Reluctant Gods (The Awakening Book 2)

by Keri Armstrong

  Sara gave me a look. She minded.

  “You should.” He sighed. “Look, if your heart is set on it, I promise to take you some other time. It’s getting late now, and space is too cramped in there, the air is still and it can get pretty suffocating, especially in this time of year...” and on and on he went.

  “Besides, this is not a fun place to be. People have been killed here before and I’m not joking about that.”

  “We know,” Sara and I said simultaneously.

  He blinked.

  “That’s what happened to our parents,” I explained softly.

  He closed his eyes, looking pained. There was pleading in that hazel gaze when he opened them again. “Isn’t that a reason not to go?”

  I could see Sara wavering, but we’d come this far and I wasn’t backing out now. “Listen, this is important to us. We want to honor them, so we are doing it with or without you.” I gave her a look that said “you” meant her, too. If I had to, I’d go on my own.

  Nathan’s shoulders slumped. “Fine, I’ll take you. But follow my lead and do as I say.”

  I saluted and he shook his head as he turned to go.

  We reached a point where we’d have to walk through a wall of water and I groaned, pulling my hoodie up to preserve my hair as much as possible. We ran through and were still soaking wet.

  Sara grinned at me as she shook herself like a dog. “That was fun.”

  “Only for you.”

  It was only just bright enough on the backside of the waterfall for us to detect a small hole toward the bottom of the rock and we took our flashlights out.

  Nathan got down on his knees and explained, “We need to crawl through this tunnel. It’s not long, two feet tops, and then we will be in the main corridor. From there, there are a couple of vast chambers and some smaller ones.”

  “Cool,” I said as he started into the entrance.

  “I’ll go first,” Sara said, surprising me.

  She put a flashlight between her teeth and started crawling into the hole.

  I sighed, mimicking her trick with the light. I wasn’t loving this part.

  First, the water then crawling through the earth, I was so glad I decided to wear my least favorite jeans. Otherwise, I would be pretty upset.

  I knew we were probably being a little foolish by not having proper exploring gear, but there hadn’t been much time to prepare. Besides, Nathan wasn’t exactly decked out in spelunking attire either, and he’d apparently been exploring these caves for years. I let that comfort me as I tried to not think about the rocks crushing me as I made slow progress.

  I thought I heard Sara shouting as she went through but I was too focused on the earth that was all around me. And if I thought the beginning was tight, it only became more compressed. The walls were pressing against me, making it hard to breathe.

  And then I dropped the flashlight. My ears started to ring as soon as the light rolled away, and my heart pounded so painfully I couldn’t cry out.

  “Phoebe, what is it?” Nathan’s voice sounded in front of me.

  “I can’t,” I managed to choke out, gasping for air.

  The darkness was everywhere. I was completely stuck, unable to move, and the cave would swallow me whole. There was no escape from it.

  Just as I thought I’d gasped my last breath, something touched my arm. I thin scream worked its way up my throat.

  “Shh. Relax Phoebe, it’s just me. Come on.”

  “I can’t move!”

  “Yes, you can. Focus on my voice.”

  I tried. A small voice in my head played a ‘little engine that could’ refrain.

  I can do it. I can do it.

  He tugged gently on my arm. “Move your left leg slightly forward.”

  I did as was told.

  “Good girl. Now the other one. You can do it. Excellent.” He continued to encourage me with each small move I made.

  With his guidance, I made it through to the edge and he pulled me into an embrace as I emerged from the tunnel, which was a good thing because my legs trembled so hard they wouldn’t have supported me.

  He rocked us side-to-side and I took comfort from his presence. He was just the right size to put my head on his shoulder and I snuggled even closer, inhaling his masculine smell.

  Sara’s voice brought me back to reality. “Phoebe, are you all right? What happened?”

  I moved away, suddenly realizing I had no idea how long Nathan and I had stood in each other’s arms.

