“We can help you.” I can’t tell her tears from the rain painting her cheeks.
“Please,” I beg. “I have to save her, and I need you to save me. We need the police, or we’ll never make it out of this.”
I watch my words wash over her expression, over all of their expressions.
Slowly, reluctantly, Benji tugs at her arm. “Come on. She’s right.”
Greta doesn’t move, but Conrad gives me a look that says they’ll be okay. He juts his chin forward, toward Foxglove. “Go. We’ve got her.”
“Be safe,” Greta says, chin quivering. “Please be safe. Find our girl.”
I don’t wait.
I can’t.
Together, Mom and I run toward the meadow. I should send her away, but I need her. I need her help navigating the tunnels and navigating this man.
At the base of the old oak tree, she shoves a large rock aside, revealing an iron door set into the earth. My heart hammers in my chest.
This is impossible.
The door’s groan pierces the air as she tugs it open, then pulls me inside. Our footsteps echo on the stone stairs, and when the door closes behind us, we’re swallowed whole by inescapable darkness.
A shiver crawls down my spine as the heavy silence presses against my skin, my lungs. This place is nothing like I imagined, and I only wish I could see it better.
See it at all.
My fingers brush the cold stone walls as we ease down the spiral staircase. At the bottom, Mom takes my hand without a word, guiding me until I feel the walls pressing against both sides of my body.
The path we follow is narrow, suffocating, the air dusty and damp. I think of the women who have walked this same path. I wonder if they were as terrified as I am, if they had as much to lose.
Mom is limping as we move through the passage, and I wonder if she twisted her ankle just now, running through the meadow or on the stairs.
Or if it’s pain she’s been hiding from before. From EJ.
His name burns me, and I pray we reach him in time.
She slows her steps, and I worry momentarily she’s hurting too badly to go on, but then I hear voices.
“Please.”
Taylor.
She’s crying. Begging.
I’m going to be sick.
Mom holds a hand against my chest. I try to shove past her, but she stops me, gripping both my shoulders.
“Wait,”she whispers, voice so low I barely hear it. A breath more than a word.
All thoughts cease. Time stops. The world shrinks further, darkness closing in around me. I can’t wait. My baby is on the other side of this wall.
She’s crying for me.
She needs me.
“Why are you doing this?” Taylor asks, and to my surprise, she sounds stronger than before. Angrier.
