for later Nina to deal with. Present Nina just wanted to get the hell out of dodge.
The more I moved though, the more everything seemed to shift and groan around me. I tripped over something and fell hard against the floor, although I was able to brace myself with my hands so I didn't smack my face against the gross ground. A rat scurried across one of my hands and I jumped back up onto my feet and ran a few ya
rds ahead.
Bricks seemed to wobble under my feet, and the farther I moved the more unstable it felt. I tried to stick to the most solid parts of the floor, but when it gave way I was sure the blood-curdling scream I let out was heard for miles, if it could penetrate the brick walls and ceiling that was. My lungs emptied with my scream as I fell and terror choked me.
23
I WAS GOING TO DIE. I knew it. This was how I went out, falling into some random pit under the city while trying to escape one of my biggest fears in life, being controlled.
After the initial scream came dread. If I was falling long enough to stop screaming then I was falling long enough to actually die. If I could have seen what was under me then that would at least have let me prepare accordingly. Was I falling onto rubble? A pit of spikes? A grassy field in the center of the earth? Who could say?
Regret swamped my heart and I hated how much of my life I'd wasted, how much had been spent on just surviving instead of actually living. The sound of rushing water reached my ears a split second before the impact, and I was just about able to arrow my body into the water.
The surface hit like a punch, knocking all the air from my lungs as I plunged into the icy cold depths. It was like going outside in the dead of winter with no jacket or shoes on, everything stung and it felt like the air in my lungs contracted, making them want to fill again. I was still under water though. With no light, I had no idea which way was up and there was a current that was much stronger than I would have expected, had I known about this waterway, dragging me along. My chest felt tight from the lack of oxygen, and I had to fight not to open my mouth and take in a lungful of water.
Eventually, my body bobbed to the surface and I gasped for air, each breath filling my lungs and reminding me that I was alive. I spluttered as more than a few gasps were also filled with water. I couldn't help but notice that the air, or maybe it was the water, tasted strange and cold as I breathed, I had got both in my mouth more than once. As my mind caught up to my body I knew it was both.
The air was fresher than I was used to, and adding to that the mineral, rocky taste of the water, I suspected I was in some kind of underground waterway. Maybe a natural spring of some kind? Gods I hoped it was a natural spring and not some weird ass contaminated water. If it was then it might be the reason the whole city was built here.
With small waves knocking me under the water occasionally I began to suspect that it wasn't just one tunnel or formation, but multiple ones coming together. The water was moving fast and it felt like I was going to be in the next state in no time. I guess that was one way to get away from Jax. Not really what I had in mind though.
With the speed and the waves I had to fight to stay above the surface, and occasionally I felt a different current pulling at my toes, as though if I dipped too low then I'd be dragged in a completely different direction. I honestly wasn't sure if I'd survive the undercurrent. All of my senses screamed in danger whenever I felt it begin to pull at me. My wolf paced in her cage, howling to get out, as though she knew death was only one dumb move away. The fear was enough to keep me fighting even as my muscles protested and weakened.
Just when I'd given up on it, there was light in front of me. I was able to tell that I was in a tunnel, but it was a natural formation, not man made, which made me feel a little better about the water I'd ingested. What had started as a pinpoint grew exponentially as I was rushed toward it with the water. The water spilled out into what had to be a lake of some kind. I'd never really traveled all that far outside the city, since I was too scared about being caught, and my parents were always happy on pack land, not feeling the need to travel off it, so I wasn't familiar with the lakes and parks in the area.
I tried to keep my eyes open but the light was so bright after the darkness of the tunnel that I had to scrunch them shut, which made me hiss in pain. One eye was still partly swollen from the fight earlier. Gods, that seemed like it had happened both a couple minutes ago and forever ago when it was just that morning. It was safe to say that almost being burned alive and then potentially falling to my death and struggling to stay above water had skewed my perception of time.
The current dragged me under as it merged with the lake, but thankfully spat me back out again before panic could set in. Without the rush of the underground river I was able to float on the surface of the water fairly easily as I took stock of where I was. The mouth of the river—or whatever it was that had just dumped me into the lake—was smaller and lower to the ground than I expected. In fact, if I hadn't known where I'd just come from I probably would have missed it.
