Erin wraps her arms around my neck, hugging me hard. “Thank you, Derek.”
A woman in a sheriff’s department uniform approaches us, clearing her throat.
“Sorry.” She gives us an apologetic smile. “We just need to have the medics look you both over, and I have some questions for you.”
“Have you been looking for us this whole time?” Erin asks her.
I glance down at her silver name tag as Deputy Schrader answers.
“Actually, no. We thought you all died in the explosion.”
My chest feels like it’s caving in as I turn away from Erin to look at the lodge.
It’s gone.
Gone.
There’s nothing but empty blackened ground where my hunting lodge once stood.
“What the fuck?” I just stare at it.
“The noise we heard on the first day,” Erin says, her tone as shocked as mine.
“What happened?” I ask.
“That’s what we’re trying to figure out.” Deputy Schrader leads us over to an ambulance, Erin being taken by one paramedic and me by another.
A mass of wailing sirens is getting closer. The cops are about to converge on this place, and based on ten years of being famous, I know that means reporters are soon to follow.
“I need to reach my dad,” I tell the paramedic examining me. “And my agent. As soon as possible, please.”
He calls over a guy in a suit and tie, who introduces himself as one of the detectives working my case.
“You’re gonna need major security,” I tell him. “The media will descend on this place.”
“Ain’t nobody descending on my crime scene,” he says, shaking his head.
“Without security, they will.”
He nods and steps away, speaking into a radio. I hear the sound of helicopter blades, and when I look up into the bright, late-morning sky, I see a beautiful sight.
A medical chopper is landing in a field nearby. Matias can finally get some help.
I can’t hold back my emotions. I cry with relief. None of us thought help was coming, and now Matias has a chance. I’ll spend whatever it takes to get him the care he needs.
“Sorry,” I say to the paramedic, wiping my hand across my face.
“It’s okay. You’ve been through a lot.”
“How’d you guys find us?”
He shrugs, but the detective, who is standing nearby and is off his radio now, answers.
“An insurance adjuster working on the claim for your house called me last week. He noticed that there was a secondary residence listed on the homeowners’ policy. That was news to me. We started looking through the insurance information, and from the building materials, realized it had to be an underground bunker.”
“You guys have been in there this whole time?” The paramedic wraps a blood pressure cuff around my arm.
“Yeah. Three months.”
“Wow.”
The detective takes his buzzing phone from his pocket, looks at the screen, and passes it to me.
“It’s your dad.”
A lump forms in my throat as I answer it.
“Dad?”
There’s a moment of silence before he chokes out my name. Hearing him like that makes tears well in my eyes again. I’ve cried more in the past three months than in the rest of my damn life.
“You’re alive?” he says.
“I’m okay.”
“Where have you been?”
“It’s a really long story. Where are you?”
“I’m staying at an apartment in Denver. Where are you?”
“I’m where the lodge used to be.”
There’s a smile in his voice as he says, “I’m on my way…I can’t believe this.”
“Me either.”
“I love you, Derek.”
“Love you too, Dad.”
I thank the detective and hand back his phone. The medics are bringing Matias out of the bunker. He’s strapped to a board, looking weak and confused.
“I’ll be back,” I say to the paramedic.
I walk next to the medics, looking down at Matias.
“Hey man, I’m right here. We’re getting you to a hospital, okay?”
“Derek,” he manages to say.
“Yeah, I’m here. Everything’s okay.”
“Where’s Erin?”
“She’s close by. I’ll get her, okay?”
I don’t have to, though. Erin’s running over to us, and she puts a hand on Matias’s shoulder.
“We’re going to the hospital,” she says.
“Really?”
Poor guy. He’s so beat down by his illness.
“I need to go with him,” Erin tells the medics.
“There’s not enough room in the chopper,” he says, getting loud so we can hear him over the whirring blades.
“I’m not leaving him,” Erin says firmly.
“You can’t fit,” the medic says.
“Then you can stay, and I’ll go.” She takes Matias’s hand. “There’s another paramedic.”
The chopper medics exchange a look.
“Okay,” one of them says. “But you have to stay out of the way.”
They start loading Matias on, and Erin looks at the helicopter, closing her eyes and taking a deep breath.
Her claustrophobia. I can see the panic setting in.
“Hey,” I call out, taking her hand. “Let me go. I’ll have someone drive you.”
The chopper is creating quite a breeze, and Erin pushes strands of blond hair away from her face.
“I’ll go,” she says.
“You sure?”
She nods.
I pull her close, kissing the top of her head. This woman never stops amazing me. She’ll stare down her darkest demons for someone she cares about.
“I’ll see you there,” I say.
When she nods and pulls back, I cup her face in my hands.
“It’s gonna be okay,” I tell her. “Everything’s gonna be okay now.”
I kiss her quickly, and then she slides into the chopper. I watch as one of the medics helps her into a seat belt and passes her some big headphones.
And then they take off. I watch the helicopter ascend, hoping Matias is strong enough to recover and Erin makes it through the flight okay.
