by Patti Larsen
“He thought it was too dangerous,” she whispers. “Just in case a hunter showed up.”
Reid doesn’t say anything, just nods and brushes his fingers over her hand so she knows he doesn’t blame her. It doesn’t matter, not now. He’ll deal with Marcus when they reach the surface.
If they reach the surface.
“What did you find?” Reid’s voice is low and scratchy and he thinks of the water bottle, pulling it out and looking at it with longing.
“Go ahead,” Milo says. “There’s more where that came from.” He gestures across the open space similar to the one below, toward a tunnel entrance. Gratitude for that small miracle chases down three gulps of water.
“Two tunnels,” Cole says. “Like Milo said, water in one and a blockage in the other. But…” he trails off. “Maybe hope. Come on.”
Reid goes after him, knees wobbling and muscles protesting but refusing to let himself rest. There is a hunter at the bottom of the shaft and probably more on their way. He has to keep moving.
Cole leads him to the first tunnel, a now mute and guilty looking line of kids trailing after, and shows him the fallen rock pile only a short distance in. Reid rests against the wall as Cole talks.
“You can see light,” he points to the gaps in the rocks. “And do you smell that?”
Reid sniffs and his heart swells a little. Fresh air.
“It could be a trick.” He doesn’t want the kids getting their hopes up. Cole shrugs.
“Could be. Or a way out. Either one, we have to try.”
Reid looks up at the ceiling, his tired mind taking a bit to register what he’s looking at.
“I don’t know,” he says. “That’s pretty unstable, isn’t it?”
Cole clears his throat. “Actually,” he says, speaking so slowly it’s like he’s forcing each word out, “it looks worse than it is.”
Reid just waits.
“My dad,” Cole says at last, his words now gushing past the dam he created, “is in construction. Demolition. Was.” His head hangs. “Used to take me on jobs, teaching me the family business. Implosions, pyrotech, you name it.”
Reid still can’t wrap his head around it. Something about what Cole is saying troubles him. “Is that how he died? Your Dad?”
Cole shakes his head, arms crossed over his chest, blue eyes on the rubble. “Stupid fall in the bathtub. Hit his head. Went to sleep and never woke up.”
It’s sad but so is Reid’s story, his parents dead in a car accident caused by a drunk teenaged girl who thought texting was more important than paying attention to the road. It sucks for all of them, their sob stories of loss, being orphaned. Each one of them has a tale to tell but it doesn’t matter right now.
They don’t have time to mourn all over again and Cole is very aware of it, obvious when he spins back to Reid and meets his eyes. He looks so determined and ashamed Reid finally understands why Cole’s background makes him uneasy.
“It should have been me in the tunnel,” Cole says, “back in the beginning. Not Drew. I had the most experience. I could have made sure it was safe. But I didn’t trust you or him and I was scared. And Joel… he didn’t reward us when we spoke up.”
That is it, the nagging thing troubling him so much. Drew. It all seems to come back to Drew.
Instead of dealing with it, Reid pushes himself free of the wall. “I want a look at the other tunnel.”
Cole leads him out. The kids are packed into the end of the tunnel like a silent human plug. They part for him, letting Reid through, fingertips brushing over his clothes. He winces when someone touches his hand. Then he is past them and entering the other gap.
It’s not so much a tunnel as another room, smaller, dominated by a large pool of water. The air here is chill and damp and Reid can tell without testing it the water is very cold.
“Dead end,” Milo whispers, his voice echoing off the still pond.
Reid refills his bottle and takes another drink. It’s clean at least, and he is right about the temperature. He plunges his aching hands into it, letting the cold briefly numb the throbbing. When he stands up, he has to support himself with one hand or he will fall over, he’s sure of it. Reid makes it back to his feet and leaves the room without a word.
And comes face to face with Marcus. His gaze drops away, his face twisted as if he wants to speak. But the coward in him has obviously backed down again.
