“All students are to remain in their cells for the rest of the night,” the Warden called out. “Anyone who is found wandering the Institute grounds will immediately be arrested and given a severe infraction. This is your only warning.”
The Warden gave me a slick smile as the guards hauled us out of the room. He had us right where he wanted us.
Or at least, he thought he did. I damn sure wasn’t giving up hope.
Charlie’s body was stiff as the guards forced us back to our apartment and took our cuffs off, shoving us through the door. Once it shut behind us, the automatic lock clicked, sealing us in.
Oberi turned around to stand guard. It was like she wanted to be big right now, to protect us in case anything else came through. Unfortunately, it provided Charlie and I very little room to move.
“This is fucking perfect,” Charlie growled.
“We can figure it out,” I said calmly.
“Eddie and the other Elves could be dead by then!” Charlie shouted.
“We’ll be able to rescue Eddie and the others if we can get to the Underground tonight.”
“We still don’t know where it is. What are we supposed to do when we find it, huh? We still have to escape the Institute once we do!”
“I don’tknow,Charlie! I need to think.” I put a few fingers to my temple.
Charlie punched the brick wall, and his knuckles started bleeding. “I’m responsible for these people. They asked me to protect them, and I taught them everything I could, but my lessons backfired! Now they’re in danger because of me!”
I could hear the tears in his voice, and as much as I longed to comfort him, that couldn’t be my focus right now. Not if I wanted to save Eddie. I strode over to him and picked up his hand. As I brushed my fingers over his knuckles, they healed instantly.
I hadn’t been able to mend many injuries since healing my brother, but what I did for Charlie felt effortless. I had no time to ponder about it. “I know this is a lot right now,” I said, trying to keep my voice even. “But if we don’t keep our heads, who’s going to rescue them?”
“We can’t do anything if we’re stuck in here,” Charlie protested.
“You’re not helping,” I growled through clenched teeth. “Go in the other room and calm down while I work on this.”
Charlie swore under his breath, but he gathered himself enough that he managed to do as I asked. I grabbed at my hair and tried to think. I needed to review everything we’d already learned about the Underground. I had everything I needed to crack this case. I just had to be smart enough to put the pieces together.
Oberi hung her head low.I am very sorry, dear one. My behavior this morning was out of the question. I should have been kinder. We all had such a terrifying experience, and I was trying to hide that with pride. I regret everything had to come to this.
“Save your regret for later. Help me figure this out.” We kept all the evidence we had for the Underground, as well as my journal, in a cardboard box underneath the couch, as we hadn’t found a good place to hide it yet and the Lair was out of the question. I grabbed the box, then I took a huffy seat on the floor and started withdrawing the contents. I spread the blueprints out in front of me, as well as copies of the news articles we’d scanned about the Underground.
I examined them several times, but didn’t notice anything I hadn’t before. Oberi weaved her horn from side to side, just as confused about this whole thing as I was.
Hours passed, until I realized it had to be dark outside. I’d been investigating forever, and I was still going in the same circles I had been when we’d arrived. Charlie was awfully quiet in the bedroom, but the other side of our bond was about to go off like a powder keg. I couldn’t keep asking him to be patient. I needed to give him some answers, so we could come up with a real plan.
This was getting me nowhere. I had to think outside the box. I’d been practicing with my intuition on and off, but Charlie and I had such a wild ride lately with everything going on between us, I hadn’t taken the time recently to sit down and listen to what my spirit was telling me.
What had Hemlock said about intuition again? It’d been so long ago I couldn’t remember, but Ihadto. A friend’s life was in danger.
I crossed my legs under me as I closed my eyes. I took a few, calming breaths.I need to find the Infernal Underground. I need to find the Infernal Underground.The mantra I repeated melded against the symphony of ever-constant voices in my mind.
Long moments dragged on. I wasn’t sure this was leading me anywhere. I didn’t receive a spark of inspiration or any whisper of a clue.
Ancestors, please,I pleaded.If we don’t do this, Eddie will be killed. We can’t let that happen.
Again, there was a lapse. I wasn’t sure how any of this tied together, but I knew that itdid, somehow. We knew the Underground wasn’t in the basement or in any of the abandoned cellblocks around the school. So why couldn’t we locate it? It wasn’t like there were many places left the Warden could hide it.
The Underground was concealed, but an operation that big had to have something hiding it. If it wasn’t a building, then what was it? Was there a place on campus where no one would find a secret torture chamber?
It seemed impossible to conceal something that large. The Underground killed people; we knew that for a fact.
… Except the parents of the kids who went missing never found their remains. Where could the Warden possibly smuggle out and bury that many bodies without it being discovered? I didn’t understand how the bodies of these tortured kids weren’t being found…
