The same way I knew how to ask questions.
The same way I knew how to kill.
"Every good hunter needs a place to process her kills."
Gabriel's voice.
Or maybe my own.
Or maybe something I'd read once, in a book I'd never owned, in a life I'd never lived.
I didn't know.
I couldn't know.
But I knew the basement was mine now.
And I would use it.
The bolt cutters were heavy.
Matt handed them to me without comment, and I walked to the locked door and fit the blades around the padlock. The metal groaned. The lock resisted. I pressed down, and the resistance gave way, and the padlock fell to the floor with a clatter.
The door swung open.
Darkness.
Cold air.
The smell of old water and older stone.
I stepped inside.
The tunnel was narrow—barely wide enough for my shoulders—and the ceiling was low enough that I had to duck.The walls were wet, glistening with condensation, and the floor was slick with something I didn't want to identify.
I walked to the end.
Or not the end.
Just as far as I could go before the darkness became too thick to see through.
There would be time to explore later.
Time to map the tunnels.
Time to learn where they led.
For now, I just needed to know they were there.
An exit.
An escape.
A way to disappear.
I saw the shadow when I came back upstairs.
The bar was closed—the chairs were up, the lights were off, the door was locked—but I'd seen something through the window. A figure. Tall. Male. Standing near the back entrance, watching.
