“I hope not. Jennifer said they usually don’t use this tunnel much,” I said, anxiously glancing over my shoulder.
We continued forward, moving slower now, pausing every few feet to listen. I was just starting to think we might actually make it to the estate without incident when I heard Cherry stumble behind me.
“Ow,fuck!”
I spun around to see her catching herself against the tunnel wall, her right foot lifted off the ground.
“What happened?” I asked.
“I tripped on something.” She tried to put weight on her foot and hissed in pain. “Shit, I think I twisted my ankle.”
Jeremiah moved closer, shining his phone light at the ground. Sure enough, there was an uneven section of the tunnel floor where two stones had shifted, creating a lip that was easy to miss without a light aimed directly at it.
“Just give it a few minutes,” Jeremiah said. “It might be okay to walk on then.”
With a grimace, Cherry slid down the tunnel wall into a seated position, cradling her sore ankle in her hands. “Oh my god, this fucking sucks,” she muttered.
We waited in fraught silence for a few minutes, and then Jeremiah extended a hand. “Ready to give it a try now?”
She nodded and accepted his hand, letting him pull her back to her feet. Then she tested her weight again and winced. “Fuck. No,” she gritted out. “It’s still really bad.”
“You can’t walk at all?”
“Not properly. I think I might’ve actually fractured something,” she said, shaking her head. “You two should go ahead without me. I’ll limp back to the medical center and get this looked at.”
“Hell no!” I said. “I’m not leaving you alone in this tunnel while you’re injured!”
“Yeah, no way,” Jeremiah said. “What if someone else comes down here and sees you? You won’t even be able to run away from them.”
Cherry winced again. “I’ll just tell them the cover story. I’m down here exploring after finding this place during the scavenger hunt.”
“Nope. No one’s gonna believe you went into a random tunnel at nightalone,” Jeremiah said, shaking his head. “We need to go back with you.”
“But tonight is the Dionysus initiation,” she said. “It’s really important!”
“That’s true,” I said, mind whirling. “Okay, how about this? Jeremiah and I will walk you back to campus and take you to the medical center. We’ll drop you back at your dorm afterwards so you can rest your foot, and then the two of us will come back down here.”
Jeremiah glanced at his watch with a grimace. “The problem with that is… we don’t know how long it’ll take to get her checked out,” he said. “The medical center is packed on Friday nights because of all the drunk idiots around. So we could be stuck there for an hour. Maybe even more.”
“Also, getting to the med center in the first place could take ages, because even with you two helping me walk back up this tunnel, it’ll still be really slow,” Cherry added. “So even if you drop me off at the center and come back here right away, that could still eat up a ton of time that we don’t really have.”
“Good point,” I muttered, scratching the back of my neck. “All right, how about this instead? Jeremiah, you take Cherry to the medical center while I go on ahead. Then you come back down here and meet me… wherever I end up on the estate, I guess. I’ll keep you posted with texts.”
His eyes widened. “You can’t go alone!”
“It’s only five more minutes down the tunnel,” I said, gesturing into the darkness. “Ten, max. I’ll be fine.”
“But you won’t have either of us to help you if you get caught.”
I took a deep breath, steeling myself. “Honestly, it’s just a risk I’ll have to take,” I said. “At least one of us needs to be there tonight, andsoon, because this initiation ceremony is probably one of the Club’s most important annual events. So we really,reallydon’t want to miss it.”
“Unless we want to wait an entire year for the next one,” Cherry muttered.
Jeremiah sighed, pinching the bridge of his nose. “You’re really willing to go by yourself?”
“Yes.” I nodded firmly. “Besides, you’ll be coming too. Just a bit later.”
He stared at me for a long moment, conflict written all over his face. Finally, he nodded. “Fine. But be careful. Text me the second you get there, and stay hidden.”
