Finch comes forward fast, but his eyes are still focused on where the guy ran off into the dark. “Shit,” I hear him mutter under his breath. “Shit-fuck-shit—”
“Hey,” I interrupt, soft as I can, but he jumps nevertheless, swinging the gun around wildly. “Hey,” I say again, more firmly, and he rushes to me, collapsing to his knees, and drops the gun on the dirty ground.
“Oh, God,Luca.”
“I’m okay.” I let him hug me, keeping watch on the direction the guy—the soon-to-be-dead guy, if I have anything to say about it—ran. I allow Finch a moment of hugging, but then it’s time to move. “Baby bird, don’t leave the gun lying there on the ground like that. Keep it in your hand. Any second now that guy will realize it’s just you, alone.” He lets me go, shivering as the adrenaline starts to really hit him, and picks it up, pointing it back towards the tunnel. “Keep an eye that way, but I need you to look around for a knife or something to cut through these zip ties.”
“Ihave a knife,” he blurts out. He fumbles said knife out of his thigh pockets and saws through the bonds on my wrists while I keep an eye on both tunnels. I rub my wrists as the restraints come free, and take the knife from him to free my ankles as well.
“Are you okay?” he asks when I’m done. “Baby, are you—”
I grab his shoulders. “I’m fine,” I assure him. “Promise.”
“Did theyhurtyou?”
I make to stand up and Finch tries to assist, though he probably hinders more than helps. My feet and hands have pins and needles, and my head’s still a little sore, but nothing that won’t wear off soon. “I didn’t come around that long ago,” I tell Finch. “Maybe a half-hour.” Finch looks so wild-eyed that I take his face in my hands, focus his attention on me. “Baby bird, listen. We’ll have time to worry later. Right now, we need to—”
There’s someone coming back down the tunnel, running fast, a light flashing against the walls. I push Finch behind me and, just as Muscles reappears, I throw the knife straight at him.
It hits his throat, burying in to the hilt, and he drops like a stone, gargling and choking.
While he’s busy dying, I grab the gun that the blond left behind him, and both Finch and I wait, aiming our weapons steadily at the tunnel, letting the sounds of dying echo around the chamber.
They cease soon enough. The blond doesn’t seem inclined to make a reappearance.
“We’re getting out of here,” I murmur. “Now.”
Finch nods, hard.
“So which way should we go, angel? Back from whence you came, or take our chances and run after the other guy? Eliminate the problem for once and for all?”
“Back my way,” he whispers. “Come on, Luca. I don’t want to mess around in here any longer than we have to. It’s creepy as fuck.”
A large part of me wants to go after the blond, to show him what happens when you try to move against me, against my husband. Send him to hell along with his brother. But…
“Yes, perhaps the way you came would be best,” I agree. I follow Finch, both of us walking backwards towards the tunnel he came out of, and then quickly down it. But I hear no evidence that we’re being followed, and I suspect these two were working light, a tandem effort to help avoid attention from the authorities.
We arrive at a cave-in blocking the way, but Finch shows me how to get past it. It’s a little easier for him, smaller and slighter than I am, but I welcome the feel of every scraping rock and branch as we squeeze through and into the blackness beyond.
All these little discomforts remind me that I am alive.
Once we’re through, I put my hand on his arm and stop him for a moment. “How?”
He knows what I mean. “Our wedding rings.”
I only ever put that tracker in mine to make it seem fair for Finch. I never really thought the app would be any use other than for me finding him.
Finch puts his phone flashlight on, and I let him. It’s not like we need to worry about being spotted. If the blond has taken a direct overground route to the other exit and is waiting for us there, we’ll know it soon enough.
After another ten minutes of careful walking, I murmur, “You came all the way through here alone?”
“Of course,” he says, reaching back to grab my hand and squeezing it before letting go. “You think I would ever let anyone take you from me? No fucking way.”
I’m delighted to be alive, but I can’t imagine what it must have been like for Finch making his way through these claustrophobic tunnels, with no guarantee that he wouldn’t just come across my corpse. We’re coming to the exit now, and I can see the moonlight spilling in through the crumbling entrance.
I catch Finch by the wrist and try to move him behind me, but he resists. “You gotdrugged,” he hisses. “Let me go first.”
“Angel, I’m a better shot than you are.”
