The screech of grinding metal rent the air.
Tears stung my eyes as I climbed to my feet. Fuck, that hurt.
Theo shoved me into the new passageway. I tripped again over a step and went down sideways this time, taking the fall on my hip and shoulder, the ground wet and mucky beneath me.
Ew, ew, ew, but alsoow, ow, ow.
“What are you doing?” he said, hauling me up by the waist. “We need to hurry.”
“Then stop pushing me!”
Another screech of metal ripped through the air as he closed the grate, and then light flared from his direction, illuminating our surroundings. I recoiled from the sight that greeted me. It looked like something out of a horror movie: wet, dark walls, with a waterline two feet up from a past flood; garbage strewn about the floor; pipes running along the ceiling, dripping god knows what onto us; the orange glow of eyeballs close to the ground that told me we weren’t alone in this tunnel.
Without a word, Theo shoved me forward, and I had no choice but to precede him straight toward the serial killer who was obviously waiting to dismember us. In my mind, I devised a plan to push Theo at them first, straight onto their outstretched knife so I could make my escape and go find my brother.
“Why weretheyhere?” I asked.
“The cops?” he said, intentionally being obtuse. “Ask your brother. Actually, you know what? Letmeask him.”
“My parents’ employees. Why the fuck were they invited?”
He didn’t answer me, and the urge to claw his eyeballs out was almost too strong to resist. The only thing stopping me was the gun.
“Theo,”I said.
“Would you shut up and let me concentrate? I’ve only been this way once, and I don’t want to get lost and end up having to eat your corpse to survive.”
“Why did your mind go straight to cannibalizing me?”
“Because I’m mad enough to!”
“You’re mad?You’re mad, Theo?” I whirled on him. “You fucking lied to me!”
“Which time?” The grin on his face sent me into outer space. I had never been so angry in my fucking life.
“I’m glad you’re not denying it,” I spat. “If you’d gaslit me on top of everything else, I—”
“You what, Stella?” he demanded. “What the fuck could you possibly do to me? Theo Strickland isn’t even myname.”
I stumbled backward, horrified, realizing that nothing between us had ever been real, and I was now trapped in an underground tunnel with someone who had more reason to want me dead than alive.
30
Tyler
Stella reared back as ifI’d slapped her. I felt almost nothing at the betrayed look on her face, because my rage was all-consuming. I hadjustdecided to spare her and her family from the fallout around Richard, and she and her brother showed up and ruined everything, proving that no good deed goes unpunished. It was something I never should have forgotten.
“Who the hellareyou?” she asked.
“Trust me, you’re not ready to find out. Your pretty little head would explode. Now move,” I said, waving her onward with the gun.
Thank fuck it was empty, because I might have been tempted to use it. I felt crazed, desperate. It was all fucking ruined. Everything I’d worked so hard to accomplish, gone, because one spoiled nepo baby had a lucky hunch. I should have been meaner, taken the time to corner Blake at every opportunity and terrorize the stupid little shit. I’d thought about it, but I’d held off because I worried Stella might get angry enough to go back to working against me. My mistake. I should have fucking known I’d pay the price for making an exception to my rule.
As mad as I was at the McCormick children, I was even angrier with myself.
Behind us, the panicked echoes started to recede. The SWAT team was probably close to rounding up everyone in the main room, and would start checking the side tunnels next. Which meant we needed to move faster. Thank fuck I’d asked the urban explorers to find more ways out. They’d discovered two. One branching off the other entrance, and this one, which twisted and turned for half a mile beneath the city before meandering back to the surface. I’d written the directions into my phone, and the next one read:turn right beneath the orange u-groove wheel. My eyes traced the pipes on the ceiling, looking for it.
Jesus Christ, tonight had been close. Paying off the cops had worked to my advantage, because one of them called to warn me I had incoming. I’d been heading toward this tunnel to escape when I caught sight of the McCormick siblings and decided to eavesdrop on their argument.
