Damn.
But first—I have to get her to safety.
Cadence shone the light around them. He was afraid they’d just traded one chamber for another, but no. There was a corridor there. Curved, heading back to the left.
A way out?
They hurried toward it in the same instant.
Kyle put his hand in front of the corridor.
The faintest stir of air slid over his fingers.
A way out. Hope could be a f**king beautiful thing.
They headed into that tunnel and they didn’t look back.
There was nothing to see. Only the darkness. So total and complete.
Lily’s breath came slowly from her nose, as slowly as her heartbeat. The gag didn’t taste odd anymore. Actually, she couldn’t taste anything.
Couldn’t see.
Couldn’t taste.
Couldn’t feel?
I was going to let you have an easy end. Just the darkness. His words wouldn’t stop running through her mind.
He’d told her to stay quiet. She had. If she stayed quiet, then maybe he wouldn’t hurt her. Maybe he’d let her go.
I was going to let you have an easy end.
Carrie’s image flashed through her mind, a spark of life in the darkness that faded too quickly.
Lily thought she heard the sound of her daughter’s laughter, but it was gone in the next instant.
Everything was gone.
Only the darkness remained.
An easy end.
But then, she heard something. Finally, something…
Footsteps?
The faint whisper of a voice.
It’s him. It’s him testing me. Trying to see if she would stay quiet. Stay still.
The footsteps echoed.
I don’t want an easy end. I want my Carrie. She’s the only thing I want.
Were those her captor’s footsteps? Or could it be someone else? A person who could help her?
Hadn’t he said something about someone being close? Her hands jerked in the binds. Her wrists were bloody, so they slipped, just a little, in the rope.
If help were close, somewhere in the darkness, and she didn’t call out, then she’d never see Carrie again.
Pancakes for breakfast.
With smiles.
She tried to cry out. The gag swallowed the sound.
Walking to school. Holding hands.
She twisted her body. The small movement seemed to take so much effort. Lily didn’t understand why moving was so hard. She tried again, twisting, and her hip slammed into something hard and heavy.
Thud.
She froze, expecting to feel his knife on her skin. Expecting to hear the deep voice whispering, “Lily.”
I didn’t scream.
She shifted her hip again, moving hard to the right.
Thud.
Again.
Thud.
Again.
Cadence froze. “Did you hear that?”
His footsteps stopped. “Another cave-in?” They’d been walking for at least twenty minutes. The corridor had narrowed. Branched off. Twisted. There’d been a few times when Kyle had barely scraped forward in the tunnel.
“I don’t think so.” Cadence tilted her head as she tried to catch the sound once more. “It sounded like a hammer.” A steady thud.
But she couldn’t hear it now.
“I don’t hear anything,” Kyle said. His fingers brushed lightly over her shoulder.
She didn’t move, not yet. Kyle was behind her, shining the light.
“We need to keep going.”
She knew he was right, but…
Thud.
“I hear it again,” Cadence whispered. Was it Anniston and his men? Coming to rescue them? Digging through the rocks?
Thud.
“Hell, I do, too.”
They started moving as one then, going forward, following the sound.
Then the corridor opened. Split in two.
One way, she could feel a breeze blowing on her face. Sweet, fresh air hit her and she drank it greedily. It was the way out. Another way to freedom.
The other way, to the left, had been where the faint thud had come from.
They should get out. Call in their location. Get backup and then investigate the sound.
Cadence knew it was the protocol to follow. The right thing, the safe thing to do.
Kyle had already turned to the left.
“Kyle!”
She grabbed his hand.
“Use your phone,” he told her, voice hard. “Use the light from it. Get out of here and get us help.”
“We’ve been over this.” Her own voice trembled. “I’m not leaving you, remember? Where one of us goes…”
The other followed.
The thuds had stopped once more.
“Someone else could be trapped down here. Hell, it could be Lily,” he said. “I can’t just walk away. I leave now, he could kill her before I get back.”
They’d both worked plenty of cases that taught them just how valuable time could be. And in this place—this dark pit that reminded her too much of hell—the walls were already unstable. Another cave-in could come. If the thuds were from a victim…she needs help, now.
“I can’t walk away,” he said again.
Neither could she. Cadence hadn’t joined the FBI so she could play things safe.
“I don’t have my gun.”
“I’ve got a knife,” he told her, his voice was low and grim. Determined. “The one that was strapped to my ankle.”
Just in case those sounds hadn’t come from a victim.
Just in case this was another trap, just like the wire had been.
“Then you go first,” Cadence said. The one with the weapon should be ready for attack.
Just as she’d be ready to jump in and fight in any way she could.
They entered the branch on the left.
The fresh air drifted behind them.
It wasn’t dark anymore.
Lily stopped twisting on the bed. She was so tired.
But it wasn’t dark. He’d said she would have darkness at the end.
She didn’t have darkness.
She could see Carrie. Carrie with her beautiful, blonde hair. Carrie smiling.
Holding out her hand.
Lily wanted to reach for her daughter, but she couldn’t.
She tried to call her name.
A ragged groan slipped past the gag.
Carrie.
Carrie was there, surrounded by light. A light that grew and grew.
Such a beautiful light.
Kyle advanced slowly. His right hand gripped the knife while the fingers of his left hand curled around the flashlight. The light shone across the rough walls of the cave, pushing back the darkness. The stone was heavy and sharp and—
A door.
The light fell on the rough, wooden surface of an old door. His breath stilled in his lungs even as he found himself rushing forward. The last thing he’d expected to find in those caverns was a door. He tried to open it. It wasn’t a f**king good sign the thing had been locked.