  I mumbled my thanks to him, unable to meet his gaze. I looked at Sara instead. She looked shocked, to say the least.

  “I don’t know what happened,” I tried to explain. “I never had a problem with claustrophobia before.”

  “It’s this place.” Nathan gestured around us. “It messes with your head.”

  I looked around the cave, really looked at it, for the first time. It was messing with my head, but maybe not for reasons he thought. I looked at Sara and could see she felt it, too. A sort of somber exaltation. We were in the cave that our parents, and their parents before, and searched and died for.

  “Still, want to do this?” Nathan asked.

  “Yeah, I didn’t go through all this to just turn around and go home.”

  Sara gave me a hug.

  He watched us, and a flicker of sadness crossed his face. “This way,” he said.

  I felt a small smile form as I watched his back, touched by his empathy. Sara elbowed me and raised her brows, grinning. I just shook my head at her.

  People always assumed I wasn’t interested in guys because I’ve never really dated, preferring to bury myself in academic studies, but that was the choice that was forced on me. Even though I liked to study, I still sometimes ached for a normal life. It would catch me by surprise sometimes, that twisting ache of loneliness in my stomach whenever I’d see a happy couple.

  Unfortunately, a girl with my scary looks and studious mindset isn’t exactly sought after. Gran had once explained to me that any boys who showed interest in me were just using me to get to Sara. Maybe it was beyond cruel to say that to a hopeful teenage girl, but she did it for my own good.

  Naturally, I tried to prove her wrong, so in high school, when this mythical boy appeared who looked beyond the obvious, I jumped the gun and lost my virginity to him in an awkward and painful encounter in his parent’s basement. But as it turned out, Gran was right. He was using me to get to Sara, so I thickened my skin and focused on my studies. Learning as much as possible, about everything I liked.

  Remembering our grandmother was the reality check I needed. That moment with Nathan was just his basic kindness because I was in distress, nothing more. Whatever I might have felt had to be discarded. It was simpler that way. Refuse and remove before rejection comes. That was my motto and it had stood me in good stead for many years.

  We moved across a tunnel and suddenly it started to widen until we could normally walk side by side.

  “Look over here.” Sara pointed to something on the wall.

  It was a drawing, primitive looking like the one in the brochure yet fascinating and strange at the same time.

  “Oh yeah, the caves are full of them,” Nathan said.

  As promised, we found much more.

  Some were smudged, covered with blackish, oily substance but still visible enough to tell their tales. They were all done in a usual prehistoric, almost Egyptian style. That is to say, they were two-dimensional with images that were supposed to be in the back, up top.

  Nathan started to explain.

  “The legend goes that these caves belonged to an advanced race of beings. They were these giant cannibalistic, ‘magicians’ who terrorized the inhabitants of these areas.”

  It all sounded very similar to the thing we read in the pamphlet.

  “We read those red haired giants made burial sites, deep into the earth all across America.” Sara voiced what I was thinking.

  He nodded. “It’s true, but not just the redh
eads.”

  He illuminated one of the pictures depicting a half-naked guy with black hair, lying on some kind of altar with people standing around him holding various instruments. I could recognize a knife but some of them looked strange to me. Or strange for the type period they were made.

  “Nearby tribes spoke of redheads because they had never seen something like that before and the unusual always gets the spotlight,” Nathan continued. “But some of the stories tell of unearthly beautiful people, who were advanced in every way, with white-blond hair and yellow eyes, but some that were more like the natives, with darker skin and black hair and eyes. All of them were worshipped as gods at some time or another.”

  He illuminated another painting and I had a flashback to another image of the red-haired angel I saw on the front of the brochure in the hotel. But in this cave, the angel stood beside him was a dark-haired woman with big, claw-like hands and a barbed tail.

  I shuddered. “How do you know all this?”

  He hesitated, running a hand through his hair, a gesture I recognized from whenever he was called upon in class. I associated it with nerves and wondered why he was nervous now.

