The scramble through the tunnel was a nightmare, especially as it got smaller and tighter until all of them were shuffling forward on their hands and knees. The stone around them shook and heaved, large chunks of rock falling all over them, the air filling with so much dust that breathing was nearly impossible.
As the tunnel walls closed in around Jenna, another panic attack hovered at the edges of her consciousness, waiting for the right moment to strike. Trevor had somehow gotten himself directly behind her in the mad rush to escape, and it was his hand reassuringly finding its way onto her back that kept her from losing it completely. He was right there and would keep her safe. She felt that down to her very soul.
She was so terrified that at any second they could all be crushed to death, she barely realized they’dreached the rough opening into the sewer system until Trevor shoved her through so hard she practically popped out of the hole like a whack-a-mole. Within moments, everyone else climbed through the opening, all of them ending up in a haphazard pile of arms and legs there on the wet, dirty floor, gasping for air as the world around them continued to shake.
“Everyone okay?” Mike asked.
Jenna pushed herself up to a sitting position, looking around to see Trevor, Connor, and everyone else doing the same. Dust and pieces of rock clung to their hair and clothes. She was pretty sure she was just as dirty. But they were alive. That was what was important.
Hale leaned over the opening they’d escaped out of moments earlier. “The tunnels below us are completely collapsed.”
Panic gripped Jenna. They might have lost their only way to reach Hannah. “How are we going to get back in there then?”
Hale shook his head. “I don’t know. But I think it’s safe to say we sure as hell won’t be going back in there from this direction.”
Trevor reached out to take Jenna’s hand, holding on to it tightly. She could feel her brother’s glare on them, but she refused to acknowledge his existence.
“Maybe now would be a good time for you guys to explain exactly what the hell happened downthere,” Owen said. His usual bravado was gone and in its place was what looked like doubt and confusion. “Because I can’t imagine why anyone would ever want to go back down into that hell again.”
Jenna looked at Trevor, waiting for him to answer, but then her headlamp illuminated his bloody shoulder and arms. That was when she remembered that he’d been injured.
Crap.
She glanced around to see that Trevor wasn’t the only one who was bleeding. Connor, Hale, and Mike were injured as well.
“That’s going to have to wait until we get Trevor and everyone else to the hospital,” she announced firmly.
CHAPTER 12
“Nope, nothing happened,” Jenna said casually into her phone as she moved around her kitchen, wondering if she should put the pizza in the oven or the fridge, not sure when Trevor would get back from the hospital he’d gone to in order to have his and everyone else’s injuries taken care of. “The whole thing was kind of boring, actually.”
“Hold on. You’re telling me that all you did was stand in that alley and wait for Trevor and everyone else to come out of that hole?” Madeleine asked in surprise, her voice barely audible over the din of hundreds of people talking in the background and enjoying her pop-up dining experience.
“Pretty much,” Jenna answered.
She was glad she was talking to Madeleine over the phone instead of in person. One look at her face and her friend would have known she was lying. She was a terrible liar.
Jenna felt like crap for fibbing to her friend, but it was sort of late in the game to even think about being honest. Madeleine had no idea there was anything supernatural going on down on Skid Row, so bringing up the subject of carnivorous subterranean creatures now might be a problem.
“I know you mentioned Trevor was out doing something with his SWAT teammates, but have you given any thought to my earlier suggestion about having a conversation with Trevor about how you feel about him?” Madeleine asked. “Or were you planning to jump straight to the sex part and spring the serious stuff on him afterward?”
“I’d be okay with either of those options,” Jenna said with a snort of laughter. “But unfortunately, I’m not sure it’s going to happen, at least not tonight. I haven’t even gotten a text from him.”
Madeleine must have picked up on the tension in her voice, because her friend started making those worried tutting sounds like a mother hen. “What happened? Why hasn’t he texted you? Did something else happen today that you haven’t told me about?”
Jenna hesitated, not sure how to say what had been bothering her for the past few hours since she’d left Trevor, Connor, and their teammates in the alley.
“When Trevor was down in those tunnels, he ended up getting injured,” she said.
She didn’t mention that Connor, Hale, and Mike had also been bleeding. There’d be no way to explain away that many injuries.
“Oh my gosh! Is he okay?” Madeleine asked in alarm. “More importantly, if he’s hurt, why aren’t you with him?”
“Trevor insisted it wasn’t a big deal and that he was barely scratched,” Jenna said softly, hoping her friend would be able to hear her over the background noise. “And I’m not with him because he didn’t want me to go to the hospital with him. He insisted I come home and that he’d meet me here later.”
Of course, Trevor hadn’t put it quite that bluntly. Instead, he’d tried to convince her that she should make sure the HOPD peeps got home safely—without running out to blab about what they’d seen down in those tunnels. But Jenna recognized when she was being dismissed and shuffled off to the side. It had happened to her enough times over the last decade to know the signs. The fact that Trevor hadn’t even bothered to text her essentially confirmed it. And if the complete silence on the other end of the phone was any indication, Madeleine understood what she was getting at as well.
“Why wouldn’t Trevor want you to go to the hospital with him?” her friend asked.