Reid doesn’t have the strength left to deal with him. He stops in the main chamber and sinks to the floor, his back to the wall, to think. It makes him want to curl up on his side and close his eyes but he won’t allow that. He just needs to get off his feet.
“What do you want us to do?” Cole crouches near him, Leila on his other side while the rest of the kids hover close, held off by Milo who keeps a watching stance over Reid’s extended legs.
“Just give me a minute.” Cole nods, backs off. Reid lets his eyes drift closed then, resting them.
“You need sleep,” Leila whispers.
That jerks Reid awake from a near-doze. He groans and forces himself to stand up. She offers to help him, her hands reaching for him, but he pulls away.
“I’m okay,” he says. “We need to move.”
She looks a little hurt but he can’t deal with that now. Instead, he stumbles to the tunnel where the collapsed rubble waits.
“All right,” he says to Cole. “Let’s get the hell out of here.”
Cole grins at him, nods, but doesn’t get a chance to act. From the other side of the collapse, they hear the distinctive cry of a hunter, so crisp and clear it’s like the thing is in the tunnel with them.
Putting it just on the other side of the block.
“Damn it.” Milo’s temper flares. “Now what?”
“We can’t go this way,” Cole says.
“Really, dumb ass?” Milo spins on Reid. “What do we do?”
He has no idea. And nothing comes to him while they listen to the sound of rocks shifting from the hunter’s side.
“They’re trying to get in.” Alex panics, grasps at Reid’s hands, drawing a snarl of pain from him. “What do we do?”
Reid staggers back away from the kids, back to the tunnel wall, hands pressed to his ears as though their stares are shouts. He squeezes his eyes shut so he doesn’t have to watch them watching him, waiting for him to tell them what to do or where to go next.
He has no idea.
“The elevator.” Leila is beside him. “It’s our only chance.”
There is a hunter down there. Probably a lot of hunters by now. But she’s right. Reid turns and goes with her, the pack following, pressing close behind them. They find Marcus standing in the gaping hole where the elevator had been. He spins and scowls at Reid.
“I fixed it,” he says. “Like the others wanted me to. Now look what happened.”
Reid leans out, the height combined with his weariness making him dizzy. The elevator is descending slowly in its herky-jerky manner, the motor humming away.
“Hunters,” Reid says.
“What the hell is wrong with you?” Reid turns at the sound of Milo’s voice raised in anger, sees the boy striking out at Marcus, his little fists hitting the taller guy’s chest over and over.
“It’s not my fault!” Marcus shoves Milo away, the smaller boy collapsing on the hard stone floor. “It’s not.” He fixes Reid with his hateful glare. “It’s not.”
Reid’s no longer paying attention to him. They are trapped with no way out. He has to find a way, this can’t be the end. Again Marcus’s incompetence spurs Reid to act.
“Come on.” He leads them to the room with the pond and stands there, staring into the water.
“Now what?” Cole looks up at him like he thinks Reid has a plan. He does, sort of, but they’re not going to like it.
“We have three choices.” Reid turns to them and addresses them all. “We can try to fight our way past the hunters on the elevator and go back down.” They groan like that’s not an op
tion. The next two aren’t much better. “We can wait until they break through the rubble and fight our way around them.” Again more groans, this time mixed with whimpers and some crying.
“And the third?” Leila is staring into the still water.
“We make our last stand here,” Reid says. “Fight until we can’t anymore.”
“That’s it?” Marcus shoves his way forward. “That’s your brilliant plan?”
Reid stares him down. “We are out of options.”
Marcus has nothing to say. No one does. Because Reid is right.
***
Chapter Fourteen
The kids scream as one when the lights go out. Reid can still see a flicker from the main room but where they are is now blanketed in darkness. Shadows play across what little light reaches them and Reid curses himself.
He’s gotten them trapped, cornered like rats, their only choices now death from the hunter’s attack or drowning. No choice at all.
Something skitters close to them and the pack erupts into another group shriek.
