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“Well then,” I say begrudgingly, and she just laughs. Reaper barks and darts in before us, the flames from his coat lighting our way.
As we enter the tunnel, there’s enough room for two of us to walk side-by-side. The door closes behind us with a swoosh, and Lynx looks at me with wide eyes.
‘Do you feel like we’re in a horror movie?’ he asks.
‘Starring in one, more like it,’ I agree.
“How far did you guys get in here?” Ryker asks as we reach some stairs and start to descend a circular staircase.
I reach forward and grab the back of his vest since it’s getting harder to see. I wasn’t blessed with night vision like some in this group.
It’s amazing to think that even in Hell you can get cold, but I find the temperature is falling the lower we get underground. I would have thought it'd get hotter.
“Um, that door,” Zeke replies.
“So you have no idea what’s down here?” Knox asks.
“That would be correct,” Moni says.
Freaking great.
We finally reach the bottom, and it opens up a little bit, but before we continue on, I ask for a minute.
“Guys, give me a moment. I was in such a hurry I stuffed the fucking map in here,” I confess.
“We did a shit job packing too,” Zeke admits.
So as I try to dig through and find the map, most of the guys rearrange the things in their bags too. I grab the map and something special I conjured up for Reaper before calling him over. He runs over and jumps up on me, giving me kisses.
“Just to make sure you don’t get hurt, run away, or someone tries to take you when I’m not watching, okay?” I say, as I place a fire proof collar and leash around him. I know I look silly, but I wrap the end of the leash around the belt of my glaives and make sure I can still pull them out safely.
“Okay, let’s head out,” I say as calmly as possible, even though my nerves are strung like a hair-trigger.
The tunnel is all dirt, and occasionally, some of it falls down, making me sneeze. It makes me jump, thinking we’re about to be buried alive. Checking the map, it shows only one tunnel leading to Lilith’s house, but from there, a few tunnels branch out that we’ll have to watch out for.
“How far is Lilith’s house from L.A.M.B.’s place normally?” I call out to either Levi or Ryker to answer since they’ve been here before.
“It didn’t seem this far when we were little,” Levi calls back.
“Then again, we weren’t allowed to travel to L.A.M.B.’s house,” Ryker admits.
I hear a grunt and look back in time to see Knots stumble into the wall. ‘Knots!’ I yell and move toward him. JP and Zeke help him up, but back away when I reach him.
‘What’s wrong?’ I peer up into his brown eyes, and all I see is sadness.
He looks over my shoulder, and I follow his gaze to see that our friends are giving us some privacy.
‘I might as well come clean since I can’t hide it anymore,’ he says as he leans his head back against the wall. ‘When you went to grab the Demstone for the spell to help slow the effects of being down here, I talked with Dr. Steinbeck.’
‘Let me guess. It wasn’t good and you decided to keep it to yourself.’ Even mentally my voice cracks. His bowed head is answer enough, and my eyes start to burn from the unshed tears. ‘What did he say?’ I demand more than ask.
Knots reaches for my hand and pulls them to his chest and even though I’m hurt, I allow him to take them. ‘His educated guess was that without that spell I was going to slowly waste away and die, or become a true fallen and I could possibly be trapped in Hell.’
He wipes a tear that falls free and tries to escape down my cheek. ‘I’m sorry, Rez. I didn’t want to scare you.’
‘That’s not an excuse, Knots. You should have told me anyway.’
‘Yes I should have, and you’re right. There’s no excuse for me keeping it from you. But don’t worry… I’ll make it up to you back home. Maybe a nice bubble bath and a rub down.’
