Bea jolts. She starts shaking harder again.
“We can take care of him,” Ethan says. He nods at Drew, and in concert, the two of them move towards Mack. “I think you guys have done enough.”
Zeke comes over to me and holds out his hand. Since Bea is to my left, I clasp his hand with my right. “While this isn’t the place I imagined for a reunion,” he says, “it’s good to see you, Jones.”
I give his hand a quick shake. Then I clap his shoulder. “It’s good to see you, too. And thanks for coming.”
He grins. “Seems like you had it handled.”
“Maybe.” I shrug. “But I think it’ll be a lot faster going out with you guys. And if I don’t have to deal with that piece of shit?—”
Mack yelps in pain.
“Oops,” Ethan says in an unbothered tone. “Did I kick you? My bad. It’s so dark in here, it’s hard to see where I’m going.”
“It shouldn’t take more than ten minutes to walk out,” Zeke tells me. “Then we can call the police.”
“How did you find us?” Bea asks. “I didn’t think the GPS would work in the tunnels.”
“It doesn’t,” Zeke replies. He gestures for us to move ahead of him. “Tyler sent us the coordinates he had. Knowing there are old mines here, we thought it was likely you were in one of them.While we were driving here, we checked all the old maps. And given your last known location, this one seemed most likely.”
“Fallport’s less than an hour away,” Drew calls over. “So you can come back with us once we’re done with the police. Get cleaned up, have some food…”
“You’re welcome to stay with us for the night,” Ethan adds. “Or there’s a—” He stops and hisses at Mack, “Stop fighting me. Or I’ll knock you out and drag you out of here instead.”
“Anyway,” Ethan adds brightly. “Like I was saying. You’re welcome to stay with any of us. Or there’s a nice B and B in town. Whatever you prefer.”
As we move back up the tunnels, the oppressive air seems to get lighter.
Though I can’t see daylight yet, I can almost feel the warmth of it on my skin.
Bea tugs on my arm. “Is it over?” she asks quietly. “Is it really over?”
My heart wrenches hard.
Hugging her even closer, I kiss the top of her head. “It’s over. You’re safe.”
She tilts her head back to meet my gaze. “No.We’resafe.”
My chest wrenches again.
“We’re safe,” I agree.
“And soon we can go home?”
Oh.
Home. With Bea.
My eyes burn.
“Yes.” I kiss her again. “Soon, we can go home.”
CHAPTER 20
BEA
“You holding up okay?”
