None of the weapons were ideal, but beggars couldn’t be choosers, and when it came to protecting myself from Ethan and his two minions, I was definitely a beggar. I didn’t know which of my collected weapons might come in handy, so I was keeping an open mind and collecting them all.
I moved out of the room and started down the hall, then froze when I heard voices.
And they were close.
I looked around, then slipped back into the room as the voices got louder.
I tucked myself behind the wooden door and flattened myself against the stone wall just in time to make out Mr. Skinny’s voice.
“How’s your leg?”
“It’s fine.” Anton’s voice was gruff.
They were making their way down the tunnel on the other side of the door that I was hiding behind.
I gripped the broken glass bottle so tight I was almost afraid I would break the rest of it. My whole body shook with terror and adrenaline, and I had to fight to keep the bottle from knocking against the wood door that gave me cover.
“What will he do if she gets away?” Mr. Skinny asked.
“She won’t get away,” Anton said, his Russian accent thicker than ever.
“I didn’t know it would be like this.” Uncertainty laced Mr. Skinny’s voice, and I wondered if it was because he didn’t want to be in the tunnels or because he was afraid to speak his thoughts.
One of the wooden doors creaked as they started searching the other rooms off the stone hall.
Shit. I might be able to take Mr. Skinny. I might even be able to take Anton with his bad leg.
But both of them? With nothing but my motley assortment of weapons?
My heart hammered in my chest and my face got hot with the rush of adrenaline flooding my body.
“We split up here,” Anton said. “I take the rooms on this side. You take those.”
I exhaled slowly, forced myself to breathe through my fear. They were splitting up. That meant I’d have time to take one of them before the other one heard the noise of our altercation.
But I’d have to be fast.
Another door creaked, this one in the room next to the one where I was hiding.
I gripped the glass bottle tighter.
15
BRAM
The tunnels weredark and dank, obviously older than the tunnels under Blackwell Falls. The place smelled of mold and water and rot.
Of death.
My stomach contracted. I wasn’t afraid to die. There were worse things than death, and losing Maeve was at the top of that list.
I thought about the first cell we’d passed, the one with a food tray and bucket that smelled like piss. They’d kept Maeve there. I’d been able to feel her lingering energy, like the heat from the sun in the ground after sunset.
“They’re hunting her,” Remy said as we moved deeper into the tunnel.
I stalked ahead of him and Poe, the path lit by the headlamp I’d strapped over my mask. “Then we hunt them.”
We passed a stack of wooden crates, then stepped over a rusted chain coiled on the floor.