The smaller the chopper gets, the further she is from me. And all I can think about is closing that gap.
I haven’t gone a day in more than three months without being near the blue-eyed, introverted trail guide who has me under her spell. And while I’m damn glad we’ve been rescued, I know things are about to get crazy. Erin will be the constant I need more than ever now.
Chapter Nineteen
Erin
“An underground bunker?” The nurse inserting my IV line looks at me incredulously. “Like those preppers on TV have?”
I nod.
“How’d you get stuck in there?”
“Long story.” I turn my cheek to the side and smile as it touches the smooth pillowcase on my bed in the emergency department.
“The pillows here aren’t so great,” the nurse says apologetically.
“It’s perfect.”
Someone opens the door to the room and peeks inside. When I see my cousin Matt’s face, I burst into tears.
He’s smiling and crying at the same time as he comes into the room. The nurse finishes the IV line and gives him a nod of approval. Matt hugs me gingerly and kisses my cheek.
Uncle Cal and Aunt Carrie are right behind him, followed by my other cousin, Logan. A hug isn’t enough for Aunt Carrie—she sits down next to me on the bed and keeps her arms around my shoulders.
“Are you okay?” Uncle Cal asks tearfully. “I didn’t understand what the detective was saying. We thought you were…”
“I know. I’m so sorry. I’ve been trapped in an underground survival bunker. No cell service and no way out.”
“Oh, Erin.” Aunt Carrie’s expression crumples with sympathy. “Und
erground?”
I nod. “That’s where the grocery delivery was.”
Uncle Cal covers his mouth with his hand. “I didn’t know. I never would have expected you to go down there. I’m so sorry.”
I reach over and take his hand. “It’s not your fault.”
“But how did you get locked inside?” Matt asks me.
“For the first two months, we didn’t know. But then we found out it was a robbery gone bad.”
“Gone bad?” My aunt gives me a worried look.
“The guy who was supposed to tip off the police so we could get out just left us—and his partner—down there instead.”
My family members cringe as I recount what we’ve been through for the past three months, including Matias’s illness.
“He’s here being treated. Can someone find out how he is?” I say. “I wanted to stay with him, but they made me come down here to get checked out.”
“Of course they did!” My aunt clucks with concern. “Look at you, Erin, you’re so thin.”
“I’m okay.”
“Well, they’d better be bringing you a tray of food soon, or I’ll go get you something myself.”
“Thank God you had water down there,” Uncle Cal says.
The nurse is gone now, and it’s just the five of us.
“You guys.” I sit up straighter, clearing my throat. “I need to say something.”
They wait in silence, and I take a second to soak them in. I missed them so much more than I let myself truly acknowledge when I was trapped.
Uncle Cal is wearing a brown canvas work coat, as always. I can faintly smell the scents of warm animals and grain, which to me are the smells of home. Aunt Carrie smells like the drugstore perfume she’s been wearing since I was a kid—sweet and floral.
And my cousins, who are more like brothers to me, are wearing their feelings for me on their faces. They love me. I knew they did, but they don’t say it much. That’s something I’ve been guilty of too.
“I had so much time down there to think.” I shake my head as I recall the endless cycle of time in the bunker, with no sunrise or sunset. “We had nothing but time, really. And I thought about so many things. I never expected to get the chance to tell you guys about it.” My throat tightens with emotion. “But now that I can…” My voice wavers with emotion, and my aunt tightens her hold on me. “I want to say how much I love you all. And to thank you for taking me in and making me part of your family.”
Uncle Cal shakes his head, his eyes misting with tears. “Erin, we’ve always loved you like our own daughter. You never need to thank us for that. It’s us who should be thanking you, really.”
Aunt Carrie nods. “You don’t have to be biologically mine to be my daughter. We’ve just been lost without you. We couldn’t bring ourselves to have a funeral for you, because no remains were ever found.”
“I never thought I’d get to tell you I love you, squirt,” Logan says. I smile at the nickname I haven’t heard in years. “And I’m pretty proud of my badass sister.”
I laugh and cry at the same time. “Thanks.”
“Me too,” Matt says, patting my arm.
“Was Derek Heaton down there too?” Logan asks. “Were all six of you down there the whole time?”
“Six? No, there were five of us. Me, Derek, Matias, Kenna, and Bryce.”
“Bryce?” Matt furrows his brow, confused. “He’s not one of the people they were searching for.”
“Do you know who they were searching for?”
He considers for a second. “The four you just mentioned, except Bryce, and a security guy named John McCoy and…Trent Malone, I think? A wiring guy?”
“No, they weren’t down there. I did see John right before I went into the bunker, though.”
The nurse opens the door and steps halfway into the room. “The doctor says you can eat. What sounds good, Erin?”
My mouth waters as I think about all the food I wanted and couldn’t have in the bunker.
“Pizza and a milk shake.”
She lowers her brows and “hmms” skeptically. “Better start slower, or your stomach won’t be very happy.”
“How about just some ice cream?”
“Let me see what the doc thinks.”