“Back!” Reid takes a step himself, feeling the cold water close over his sneaker. “Into the pond.”
“It’s cold!” Someone gasps right next to him. It sounds like Cole.
“It’ll be easier to kill the critters,” Reid says. That does it. The kids splash their way deeper, their panic driving them into a knot of terror in the middle of the pond. Reid moves more slowly, still facing the entrance, his sneakers sliding over wet rocks. Water climbs to his knees, making them ache even more, then over his thighs. Someone takes his hand and he turns his head long enough to see it’s Leila.
A hunter calls. The sound bounces around the room, cut off by the shrieking of the terrified kids. They only have seconds, now. Reid sees the first of the hunters enter the room, back lit by the faint glow from the room beyond, a shadow in the darkness. Something small and furry squeezes past its feet and scuttles into the black.
Reid is already feeling the effects of the icy water, way worse than the night he rescued Drew. At least then he was a little stronger. Now he is at the very end of his endurance, his weary muscles seizing in the intense cold.
“I can’t!” Reid’s head snaps around, sees one boy still standing at the edge of the pond. A strip of cloth is just visible where it is wrapped around his head. The boy with the concussion. Brandon, Leila’s voice whispers in his memory.
“Come on, you have to.” Milo is splashing his way toward Brandon but Reid already knows it’s too late, sees the spot of black darker than the shadows leap and land on the boy’s shoulder, followed by a second and a third. Brandon chokes once, not even able to speak one last word. Black fluid gushes from his throat as the creatures tear him open. It spills into the water, so dark in the very faint light, just enough for Reid to see the boy’s shining eyes turn toward him as he collapses at the side of the pool, lifeless.
Reid can’t stand the smacking, tearing sound of them feeding. The pack moans in sympathy and splashes deeper into the water.
The first hunter reaches the edge of the water and snarls at them, lunging forward, drawing out more squeals of terror. But it stops at the lip, shaking one foot when it gets wet, backing away and hissing. A second joins it, crouches and dips its claws into the pool, pulling away with a howl of rage.
“They won’t come in the water.” Milo sounds so relieved Reid doesn’t have the heart to tell him it doesn’t matter. A few more minutes and none of them will care anymore. Once hypothermia sets in, they’ll drown.
But the excitement of that knowledge gets passed around anyway. The kids actually laugh their relief out, in a place where laughter shouldn’t have a place to live.
Reid’s legs are going numb, but he can still feel Leila clinging to his hand and he hasn’t gone so far in he’s in trouble yet. As long as he keeps his upper body out of the cold he figures he’ll last a little while longer.
He turns to tell the kids but doesn’t bother. Let them have their little celebration, their moment of hope. And let them die peacefully, rather than as food for these hunters who treat them like meat.
The cold is the kindest death he can offer them.
Reid turns back to face the hunters and squeezes Leila’s hand. He smiles at her and she smiles back.
“Almost there,” he whispers. “I won’t let them take you.”
“Thank you,” she whispers back. “Same here.”
Reid backs up another step. Another. He doesn’t want to last longer, has no desire to drag out his death. Not anymore. It’s time for this to be over.
His right foot slides sideways in the current, the tug of the undertow making him stumble. As he rights himself, he realizes what he just felt.
A current. There shouldn’t be a current. Unless…
Reid pulls his hand free of Leila’s and dives, not thinking about it, just acting. He finds the draw of moving water easily and swims in it. The cold water numbs his hands so much the pain fades as he forces his legs to kick and his arms to move.
He finds it quickly, a hole in the wall of rock. Large enough to swim through. And when he presses himself to the bottom and looks out the length of it, he sees a glimmer of light on the other end.
Reid surfaces with a gasp of air and a spray of water. He is freezing but his excitement is stronger than the cold.
“Reid, are you okay?” Milo is next to him, trying to support him as though Reid had only fallen. He pushes his friend back and grins at him.