I saw a forest off to one side and a beach off to the other side and pushed myself toward the sand and swam over to it. I knew the forest may have given me more protection, but it could also hide whoever was around, whereas the beach was nice and open. Nowhere to hide. The last thing I needed was to get too tired to swim to shore when I was so close.
Now that I'd survived the initial watery assault I wasn't about to let myself drown. Something in me had changed in that tunnel. I wasn't going to just survive anymore; I'd decided that I was going to actually live. I swam awkwardly from the middle of the lake to the shore, feeling more like a struggling ugly duckling than a swan gliding through the water.
When I felt the ground under my feet I used it to help push myself the rest of the way to the shore, until I was lying there on the sandy beach. My muscles were like limp noodles and I ached in more places than I thought was possible, and that was after working out with Richard for years. I rolled onto my back and just lay there breathing, thankful that for a moment nothing was trying to kill me.
The sun was beating down on me now that it was out in full force, and I decided to stay there and let it dry me off. It wasn't like I had a job to go back to since the garage had probably burned down, or a home to go back to since Jax knew where I lived and was probably watching it like a hawk if he thought I’d survived the fire. It was as I was lying there enjoying the simple pleasure of the sun warming my skin after being submerged in the cold water for so long that a shadow passed over me and stopped.
My stomach dropped. I braced for one of Jax's men to grab me, yank me up off the ground and cart me away to my doom. After a few seconds of waiting I couldn't stand it any longer. I kicked a leg up, trying to strike my attacker, but a thick warm hand encircled my ankle, holding me there. I opened my eyes and saw a man standing over me. With the sun coming from right behind him it took me a minute to realize it was Roman.
"Sorry, I didn't mean to scare you," his low voice rumbled as he let go of my leg.
It took my brain a moment to catch up, and he offered me his hand, which I accepted, and used to pull myself to standing. Finally the neurons started firing again and I said, "How the hell did you find me? I'm in the middle of fucking nowhere. Did you put a tracker on me or something?" I'd started out curious but then my brain tripped into paranoia and I felt unsure about trusting this man. He may have been my mate, but I knew shit all about him.
"A tracker?" He snorted, and suppressed a laugh when he saw how serious I was, none of which fit with what I'd seen of the man so far, and yet it softened me toward him. "I found you through the mate bond, Nina. That's partly how it works, one of the unique things is being able to sense each other and find each other when we need to."
I watched him for a moment, and as though he thought I wasn't totally convinced, he added, "I went to the garage, to Clark's, and the whole place had gone up in flames. Do you have any idea how terrifying it was thinking you were still stuck in there? Especially when your boss said you'd refused to come out and had gone back even further into the shop. I had to know if you were alive or not so I opened myself to the bond and opened my senses to you, focusing on trying to find you. Thankfully I could sense you underground, so I got in my car and followed you. I almost got a ticket for running a red light, but I didn't want to lose you."
"Almost?"
"I was able to sweet talk the polic
e officer into forgetting about it."
"You'll have to teach me that trick," I replied with a smile as I pulled the wet cloth away from my body.
The guy had been running all over the city to try and find me. I hadn't had anyone treat me like that in a long time. He thought I was important, so much so that he'd be upset if I died. My insides warmed at the thought. The fact that he found me at all was amazing, but the reason why was what made my heart ache in the best way.
Without thinking I stepped forward and hugged him. "Thank you, Roman. Thank you for caring."
He froze for a moment before hugging me back. Large arms wrapped around me, pulling me close as he squeezed me, hard enough that I almost had to tap out, but it awakened something within me. Desire, lust, whatever you want to call it, thrummed through me. The bond seemed to echo my feelings back to me, or maybe I was feeling what Roman felt? I wasn't sure. I didn't know how to read the bond like he seemed to.
When we broke apart his fingers trailed over the wet clothing, but it felt like they were right against my skin. I couldn't take it and stepped back. Was this how the mate bond was? Just overwhelming lust all the time? I wasn't sure I could survive that. I wasn't used to being around other people, let alone being involved with them on a personal level.
"Is the offer to join your pack still open?" I asked, pushing the heated thoughts from my brain.
"Of course, you're my mate. My pack would welcome you with open arms," he said, rubbing the back of his neck with his hand as he looked at me through the floppy hair that had fallen in front of his eyes ever so slightly. My mouth went dry and not just because I was having a hard time holding myself back from mounting him right then and there, but because of what I was about to say.