Page 32 of Bewitched By the Pumpkin Queen

"Almost there," I tell her, though I have no idea if it's true.

The tunnel could go on for miles, collapsing behind us the entire way.

"Wait," she gasps suddenly, stopping so abruptly I nearly crash into her. "Look." She points to something half-buried in the soft earth of the tunnel floor.

At first, I think it's just a shard of metal or glass, but Delia is already kneeling, fingers carefully excavating around it.

"Be careful," I warn, eyes darting to the increasingly unstable ceiling.

Her fingers brush away the dirt, revealing a slender metal cylinder with a needle-sharp tip. "A tranquilizer dart," she whispers, her voice catching between dread and discovery.

Well, I’ll be damned.

Delia snatches the dart from the ground just as a large chunk of ceiling gives way beside us.

I grab her arm, hauling her up and forward as the passage behind us collapses with a deafening roar. "Go!" I shout, pushing her ahead of me.

The tunnel is alive now, howling and rumbling all around us, the ceiling as unstable as my mental state since my resurrection. We sprint through the chaos, rocks slamming down behind us, the tunnel now little more than a jagged slit.

The killer must have somehow known we were onto them. There’s no other reason to leave a loaded trap that risks their own getaway routes.

"There!" Whiskers cries out, his voice barely audible above the rumble. "I see light!"

Up ahead, moonlight spills down a vertical shaft, silvery fingers reaching into our darkness. The stone tube stretches straight upward, its walls weeping moisture and wearing the grime of decades. Rusted rebar protrudes at irregular intervals lending the whole thing a makeshift ladder quality.

Delia reaches it first, shoving the dart into her pocket before grasping the first handhold.

"Climb," I order, hands at her waist to boost her upward. "I'm right behind you."

She doesn't argue, scaling the makeshift ladder with desperate speed. Whiskers leaps, clinging to my shirt with his claws, and I wince as he scrambles up to my shoulder. The tunnel's death throes intensify behind us; a wave of destruction that's nearly at our heels.

My hands find the rusted metal bars, muscles burning as I pull myself up after Delia. Above, I hear her grunt with effort, followed by the scrape of metal against stone as she pushes aside another grate.

Fresh air hits my face like a blessing. I emerge into the night, dragging myself over the edge of the hole just as the final collapse occurs below, sending a plume of dust up through the opening.

We lie on our backs in the alley behind town hall, gasping like drowned things returned to shore. The stars wheel above us, impossibly bright and distant.

Whiskers sprawls across my chest, his tiny sides heaving with exertion. "That," he announces between pants, "was not worth the adventure points."

Delia sits up first, leaves and twigs tangled in her copper hair, dirt smudged across her cheek. Despite everything, I find myself noticing the flush of her cheeks, the way the moonlight catches in her eyes, how she looks less terrified and more alive than I’ve seen her in weeks. There’s a laugh trapped in my chest that wants to claw its way out, but I cough instead, turning it into a ragged exhale.

“Look.” Delia checks her pocket for the dart, fingers trembling. “We have evidence.”

I force myself to sit up, Whiskers sliding into my lap with a disgruntled squeak. The dart is a sleek metal that gleams dully in the moonlight, the chamber empty of whatever drug it once contained.

"This confirms it," I say, examining it without touching. "The killer's been using some kind of tranquilizers on their victims. Explains why none of us could fight back, why there were no signs of struggle."

"They must be using something that metabolizes quickly and obviously can't be detected by any standard or magical testing methods." Delia says, turning the dart between her fingers. “Now, we just have to figure out what that something is.”

“Easy peasy.” Whiskers chides.

Delia holds the dart out to me. "Jas, does this bring back any memory of that night? Anything at all?"

I reach for it, my fingers brushing against hers as I take the metal cylinder. That same inexplicable warmth floods through me at the contact, and I jerk my hand away too quickly, nearly dropping our evidence.

"Sorry," I mutter, confused by my own reaction.

Delia notices.