Matt stands up from the chair he was sitting in. “Whatever she can have, I’ll go get. No offense, but hospital food tastes like ass. It’s not every day my sister comes back from the dead—we have to celebrate.”
“You know what I’d really love?” I say. “A huge salad with loads of fresh vegetables and some grilled chicken. Hot grilled chicken.”
The nurse nods. “I’ll go ask if that’s okay. And I’ll bring you some more Sprite too.”
“Can you also find out how Matias is? The guy I came here on the helicopter with?”
“Sure thing, honey.”
When she’s gone, I look around at my family’s faces and see that they’re all staring at me in shock.
“A helicopter?” Uncle Cal says. “You went on a helicopter?”
“Yep. And I only needed a slight dose of a sedative.” I laugh because it was more like enough to knock out a horse, but who’s keeping track?
“Like I said—badass.” Logan grins at me.
“If they decide to keep you tonight, I’m staying,” Aunt Carrie says. “Is there anything you need us to get you? Toothbrush, clean clothes?”
I can’t help a groan of happiness. “A change of clothes would be amazing.”
“Is there anything else you want?”
I don’t have to think for long before answering. “I’d really like to watch the sun set tonight.”
Chapter Twenty
Derek
My agent Lance takes some clothes out of his bag and passes them to me.
“Hope the sizes are okay,” he says.
“Thanks.” I take the sweatpants and T-shirt into the bathroom of my dad’s Denver apartment and change.
When I come out of the bedroom, my dad and Lance are still looking at me like I’m a ghost.
“I was never dead,” I remind them with a smile. “Quit looking at me like I just rose from the grave.”
“I just can’t fucking believe it,” Lance says.
I sit down on the plain brown sofa in the furnished apartment Dad moved in to after the lodge was destroyed.
“I can’t either,” I admit. “I was starting to believe we’d never get out of there.”
“What’d the cops have to say when they called?” my dad asks from the kitchen.
“They’re looking for Bryce’s cousin Oscar, but he’s probably in another country by now. The detective is pretty sure John and the real wiring guy were killed in the explosion.”
Lance gives me a confused look. “The real wiring guy?”
“Yeah. Oscar and Bryce knew someone who had worked on the building crew for the bunker. That guy violated the NDA he signed and told them about it. They came up with a plan to rob me, and once Bryce made sure I was in the bunker and no one was near the door, Oscar locked us in there and then made sure John, my security guy, and Trent, the guy who was supposed to be wiring the bunker, were inside the lodge when he rigged the explosion. That way there was no one left who knew we were down there.”
Lance shakes his head in disbelief. “And it looked like all of you had died in an accidental explosion.”
“The arson investigator suspected foul play all along,” I say. “He just didn’t know why.”
My dad sets a cup of coffee in front of Lance on the coffee table, and he passes another to me.
“John was a good man,” Dad says. “He had a wife and daughter.”
A fiery anger reignites inside me. Bryce and his cousin need to pay a steep price for what they did.
“I want to pay all John’s burial costs and set his wife and daughter up with some money,” I say to Lance.
“I already did,” Dad says.
I nod my thanks.
“Did you sleep okay last night?” L
ance asks me.
“I slept okay.”
I didn’t, really, but I don’t want to go into it. I haven’t even been out of the bunker for twenty-four hours yet. My dad and I stopped by the hospital yesterday evening to see Matias and Erin, but someone recognized me in the elevator and started filming me with their phone, whispering about how I’m supposed to be dead, but I’m obviously not. Then someone else caught on and started taking photos. Dad suggested we get out of there before it turned into a scene.
“I’m working with a PR firm on a press release,” Lance says. “And I’m in touch with a lawyer for the league about where we go from here.”
“Meaning what?” I say. “I’m going back to my team as soon as I can.”
Lance furrows his brow. “It’s not that simple. When the police declared you dead, terms from your contract about your death kicked in.”
“Give it to me straight, man.” I rub my temples, knowing I won’t like his answer.
“Your contract basically ends upon your death. Your estate gets the rest of your salary for this season, and that’s it. So the team already adjusted its roster.”
I gape at him. “Do they not want me back?”
“They don’t even know yet, Derek.” Lance leans forward in his chair. “And when I tell them, of course, they’ll want you back. But we have to do this right. I have to see what the options are, and that starts with the league’s legal team.”
“So what do I do in the meantime?”
“My advice is that you hole up here. The video of you at the hospital has been shared everywhere, and the conspiracy theorists are chomping at the bit. When we put out a press release, you’re gonna get mobbed by the media like you can’t even imagine.”
I shrug. “I’m used to it, man. They’ve always followed me everywhere.”
Lance shakes his head. “No, this will be different. When it gets out that Derek Heaton isn’t really dead and was locked in a doomsday bunker with four strangers for three months, the level of interest in you is gonna reach a point that you’ll want to have your face scraped off so you can enter the witness protection program.”
“Fuck.” I bury my face in my hands. “Can’t the cops keep that part confidential? About the bunker?”
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