Chapter 29 #2
“Run, or I’ll never fucking forgive you!” I said, thrashing in Theo’s arms. I didn’t know what he would do to me, but I was sure it wouldn’t be nearly as bad as what he’d do to Blake if he caught him.
One of the guards came barreling out of the alcove, wiping at his red face, looking like a rampaging bull in search of a target. The second man was right on his heels, coughing and spitting as he tried to clear his mouth.
“Run!” I screeched.
Blake finally fled, the guards stumbling after him. They didn’t stand a chance. Blake had run Division 1 track at his boarding school. I just prayed he could get past whoever was guarding the other end of the tunnel.
Theo shoved me away from him, and I spun, hands up, ready to defend myself.
I’d never seen him look so furious. Gone was the man who’d carried me three blocks through the rain.
Gone was the man who’d massaged my neck.
Trailed kisses down my spine. This was the Theo I’d dealt with in the restaurant.
The one who’d threatened to burn my entire life to the ground.
He stepped forward. “If your fucking brother ruins tonight for me . . .”
I retreated, my back brushing the wall. Panic hit my bloodstream, and I glanced past him, thinking about trying to break free, but he was too big. There was no room. I was trapped with no way out, and no opportunity to subtly warn all the innocent people he’d lured down here.
Which left me with one option.
“Cops!” I yelled, my voice loud enough to echo over the stone. “Run! The cops are com—”
Theo lunged, slapping his palm over my mouth to shut me up. My head bounced off the wall, knocking me loopy for a second, and by the time the world stopped spinning, I realized more people were yelling, and there were whistles cutting through the air. Oh, shit, the cops really were here.
Suddenly, a wall of humanity stampeded into the adjoining tunnel, everyone trying to flee at once.
“Fuck!” Theo roared, hauling me into the chaos ahead of him, one arm around my chest, the other keeping people from careening into me.
We were like rats in a narrow tube, nowhere to go, everyone yelling and flailing and bouncing off each other.
I heard a thud, felt Theo jolt forward like someone had slammed into his back.
A woman screamed up ahead, and I caught sight of her falling.
I tried to grab her when we got close, but Theo beat me to it, yanking her up by the back of her dress and shoving her in front of us to get her moving again.
Suddenly, he broke right, down an even narrower, tunnel with no one in it.
“Help!” I yelled, sure he was about to murder me.
He shook me like a rag doll, so hard my teeth clicked together. “Shut up. This is another way out.”
In that moment, I didn’t give a fuck if I got arrested, not if it meant that he got handcuffed alongside me. I opened my mouth to scream again, but Theo pulled a gun from inside his jacket and aimed it right at me.
“Turn and walk,” he said.
I did as I was told, my entire body starting to shake with a mixture of anger and fear. He had a fucking gun aimed at me. A minute later, we rounded a slight bend, and the tunnel darkened dramatically. I could barely see a few inches in front of my face.
“Put your right hand on the wall,” he said. “There’s a grate up ahead. Find it.”
I reached out, and my palm landed on something slimy.
Oh, god, ew. I fought back a gag and kept walking, wondering what was happening behind us.
People were really screaming now, and the closed walls of the tunnel made the sound of their running feet echo in a way that made me feel like we were about to be trampled.
Whistles cut through the air, along with shouted orders of “Stop!”, “Get back here!”, and “Put your hands up!”
It was fucking anarchy. And it broke my goddamn heart because I knew there were innocent people caught up in it. All my fault. This was all my fault for helping Theo.
My fingers snagged on something, and I paused. The grate? Theo plowed right into my back, and I stumbled forward, tripping over the uneven ground to land on my hands and knees. I hissed, knowing from the burning sensation that I’d scraped the shit out of my skin.
“Get up. It’s here,” Theo said.
The screech of grinding metal rent the air.
Tears stung my eyes as I climbed to my feet. Fuck, that hurt.
Theo shoved me into the new passageway. I tripped again over a step and went down sideways this time, taking the fall on my hip and shoulder, the ground wet and mucky beneath me.
Ew, ew, ew, but also ow, ow, ow.
“What are you doing?” he said, hauling me up by the waist. “We need to hurry.”
“Then stop pushing me!”
Another screech of metal ripped through the air as he closed the grate, and then light flared from his direction, illuminating our surroundings.
I recoiled from the sight that greeted me.
It looked like something out of a horror movie: wet, dark walls, with a waterline two feet up from a past flood; garbage strewn about the floor; pipes running along the ceiling, dripping god knows what onto us; the orange glow of eyeballs close to the ground that told me we weren’t alone in this tunnel.
Without a word, Theo shoved me forward, and I had no choice but to precede him straight toward the serial killer who was obviously waiting to dismember us.
In my mind, I devised a plan to push Theo at them first, straight onto their outstretched knife so I could make my escape and go find my brother.
“Why were they here?” I asked.
“The cops?” he said, intentionally being obtuse. “Ask your brother. Actually, you know what? Let me ask him.”
“My parents’ employees. Why the fuck were they invited?”
He didn’t answer me, and the urge to claw his eyeballs out was almost too strong to resist. The only thing stopping me was the gun.
“Theo,” I said.
“Would you shut up and let me concentrate? I’ve only been this way once, and I don’t want to get lost and end up having to eat your corpse to survive.”
“Why did your mind go straight to cannibalizing me?”
“Because I’m mad enough to!”
“You’re mad? You’re mad, Theo?” I whirled on him. “You fucking lied to me!”
“Which time?” The grin on his face sent me into outer space. I had never been so angry in my fucking life.
“I’m glad you’re not denying it,” I spat. “If you’d gaslit me on top of everything else, I—”
“You what, Stella?” he demanded. “What the fuck could you possibly do to me? Theo Strickland isn’t even my name.”
I stumbled backward, horrified, realizing that nothing between us had ever been real, and I was now trapped in an underground tunnel with someone who had more reason to want me dead than alive.