I couldn’t breathe.
Gasping like a fish out of water, I managed to suck air into my burning lungs. It was all I could do to keep taking short quick breaths. My ribs burned. Actually, everything hurt. If I hadn’t dropped the hoe before I fell, I’d probably have landed on it and broken my ribs. The small tools in my coat pockets had definitely left bruises.
Lying there in the dark, wheezing, I stared up at the bright hole in the sky, knowing the kidnappers would grab me before I could move. No way they’d missedthatentrance.
For the thousandth time that day, though, things didn’t go the way I’d expected.
Instead of getting nabbed by a big blue dude, I heard footsteps coming from at least a half dozen feet away, muffled by all the dirt.
There was a tunnel down here?
That explained a lot.
“What in the name of Samhain is going on?” A feminine voice came from the same direction as the footsteps.
A soft light flickered on.
Panic forced me up off the dirt floor, still wheezing, heart racing. I scuttled backward but immediately hit the dirt wall again.
I yanked the garden tools out and held them up like weapons.
The owner of the voice tilted her head slightly, blinking at me and then at my tools with slanted dark eyes as she lifted an old-fashioned lantern higher. “What an odd entrance.” She didn’t seem bothered by the metal at all. Great.
“Excuse me?” My voice rose about two octaves higher than normal and a little breathless. “Who are you?”
“I’m Lore.” Her quick cheerful answer surprised me. She tilted her head to study me and my tools, which were still outstretched. Her long hair was nearly as white as her dress. Pointed fae ears caught my attention, raising all kinds of flags that screamed,Don’t trust her!
Hers weren’t like the others though. They were covered in a soft white fur and shaped a bit wider, like fox ears.
“Maybe next time you should use the stairs,” she suggested with raised brows and a smile.
“Stairs?” I scoffed, flinging an arm at the giant hole high above us as I glared at her. “You’re joking, right? There’s no sta—”
I cut off abruptly.
Well, would you look at that.There really were stairs curving along one side of the dirt wall, right next to the hill I’d just rolled down, ending just a few feet from where I stood.
“Oh,” I said, finishing what would’ve been a really good rant on a bit of a flat note. Slowly, I straightened out of my protective stance and lowered the tools to my sides. Though I half expected my head to brush against the ceiling, it was much taller than I’d thought.
A long awkward silence fell over us.
I glanced left and right, finding dark tunnels in both directions. All this time I’d wasted by assuming the hole in the ground was a dead end. My eyes stung. Why hadn’t it occurred to me that it might lead somewhere?
Both tunnels looked the same.
Choosing risked going in the wrong direction.
But the longer I waited, the farther they’d be.
This was a lose-lose scenario. I didn’t know what to do.
My attention latched on to the fox girl. “Did you see which way the group of people went?”
“How long ago?” she asked noncommittally.
“Um...”I waved my arms. “Maybe fifteen, twenty minutes?”
She shrugged. “I haven’t been in the tunnels today until you arrived.”
