“Then we need to pick up the pace,” Victoria shoots back. She takes off at a jog, and thanks to the handcuffs, drags me behind her. Only Comet can keep up.
“I thought you said you were done running!” I gasp. Metal bites painfully into my skin. “Please, wait! I’m going to fall.”
“Don’t threaten me with a good time,” she says.
“If I fall, you fall!”
“Play stupid games, win stupid prizes!”
“Stop quoting Taylor Swift!”
She stops abruptly and I slam into her back. “Ow!”
“I need to sit down. I don’t feel good.” She bends over to catch her breath. Comet sniffs around our feet, whining frantically.
“What’s wrong, boy?” He clamps the leg of my pants between his teeth and pulls hard. “What are you—”
The ground underneath our feet collapses.
CHAPTER26
I land hard on my back, and I can’t breathe. I gasp for air, but there is none. Next to me, Comet springs to his feet and whines.
I’m going to die. I can’t breathe.
Victoria’s ashen face appears above me. “Relax. Breathe slowly. In and out. In and out.”
“I can’t!” I rasp, barely pushing the words out. I shake my head as tears stream sideways across my cheeks.
She holds my shoulders and moves so her face is the only thing I can see. “Breathe in, one two three, breathe out, one two three.” Her eyes mirror my own panic, but her voice is low and calm.
I breathe in time with her until the pressure on my lungs finally eases. She releases my shoulders and sits back on her heels, the handcuffs dragging my wrist with her.
I glance around and see a hollow tunnel made of rough stone walls. The only light is coming from above, where the ground caved in at least ten feet above us. Comet scratches at the wall, his two front paws scrabbling uselessly against stone.
“The ground just fell in. I don’t understand what happened,” Victoria says.
“Have you felt any earthquakes today?”
“I mean, yeah. Small ones. Do you think an earthquake caused this?”
I press my hands to the cool stone. “If it did, we need to get out of here ASAP. The walls could cave in on us if another one hits.”
“Wren! Victoria!” Theo yells from somewhere above us.
“Down here!” we call.
He crouches near the edge of the cave-in, and the unstable ground shifts, sending loose debris cascading into the tunnel.
“Not too close!” Brooke and Henry grab Theo’s arms to keep him from sliding in. Dirt falls into my eyes and mouth, and Victoria pulls us away as I have a coughing fit.
“Are you all right?” Theo asks.
The air clears enough for me to crane my neck to see him, bright spots bursting in my vision from the sunlight overhead. “We’re okay!”
“No, we’re not!” Victoria yells. “We’re stuck in this freaking underground tunnel…thing, and we need to get out before it collapses on top of us.”
“It looks like a lava tube,” Brooke says. “They’re formed by flowing lava—”
