“It’s not gentlemanly for me to go first,” he mumbled.
I ignored him.
Hunter was talking to a pair of adults when we finally reached him – me a good few feet behind Jet by that stage. He didn’t seem to be having any more of an intelligent conversation with them than the rest of us.
“Ah, the beautiful Miss Everly. And Jet,” he said by way of greeting. He looked me up and down again in a way I did not appreciate. It made him seem just as creepy as when I had first met him.
“Hey, Hunter,” I replied. Jet just nodded.
Hunter leaned in to us, making sure we couldn’t be overheard. “So where is this Hell you’ve promised me? I was expecting much more fire and brimstone.”
“I was hoping you’d be able to tell us,” Jet said, raising his eyebrows in challenge.
Hunter took the bait. I wondered if these two had always been competitive with each other or if that was a new development in their friendship. I couldn’t imagine Jet approving of anyone dating his sister, but was he okay with Hunter otherwise?
I guessed I’d never know.
“Follow me then,” Hunter declared, taking off at a brisk pace.
Jet and I exchanged a quick glance before we hurried after him. I had never been down the pathway he took and it was even darker than the rest of them. I refused to be the one who needed a light so I treaded as carefully as I could while letting my ears guide me in the right direction.
Hunter mumbled the entire time. Except he wasn’t talking to us but himself. The words were barely audible, a ‘yes’ or ‘no’ muttered now and then was all I could make out. Eventually it was easier trying not to listen than strain to understand.
My leg was killing me. It had to be something more than just the bruise. I might have hurt my hips when I landed on my butt. I had hit the ground pretty hard. At least the darkness covered for me.
I ran into Hunter’s back when he stopped suddenly, bouncing off just as quickly. We had been walking for a while, it felt like hours but was probably closer to about half an hour.
“Can you feel that?” he asked.
“Feel what?” Jet shot back.
Good, so it wasn’t just me.
“The evil. This is where evil lives,” Hunter said in a voice that was detached, like it drifted from him but it was never a part of him to begin with. “It reeks.”
Somehow, I didn’t think he was talking about the smell.
Which was actually quite bad, considering the stench of dirt that hadn’t been disturbed in centuries.
“So Hell could really be here?” Jet spoke, sounding exactly like himself. Thankfully. The darkness and Hunter’s sudden change in demeanor was already making me nervous enough.
“I don’t know if I would describe it as Hell itself, but it’s something. The darkness drips from the walls, it seeps from the roof, and crawls along the floor. It surrounds us, infused in every part of the air.”
“Could that darkness be harnessed by us?” I asked. Everything always came back to Kostucha. The demon was my sole focus in everything I did and never far from my mind.
Which is probably exactly how he liked it.
Until the moment I killed him.
Hunter started pacing, his soft footsteps padding on the dirt floor. It made the smell worse as he kicked up dust that had been dormant for a very long time.
“No, no, no. You have to leave this place alone,” he insisted. “This level of evil can kill a human if you toyed with it. It’s bad enough just being here around it. If you actually try to interfere with it, you will die.”
An involuntary shiver ran down my spine. Something in his words spoke directly to me.
But I also knew it wouldn’t stop me.
“So we can harness it?” I pushed.
“Theoretically yes, but you shouldn’t. This. Will. Kill. You. Mark my words.”
I stood my ground. I’d heard worse. “How do I do it?”
Hunter let out a breath. “Is she serious? This girl is crazy, Jet. If she thinks she can actually conduct this darkness and bend it to her will, she’s got another thing coming.”
“I’m still here,” I interrupted. “I do have ears. Can you please not talk about me like I’m not here.”
Jet finally spoke, I was beginning to wonder if he had left us there alone in the dark. “How do we harness the power?”
“What? Are you serious? You’re on about this too?” Hunter asked, his voice raised a pitch higher than it normally was. “This is madness.”
I heard his arms slap against his sides, like he had been waving them around as he spoke. I wished I could see the look on his face, it was sure to be one of disbelief. It would make a nice change from the obnoxious smirk he had worn since the first time I saw him.
“It’s not madness. It’s something we have to do.” Jet’s voice remained level, even. How he was remaining calm so far underground and having this conversation was beyond me.
Hunter was right about one thing, there was evil down there. For someone not psychic like him, it was a feeling. It was like the damp, heat, and humidity seeped into my bones and covered them with a black sludge. It made everything feel… wrong.
Inhuman.
Unnatural.
And, above all, it gave me an overwhelming feeling that I should run as fast as I could in the opposite direction. I didn’t like being down there and it was like a disease infecting my mood. I couldn’t think of anything good or light while down there. Everything revolved around death and despair with no hope of it ever ending.
Hunter let out a slow breath, sighing. “You are the world’s biggest idiots if you even try to do something with this darkness. I can’t be a part of it.”
Footsteps started to move away from us. My mind instantly panicked, wondering if they were both going to leave me down there. When Jet spoke and his voice was still close by, he made me jump.
“We should go back up.”
“Probably a good idea,” I replied.
