I nod, even though I’m very much not fine, my heart pounding hard enough that I’m sure he can feel it.
“What if someone’s down here?” I whisper, my voice unsteady despite how hard I try to control it.
He exhales. “I’m going to kill Ivan for this.”
“I seriously cannot wait to get out of here,” I mutter. “Out of Tar City. For good.”
The ground dips suddenly and my foot slides a little. “Shit?—”
Jax catches me before I can go down, his hand closing around mine, the other steadying me at my side.
I grab onto him without thinking, and then I realize how close I am, actually pressed into him. I can feel the solid line of his arm and the heat of his chest through his shirt.I don’t know if I’m shaking because of this place or because of the proximity.
“We should’ve turned around when you asked,” he says, quieter than before. “I’m sorry.”
A rat scrapes across a rusted pipe and I jolt.
Jax’s grip tightens. “We’re fine,” he murmurs. “Nothing here but rats.”
“That’s not comforting. Do you think it’s tar on the ground? What if someone’s hiding down here? What if?—”
“No one’s down here,” he says. “The odor alone would keep them out.”
A second passes. “And if someone’s crazy enough to be…” his grip tightens around mine, “I got you.”
My heart stumbles. It's ridiculous how much I like hearing him say that.
The tunnel slopes down, and it gets darker the farther we go. At some point, it’s almost completely black. Every minute or so, a light stutters to life, casting just enough glow to show our next step, before vanishing again.
We keep moving, my shoulder brushes his every few steps, but neither of us moves away.
“Jax—”
“It’s just two miles,” he says. “We can do two miles.”
His thumb brushes my knuckles. “Let’s play a game.”
I bark a laugh. “A game?”
“You’re panicking,” he says. “I’m distracting you.”
He gives me no time to argue. “Why do you like dancing?”
I blink, thrown off just enough that my brain actually switches tracks. “What?”
“Answer,” he says.
We step forward together, the ground uneven again. His hand tightens slightly, pulling me through it without making a thing out of it. When the light flickers again I get a glimpse of his face. He looks focused, calm, like none of this is bothering him.
“I don’t know,” I say. “I just… always have.”
“That’s not an answer.”
I huff quietly. “It is when I’m trying not to think about where we are.”
“Try again.”
I let out a breath. “It’s the only time the world shuts up,” I say. “Nothing matters. Not school, not home, not… anything.”