“There’s a tunnel.”
“What?” “What did he say?” “What tunnel? Where?” They chatter their questions as they gather around him.
“Right there.” Reid points under the water at the far wall. “Near the bottom of the pond. There’s a current. And light at the other end. All we have to do is follow it.”
“Can we make it?” Leila is there next to him, her hand in his again.
“Do we have any other options?”
They all look so scared standing there, shivering in the freezing water.
“We need to try,” Reid says.
“I can’t swim.” Marcus. Reid almost comments. Almost. But he holds back. They all do. No one wishes the hunters on even him.
“I’ll help you.” Leila’s eyes don’t leave Reid’s but she lets him go. He stuffs down that now-familiar stab of jealousy and turns to the others.
“We help each other,” he says. “But we have to go now. Before we’re too tired to swim.”
Reid glances over his shoulder. The hunters are milling at the edge, the five of them snarling and fighting among themselves.
“We’ll drown.” Reid turns back to Megan who is shaking so hard she is shedding water like a shaking dog.
“We won’t,” he tells her. “Just hold your breath, you’ll make it.”
She is tossing her head, her little face pinched and terrified. Reid sees a handful of others doing the same and knows he is losing them. If he doesn’t get them moving now, there’s a good chance they will drown, if only because they’re too numb from the cold to swim all the way to the other side.
When Alex screams, Reid is so shocked by the sound he turns completely around and stares at the boy. His skinny arm is raised, index finger pointing. Reid follows his gesture and freezes.
One of the hunters has entered the water and is making its way toward them. It flinches and snarls and barks at the others of its kind over its shoulder but it is advancing and that is enough.
They don’t hesitate any longer. Lungs fill with a gulp of air and heads bob below the surface. Reid waits until he sees Leila and Marcus disappear, the last to dive before turning to the advancing hunter.
“Hey,” he calls. “Fuck you.”
He laughs, a sharp and horrible sound before filling his lungs.
Reid dives.
***
Chapter Fifteen
The water seems even colder the second time and almost forces the extra air from Reid’s lungs as he swims hard toward the tunnel. He
reaches the lip just as panic sets in. Maybe he should surface, take another gulp of air? But he is already being drawn in by the current and has no choice.
He swims as best he can in the narrow way, finding it widens as he goes, the undertow slowing. Reid realizes they were lucky the front end is a bottleneck. It creates enough pressure to make the current possible.
The light is stronger ahead but his lungs are burning and his legs feel like useless weights trailing behind him. Something brushes against his face and he lets fear drive some of the precious oxygen from his lungs. It’s a shoe, someone’s foot. He swims up as the boy’s body spins slowly around, the dead and staring eyes meeting his. It’s Eric, his broken arm hanging free of the sling he wore it in.
Fury races through Reid’s body, spurring him forward, dragging the still form of the boy behind him. The water drags at them both but Reid lets his rage loose, feeding it on purpose. They left the kid to die, all of them. Not one tried to save him. The anger is enough to propel him all the way to the light and the surface.
Reid bursts to the top, gasping for air, Eric’s quiet form bobbing up to float beside him. Reid heaves the boy onto the shore and begins chest compressions, breathing into the kid’s mouth, trying to remember his CPR training from his last year at summer camp before his life went to hell, not sure if he’s doing it right or not but refusing to quit.
He feels hands on him, a quiet voice murmuring in his ear, but he won’t stop. They leave him alone to try and try.
And fail.
He finally has to give up, his own energy ebbed low, the last of his anger fuel burned up in the effort. Reid collapses to the side, caught in Leila’s arms.
“You did your best,” she whispers.
He jerks away from her, a bit of fury left after all. “Who left him behind?” Reid climbs to his feet, wobbly and weak. “Who left Eric to drown?” The kids are all staring at him in the faint yellow/orange light coming from somewhere to his left. “Who let this kid die?”
Their silence is as powerful as his accusation. He has his answer, then.