He reached through the pitch black until he found me, circling my wrist with his fingers. We followed the quickly retreating footsteps back up through the long tunnels.
By the time we reached the cavern again, my legs were about ready to give out on me. The thought of having to ascend the steep pathway was like a living nightmare. The only thing I was certain of was that I couldn’t make it. Not without a rest or a shot of morphine first.
Both seemed unlikely.
I stumbled over to a rock and sat down. “You go on ahead, I’ll catch up.”
“Everly, are you okay?” Jet’s brows wrinkled as he looked down at me. “Is something wrong?”
I waved him away. “No, no. Just need a rest. It was a long walk down there. Go on, I’ll be up in a minute.”
His eyes roamed over me, checking for lies or the truth written across my skin. He eventually gave up, I was going to give him nothing. He nodded and spoke with Hunter privately, leaning into a wall so they could share secret words.
Watching them, I took a few deep breaths. The pain was definitely radiating from my hips. Now that it was worse, I could feel it shooting down my leg and leaving a throbbing mess in its wake.
The pathway. All I had to do was make it up the pathway. Then I could take all day to get back to my apartment where I could rest. Or maybe to the library for some more research. Anywhere but underground.
Where apparently evil lived.
Hunter took off up the path as Jet broke their conversation. He made a beeline straight for me. “You ready to go up?”
I stood, gritting my teeth and desperately trying to hide the wince. I took a step. And then another.
And then I went down.
Jet grabbed me before I could hit the ground. His strong hands pulled me against him until I regained my balance. “Everly, tell me what’s wrong.”
“Nothing. I tripped, that’s all.”
He held onto my shoulders to stop me from falling again. Unfortunately, it was right where my bru
ises were. I shrugged away from him, only to stumble. Jet reached for me again but I yelped when he touched me.
“Please don’t touch me,” I begged, the words out before I could stop them.
If I had hit Jet, he wouldn’t have looked as hurt as he did right at that moment. “I didn’t mean to hurt you,” he said quickly. “What did I do?”
“It’s not you. It’s…” I didn’t have any more words. If he knew I had been attacked walking home alone, he would feel responsible. And I didn’t want to be the girl that everyone had to protect. I wanted to be independent.
He stepped closer again, moving deliberately slow so he wouldn’t startle me like a wild animal. Carefully and gently, he tugged at the collar of my coat and started sliding it down my shoulders.
I wanted to stop him.
God, did I want to stop him.
But I couldn’t move. I was frozen in place not only from the pain but from the lack of options. I couldn’t storm away like I wanted to. I couldn’t come up with a reason why I was acting like I was. And I didn’t want to hurt Jet’s feelings.
So he all but took the entire coat from me.
Revealing all the bruises on the tops of my arms. He gasped, his eyes glazing over with darkness. Using only the tips of his fingers, he brushed over them with the lightest touch imaginable.
“Who did this to you?” he demanded quietly. Anger curdled under his skin, a storm brewing that would need an outlet sooner rather than later.
“I don’t know.”
“Who did this to you, Everly? Tell me.”
“I don’t know,” I repeated. “I have no idea who he was.”
“When?”
“Yesterday.”
“Where?” His voice was too scary not to answer.
“A couple of blocks from the apartment.”
“After I left you?” he asked incredulously, not because it had happened after he left but because he had let me leave without him. He was blaming himself, just like I hoped he wouldn’t.
“After I left you, Everly?” he asked again – loudly. I winced for entirely different reasons this time.
“Yes, after you left me,” I replied quickly. I didn’t want to be on the receiving end of his anger. It was a dangerous place to be. “But you couldn’t have done anything. He was too strong, too big.”
“What else did he do to you? How did he hurt you?”
I clamped my mouth shut, not wanting to talk about it any longer. I was rewarded with a look that could turn stone into a molten liquid.
“Tell me what he did to you.”
The only reason he wanted to know was so he could tell how much he needed to punish himself with guilt. I wasn’t going to do that to him. My attack had nothing to do with him.
“It doesn’t matter,” I replied. I looked at him defiantly, ignoring all the rage burning in his eyes and not allowing it to make me blink.
“It matters. It all matters when it comes to you.”
I wanted the conversation over with. The whole thing was scaring me more than I wanted to admit. The only way out was to start talking.
There was no other real choice.
With a sigh, I confessed all. “He punched me in the head, right on my ear. He shook me, that’s what all the bruises are from on my arms. He kicked me a few times, too. Then he ran away when he realized I knew you. He said sorry.”
I wasn’t going to use the exact words he had used – Jet’s property.
He chewed on his lip the whole time I spoke. Every muscle in his body was rigid and tense. It reminded me too much of the Jet I had first met. The one who scared the hell out of me.
With good reason.
“Did he say his name?” I shook my head. “Tell me what he looked like, give me a detailed description. Don’t leave anything out.”
“No, leave it. It happened and it’s over,” I said. There was no telling what he was likely to do in his mood. I wasn’t going to sign some idiot’s death sentence because I copped a few bruises.
