“Ralston. I’ve got to go. I’m dying down here.”
His face and hair are so covered with dust that I can’t tell whether it’s Ralston or not. But the short hair on top…no, not Ralston. At least, I don’t think so. Ralston’s mostly bald.
Let’s see what his ID says. I reach into his pocket with my free hand but don’t encounter a wallet. Instead, I feel two pieces of metal. Earrings?
Pulling my hand out, I glance down. Monogram cufflinks. They’re a strange shape. My eyes narrow. No hinged bars to go through the holes in a cuff.
He jerks free and starts to run.
The letters, “p” and “a”… I’m holding Arya’s nipple piercings.
I’ll kill him!
I pivot and spring forward. Sprinting a few feet, I close the distance and tackle him to the ground.
“Wait,” he croaks as I flip him over and press the flashlight against his windpipe. “Wait.” His voice is a rasp. “There’s another charge.” He laughs, a wheezing, ominous chuckle. “It’ll bury them.”
Fuck.My stomach drops, and I raise the flashlight.
“I can disarm it,” he says. “But I need my phone.”
Rising to my feet, I drag him up and shove him in the direction he came from.
“We can’t go back. I have to get to my phone.”
Shoving him again, I knock him forward. “Keep walking.”
I want to kill him so badly I can taste it. But there’s a chance the girls are alive, and I may need his cooperation to prevent another bomb blast.
“It’ll bury us too, you moron,” he says.
“Then it’ll bury us.”
“We can save them. If you let me—”
I shove him into the rock wall, so his head bangs against it.
“We are not leaving this tunnel without those girls. And if Arya Peralta’s dead, you’d better hope you bleed out along the way, because otherwise, I’m going to break every bone in your fucking body.”
“You’re one of them.” His voice is no more than a rasp. “A Dark Knight.”
I propel him forward, pushing our pace as much as I can.
“New. Like your cousin.”
“What do you know about it? Are you a Dark Knight?”
“You know I’m not. I kill them. And break their little toys.”
You better not have, I think grimly.
The urge to beat him to a pulp is strong, but I don’t allow myself to succumb to it. I suspect he’s trying to delay our finding the women. Which makes it more likely he was telling the truth about their being alive.
After ten minutes, we reach a pile of rubble, and he slides to the ground.
“The Dark Knights… are nothing now compared to what they were. Stowe and his cronies are weak. Depraved.”
“Let me guess. You wanted the Knights to pick you but they didn’t?” I shine his flashlight over the pile.