  “Um, I told you. I grew up listening to the old legends from my family.”

  “Are there a lot of them?” Sara asked.

  He shrugged.

  “Come on, tell us another one,” she pleaded.

  I suddenly realized this was the longest I had ever heard him speak. That might account for his nerves.

  “Come on. Please…” she whined and he caved (no pun intended).

  He shoved his finger through his hair again. “There were legends that the giants liked to experiment on people, making hybrid animal creatures that were also worshipped as demi-gods.” He pointed his flashlight to one of the paintings near the ceiling, this one a bunch of people bowing around a half-man half-dog creature.

  “So what happened to them?” Sara asked.

  “Legend goes that they knew they were going to be attacked, and that they chose to die embalmed and preserved, only to awaken once the natives left.”

  “So the tribes gathered their bravest warriors and invaded the caves burning everything in their path?” I guessed, suddenly realizing the dark smudges on the cave were remnants of some great fire.

  He nodded. “They said the dead screamed as they burned.”

  We all stayed silent for a moment.

  Sara went pale. “Good God,” she whispered.

  “Yeah. Not exactly lighthearted stories,” he said.

  Especially while standing in the caves of those stories. I looked at the soot streaked walls and shivered in spite of myself. That part of the story was definitely true. The question was, what about the rest?

  I turned to Nathan. “Do you know where the accident happened, the landslide killed our parents?”

  His lips tightened and he looked away.

  “You do, don’t you?” I said.

  He nodded. “But there’s no way in hell I’ll take you there. It’s too dangerous.”

  I was preparing to argue when a loud rumbling sounded. We were all startled, or in my case, scared spitless, because it sounded like a rock fall.

  “Don’t move!” Nathan said. “I’ll go and see if our exit is still intact.”

  I opened my mouth to reply but he was already gone, disappearing in a sprint.

  Sara moved next to me. “Do you think it’s wise we just let him go alone?” she asked.

  No.

  Instead, I said, “I’m sure he knows his way around better that we do. So for now, we’ll just do what he said.”

  “Phoebe, I don’t like this one bit.”

  Me either. I squeezed her arm to comfort us both.

  “Sara… Phoebe…” a voice called out. At least, I thought it did. Standing in a pitch black cave with only two flashlights, it was hard to make a distinction between reality and myth.

  “Did you hear that?” I asked and she nodded, her eyes huge.

  There was a new voice in the dark, calling out our names and I couldn’t decipher if that was a good or a bad thing.

  Nine

  “Over here!” Sara yelled.

  I jerked her hand, hissing. “What are you doing? We don’t know who that is.”

  “Yes, we do,” she countered.

  “Phoebe? Sara?” It echoed all around us.

  I frowned.

  Wait. Caleb?

  What was he doing here?

  “Over here,” we yelled back in unison.

  And sure enough, a minute later Caleb stood in front of us, a little out of breath.

  He pulled us into a group hug and squeezed, hard. “Thank God I found you.”

  When we moved apart Sara asked, “What are you doing here?”

  “And more importantly, how did you find us?” I added.

  “When you left, something felt wrong, and I had this dream last night.... So I decided to trail you, just in case.”

  “What dream?” I asked and he just shook his head, making me uneasy. Caleb was always the most intuitive one in our little group so we learned to trust his ‘gut’, but it felt like there was something more. Something he wasn’t willing to share with us.

  “Come on, let’s get the hell out of this place. It gives me the creeps.” He started to pull at us but I stopped him.

  “We can’t go yet,” I said.

  “Why not?”

  “Because of Nathan.”

  “What?” Caleb looked confused.

  I gave him the abbreviated version. “We ran into Nathan and he offered to show us the cave. But there was this noise and he went to investigate.”

  “What’s he doing here?” He practically growled then continued without waiting for an answer. “I’ll go look for him, but you stay quiet and—”

  “Stay put,” I finished before him. “We know.”