“What did he look like?”
“Drop it.”
“Everly, there is only one way out of this conversation and it is by answering each and every one of my questions.”
“You’re not the boss, Jet. I don’t have to jump just because you tell me to.” I met his gaze and held it there, thankful he couldn’t hear the beating of my pounding heart. It was about to burst straight out of my chest.
Suddenly, his face softened. He let go of the tense rage and let it fall away. He looked almost… vulnerable. I didn’t know how to react or what to say.
But he did. “I know you don’t have to do anything I say. I know you’re here when you don’t have to be. So don’t do it because I told you to. Do it because I’m asking as someone concerned about you. Someone that cares.”
The words were so unexpected that I found myself talking before I could really think about it. “He was tall, about half a foot taller than you. His hair was light brown and his shirt had a four leaf clover on it that had legs, arms, and a face.”
“Thank you.”
Even as the words were still coming from his mouth, Jet was on the move. He ran for the pathway and was taking it in long strides while I shrugged back into my coat and limped to catch up with him.
“Jet, no. Don’t you dare do anything to him,” I called out – I had to, he was already out of hearing range.
“Stay here and don’t go anywhere,” he yelled back, the sound echoing in the cavern.
Another order.
Was that one because he cared about me, too?
Somehow, I doubted it.
Chapter Fifteen
I found a rock to sit on, not because I was told to but because my legs were still hurting. At least that’s what I would tell anyone who dared challenge me.
I was so angry at Jet for running off like he did. There were no doubts in my mind he was trying to hunt down the boy that had attacked me last night. He was probably storming all over the city, tracking him until their paths crossed.
And then?
Well, they weren’t likely to have a civilized conversation about what happened.
Nausea washed over me in waves over the whole thing. I shouldn’t have given Jet the description. I shouldn’t have let him trick me into talking. He had manipulated me, just like he did everyone else.
The pain in my hip was eclipsed by my need to get out of there and do the exact opposite of what Jet told me to do. He needed to learn that I wasn’t one of his faithful followers, I wasn’t wrapped around his little finger.
I had to take the pathway slowly, walking almost sideways so the pain was minimized. I cursed Hell and Kostucha and everything in between with every step I took. If I never saw the cavern again, it would be too soon.
Finally, I made it to the top.
Only to run straight into Perry.
“What are you doing here?” she asked, like I had personally offended her with my mere presence.
“Leaving,” I replied tersely. I didn’t have time to deal with her, not when I was still reeling from Jet’s attitude.
I went to step around her but she stepped too – putting herself directly in my way. Perry was only a fraction taller than I was but she was holding herself like she was ready to attack.
And I knew what she could do.
My shoulder joint twanged with the memory.
“I was on my way out, Perry,” I started, trying to keep all the seething anger out of my voice. “Just let me go. I’m done here.”
“You should leave. You should go and never come back. Nobody wants you here.” She wasn’t having as much success keeping the contempt out of her voice.
“Get out of my way and I’ll go then.”
The glow from the fire in the cavern reflected off her eyes, giving them a red tinge. She looked like the embodiment of evil, perhaps she had been living underground too long.
Perhaps she was the devil.
Perhaps the influence of darkness was turning her
into a monster.
Or maybe that’s how she always was.
“I see how you follow Jet around,” she continued, completely ignoring anything I said. “Like you’re some stupid lovesick puppy dog. I’ve got news for you, you’re nothing. Absolutely nothing. Jet doesn’t care about you, he’s only being nice until he gets what he wants.”
I completely lost all illusions of being nice to her. “And what would he want, huh? Something he doesn’t want from you? Is that it?”
“You have no idea what you’re talking about. You don’t know anything about me.”
“Funny, I could say the same thing about you.”
She glowered at me with her red tinged eyes and I braced myself for whatever physical or verbal torture she was about to throw at me. If it was anything like what happened the first time I met her, I was going to be even more bruised than I already was.
Before she could do anything, I went to step around her again. This time, she didn’t stop me. I took another tentative step and she still didn’t move.
Just as I was taking my fourth stride, she said: “You’re gonna get hurt.”
I hurried away.
And didn’t look back.
My feet kept up their torturous pace until I could see daylight and stepped out of the tunnels. Oliver was nowhere in sight so I started walking home.
It only took less than a block to spot Jet heading for me in the opposite direction. He was still storming, his entire posture rigid. We met in the middle of the street.
“Where are you going?” he asked, using that same commanding tone he had earlier.
I didn’t answer his question. I was too caught up with staring at his knuckles. His bloodied knuckles. I grabbed his wrist, twisting his hand so I could see better. He didn’t stop me. Didn’t even flinch.
“What did you do?” I demanded.
“He’s not going to hurt you again. Nobody will.”
My hands were shaking too much to hold onto him. I let his hand fall back to his side. “Jet, tell me what you did.”
He looked away, finding something in the sky to look at instead of me. That wasn’t a good sign. My stomach clenched into a knot so tight I thought it might never be able to unravel.
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