It’s almost eleven, and I’m completely over this day.
When I’m under the waterfall curtain, water mists my body. I shiver, but it’s not from the cold water peppering my skin. My eyes land on one of those thick metal grates with openings in the floor, partially hidden under the track. The kind that makes you cautious of your things when you walk over them through the streets, because if something were to fall in there, you’d never get it back.
My heart sinks into my gut.
No way in hell.
My skin prickles with keen awareness, knowing exactly where that girl’s phone ended up. Bringing my toes to the edge of the metal, I glare down.
I expect to see darkness—a void of nothingness that makes you wonder what lurks beneath.
This isn’t that.
My breath solidifies into something heavy in my lungs at the soft yellow light emanating from the tunnel. The phone is at the bottom, at least one story down, face up on a concrete floor. Somehow, it's mocking me for disbelieving in something so preposterous.
The story they told me about Lachlan Park blasts back at me like the rushing water on either side, hitting me at once with a force that should have me turning and walking away. But I find myself glued to the spot, a twinge of belief stirring behind my ribs, knowing that the violent world existing below my shoes might not be a fantasy after all.
SEVEN | KATE
There’s not much in life I’ve been terrified of. Sure, when I was younger, I had those typical fears most children navigate—monsters under the bed, vegetables, things that exist in the dark that I can’t see, but I know damn well they can see me.
All of those seemed trivial compared to the one that’s been hunting me since he got one taste. As if pieces of my flesh are lingering between his teeth, rousing a hunger that has sent him into an unhinged spiral. As if he finds sick satisfaction in playing with his food before he’s decided he’s had enough and devours me whole.
I never understood what genuine fear felt like until Xander pressed the tip of the blade to my skin.
A blade that was all play.
Until it wasn’t.
It was that first draw of hot crimson slipping down the side of my belly where being scared took on an entirely new meaning. When my heart, which had always been safely tucked behind my ribcage, bounced so violently that it threatened to crackbones and impale itself, before I got so deep that I would never resurface from the damage.
That sensation has never entirely dispelled since I fled Oregon. Somewhere along the way, over time, I became desensitized to it. The lurching ache in my chest may have dulled, but it didn’t stop churning the motors in my feet as I crossed state lines. Until the temporary feeling of safety settled in enough to let me momentarily rest my soul before the claustrophobia of wondering if he was close had me beginning again.
Starting again.
And again.
The concrete floor digs into my knees through the overly thick fabric of my uniform overalls. The light draft from below, pushing through the metal grate, brushes over my face, creating a shockwave of chills that textures my skin from my head to my toes.
I don’t know when I lowered to my hands and knees. Maybe it was the shock that pulled me down. However, being on the ground is doing nothing to calm the way my heart painfully bursts in a chaotic rhythm in my tightened chest. My fingers grip the cool metal, like I’ll fall through if I don’t hold on with every ounce of strength my body can produce, while my brain tries to process what this tunnel could possibly lead to. It’s the same beating, gnashing, feeling I was hit in the gut with every time I came to the ugly realization that Xander’s sexual appetite was shifting into something violent.
Dangerous.
Growingly lethal.
The reality is that I need to get this girl’s phone. So, what’s the probability that their theories were correct, and it's a secret underworld where demonic people harvest organs?
A more likely explanation is that the tunnels were placed under Lachlan Park when it was first built, allowing staff to access their posts easily.
It's like Disneyland, Kate.
My eye roll at myself exaggerates the headache forming near my temple.
I doubt I'll see someone in a Pooh costume scurrying by to clear my reservations and dark thoughts running berserk in my head. A more realistic version would be Libby Lobster running by to start their daily shift at the fountain in the center of the park.
But it's nearly eleven, and I don’t think there will be many people walking around this time of night. The only workers left now are the cleaners. And me, because I've clearly had a miserable day that keeps testing my patience.
The logical thing would be to locate Vincent and ask him about the tunnel.