  Honestly, I was starting to be annoyed by all these men telling us what to do like we were little girls. Granted, we were standing in an unknown, dark, and extremely scary looking cave, but we were not useless.

  Caleb disappeared in the same direction Nathan went but Sara and I stayed, again.

  She grabbed hold of my elbow, seeking comfort. In truth, I needed that too.

  In the weak light, the barbed-tail woman on the wall looked like she was smiling, mocking me.

  We were in way over our heads. I started to fear for all our lives.

  A few minutes later, Nathan appeared from the other direction.

  “It looks good, but I took a shortcut just in case.”

  I let out a breath of relief. “That’s good news, but we maybe have another problem.”

  When I told him about Caleb, he paced around for a moment, running his fingers through his already messed up hair, then stopped abruptly. “These caves are dangerous. They have so many false twists and turns, it’s easy to get lost. Especially when you don’t know your way around.”

  Sara looked like she might burst into tears any second. “That’s what I was afraid of.”

  Nathan sighed. “Look, let’s give him ten minutes to find his way back. If he doesn’t, I’ll get you out of here and then return to look for him.”

  Sara shook her head. “I’m not going anywhere without him.”

  I agreed. The only reason Caleb was here in the first place was because he was worried about us. The least we could do was return the favor.

  We stuck together, not moving too far away from where we’d last seen him. We called out his name, but only silence returned.

  After several minutes, we went back to where he’d left us. Exasperated, I slumped down and Sara followed suit. Nathan leaned back against the cave wall, eyes closed.

  We were all deep in thought, worrying in our own private ways when Sara’s stomach started to growl.

  Despite everything, I had to chuckle.

  Nathan smiled at her. “Hungry?”

  “Yeah,” she replied sheepishly. “Starving actually.”

  He pulled of
f his backpack, took out a pouch of some type of jerky, and offered it to us.

  Sara thanked him—like Caleb, she wasn’t vegetarian—but I politely refused.

  Claimed I was fine and could grab some granola later if need be. But in reality, apart from the no-meat policy, I won’t eat in front of other people if it can be avoided. The scarred skin around my mouth was pretty tight when I tried to chew, so I had to do it very slowly, with small pieces.

  Sara, on the other hand, dived right in but after a couple of bites, she started to cough.

  I grabbed a bottle of water from my pack for her, but it only got worse.

  “Sara, what’s wrong?” I patted her on the back.

  She just shook her head and grabbed her throat like she couldn’t breathe. As I hurried to get behind her to start the Heimlich, foam started dripping from her mouth.

  Nathan rushed over, prying her mouth open and I pressed my fists against her against.

  “Trade places,” he said. “I’m probably stronger than you.”

  She fell forward when I let go and Nathan caught her. He turned her around and I could see her eyes rolling back.

  “I screamed as Nathan tried to dislodge whatever was in her throat.

  He quickly laid her on the ground and put his head on her chest but I pushed him away and checked for a heartbeat and pulse. Gratitude mixed with fear and anger as I looked back up at Nathan.

  “What did you do to her?” I accused.

  He jerked as if I’d slapped him. “Nothing, I swear! I don’t know what happened.”

  The fear and despair on his face was so genuine, I believed him.

  I tried to gather her in my arms. “Help me,” I said to him. “We’ve got to get her to the hospital, now.” We had to hurry back to the jeep. There was no cell reception and we’d have to floor it the several miles back to the nearest town.

  “We’ll never make it,” he said, speaking my worst fear.

  “Shut up! We have to.” I tried to lift her again but couldn’t do it by myself.

  Nathan pulled her into his arms. “I know someone here who can help us now.”

  His words didn’t make sense to me but I was desperate.

  “Go!” I pushed him and we started to move.

  But then….

  “What about Caleb?” I asked as I ran behind Nathan. I yelled out Caleb’s name, desperate for him to appear and wake us from this awful nightmare.