Page 111 of Ravaged Devotion

Ryker linked their pointer fingers comfortingly, then turned back to the others. “Split up into teams. You two check all the paths to the left, we’ll take the ones to the right.”

“What about him?” Ellery indicated Bowie.

“He’s coming with us,” Ryker said before Rue could do so himself. “Safety in numbers.”

Chapter 23:

The passages were dark and they had to use the flashlights on their multi-slates to see. At a crossroads not far from the main room, the paths diverged, ones leading left and right, and another straight.

“We checked the one on the right a bit,” Ellery said.

“Go left,” Ryker repeated his earlier decision. “We’ll keep moving forward.”

“Meet back here within a half hour,” Uriel suggested. “We don’t know how far this goes, but it’s presumably at least the entire building. Since it’s underground, it could go further than that.”

“Push it to forty-five minutes,” Ryker said. “Gives us more time to get somewhere and make the return trip. But if anything happens or feels off, come back immediately. And watch your backs. If this is my father—”

Ellery snorted. “Who the hell else could it be?”

“—he won’t be far from his control room for long,” Ryker finished as if he hadn’t spoken. “If he catches you down here, he won’t go easy on you simply because you’re Black Harts.”

“Clearly,” his friend stated dryly. “This is the same guy who unleashed a flesh ripping monster in the lodge his son is staying at. If he isn’t protecting his heir, he sure as shit isn’t going to care about us.”

With that final warning delivered, they broke off, each group going a different direction, moving further away from each other.

Rue kept a step behind Ryker, allowing the Black Hart to take the lead mostly so he could hang back with Bowie and gauge how his friend was handling things.

“How was your night?” Admittedly, it was a fairly stupid question, but he needed an ice breaker, and that seemed to do the trick.

Bowie chuckled humorlessly. “Fan-fucking-tastic. I spent it curled up in a broom closet in an empty room. You?”

He opened his mouth, catching himself just before saying he’d slept comfortably wrapped in Ryker’s arms. Rue cleared his throat. “Esti’s scream woke me.”

“Yeah, that was brutal.” He shivered and then batted a low hanging cobweb out of the way. “Hard to believe just last week she was cheating off Lenore’s math test, and now…We’re all that’s left. Though, I guess…” He reached out and tugged lightly on Rue’s arm, causing him to fall back a little more. “Do you think Rhys planned it this way on purpose? Made sure the Black Harts wouldn’t be attacked like the rest of us?”

“You heard Uriel,” Rue reminded. “There’s no way to control those things in that way.”

“That they know of. Maybe they just haven’t found everything yet. Isn’t that why we’re currently here right now? To look for more clues? Ryker is the Hart heir. His dad is a prick, but even he wouldn’t risk his only available offspring.”

“That implies that Ryker is in on it, and he isn’t.”

“How can you be so certain?”

“I just am. I know him.”

“Better than you know me?” Bowie frowned. “You trust him more. I’m supposed to be your best friend, Rue.”

“You are.” He tried to soften his tone, not wanting to hurt his feelings, but needing to put his foot down on this matter. Bowie hadn’t even seen the game manual or heard about it, yet he was already hellbent on dragging Ryker into things. They needed to work together in order to make it out of this alive. Which meant Bowie couldn’t doubt the Black Harts. “You’re my best friend, but he’s…”

“You’re in love with him,” Bowie accused. “Even after everything he’s done? How could you?”

“Hate to break up this adorable heart to heart session,” Ryker called from ten or so feet ahead, barely lifting his voice to do so, “but I would be remiss not to point out that sound travels here, no matter how low you whisper.”

Rue winced.

Bowie glared at Ryker’s back.

They moved silently for a while after that, sticking close together, checking doors whenever they cropped up. There was never anything interesting inside, and more often than not, they spent less than a minute or two looking through them before continuing on.