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“She’s down there,” I hiss, pointing below us at an indeterminate location. “And she’s terrified! We have to move fast!”
“Easy there tiger,” Ren says, patting my shoulder sympathetically.
Earlier, he seemed to be in immense pain. Why he’s decided to hide that around Rory is beyond me. His wound has not improved tremendously, although even I sometimes underestimate the healing powers of werewolves.
“The bookshelf says that there’s a trapdoor under the bed,” Rory says.
Ren thrusts the bed upward and nearly breaks the adjacent wall in the process, revealing an almost invisible seam underneath the bed. Before they can react, I dive in, digging brutally into the trapdoor.
“It won’t… budge!” I scream, as my fingers attempt to pry it open.
I dig in harder with my fingernails, putting as much strength in as I can. Ren and Rory look at me awkwardly, as though debating whether to say something. Why are they not helping?
I finally manage to find a strong foothold, and using every bone and muscle in my body, I pull the trapdoor loose, discovering a chasm beneath us. If there were more time, I might throw a rock or some other object down to gauge the distance, but not only do I not know if it will alert the vampires below us, there simply isn’t time.
Rory gestures to me, and I meet her eye. She gestures toward a large lever, placed somewhere behind the large bookshelf that Ren threw aside.
“You know, you could have just used the lever,” she says casually.
But I do not have time for her snide remarks.
I jump down into the chasm below, unafraid of how far I might be falling. I feel my knees crack beneath me from the force of the impact, but they will heal.
It is incredibly dark down here, even with my enhanced vision, but I think I see a rope ladder suspended from the ceiling? And two figures climbing down from above, a torch held on one of their belts.
“There’s a ladder man,” Ren says, clearly resisting the urge to bring his palm to his face.
“You should really take it easy,” Rory suggests. “If you kill yourself off before we even get to Quinn, what’s the point?”
“I don’t care what happens to me,” I say, now looking over the room and noticing several symbols carved into the wall, bearing the mark of what we found earlier in the investigation. “As long as Quinn makes it out alive, that’s what matters.”
“Ouch dude,” Ren says, now proceeding in an indeterminate direction and guided by his torch. “After everything I’ve done to defend you, you’re just going to throw that away for some girl?”
“She’s much more than ‘some girl,’” Rory argues. “Quinn is probably braver than all of us combined.”
“I know,” I say, trying to reassure her. “And we are going to ensure she’s okay.”
But in my own mind, I am screaming still, afraid of what could have happened to Quinn. If they harm a single hair on her head, I will enact swift vengeance on them, going far beyond just taking them in for trial.
At this point, there is no way any of us are oblivious to the stench of blood in the far distance, but we follow Ren’s lead anyway. I hate to think of what they might do to him if they get their hands on him though. These vampires are unnaturally cruel toward anybody who is anything other than their kind.
Our backup PEACE forces make their way down the ladder behind us. I begin to hear the loud crackling of a fire off somewhere ahead.
“Let’s not just rush into this,” Rory whispers. “We need to take a second and plan - figure this out.”
“Every moment we leave her alone with those people, she could die,” I hiss. “There’s no more time to plan. We assess the situation when we enter.”
I charge forward, unafraid of what I might find here.
As long as I save Quinn, even if I die in the process, my eternal life will have meant something. I realize that I’m making a lot of noise, but at this point, I really don’t care.
Saving Quinn is all that matters.
33
CASPIAN
My blood pulses with my desire for Quinn, as I storm into the room, the narrow cavern tunnel giving way to an immense room filled with stalactites. I see vampires, gathered together around a bonfire, and there among them is Aleister Whitewood.
