Chapter Twenty-Nine
I DIDN’T KNOW how long we’d been down there, because time didn’t move right in a place like that, didn’t stretch or settle the way it was supposed to, just sat heavy and unmoving, like the air itself had thickened around us, damp and stale and carrying a sour, earthy smell that clung to the back of my throat every time I breathed it in, the quiet broken only by the occasional drip somewhere in the dark that echoed louder than it should have, like it was marking something I couldn’t see, counting down to something I didn’t want to understand.
The ground beneath me was cold and uneven, packed dirt with something harder buried underneath, and the chill had already worked its way through my clothes, sinking into my bones in a way that made it harder to ignore the longer I sat there, every small shift scraping just enough to remind me this wasn’t somewhere people were meant to stay.
Not somewhere you survived.
“I can see why they call it a hole,” Ruby had said earlier, her voice too thin, too forced, like if she stopped talking she’d have to actually feel where we were.
I hadn’t answered her then.
Hadn’t trusted my voice.
Now I sat with my back pressed against the rough wall, the stone biting through my shirt, my arms wrapped tight around myself more for something to hold onto than warmth, trying to keep still, trying to think past the way the darkness pressed in from every direction, broken only by a thin strip of light far above us where there had to be some kind of opening, too high to reach and too narrow to matter, like it was there just to remind us we weren’t completely buried.
“They’re not gonna keep us here,” Ruby said, but even she didn’t sound like she believed it anymore.
I turned my head slowly, the movement stiff, looking at her through the dim, her shape more shadow than anything solid, her pacing sharper now, restless in a way that scraped against my nerves.
“You don’t know that,” I said, my voice quieter, but holding together.
“They won’t,” she insisted, faster now, like she needed it to be true. “Drago just—he’s pissed. That’s all. He’ll calm down.”
His name settled wrong in the air.
Drago.
I let that sit for a second before I shook my head, the movement small. “He’s not letting us go,” I said, and saying it out loud made something drop in my chest, heavy and final. “Not after this.”
Ruby went completely still. “Don’t say that,” she snapped, but there was something under it now, something thinner than anger.
“Ruby,” I said, turning more toward her, keeping my voice even, not pushing, just letting the truth sit between us. “Look at where we are.”
She didn’t answer.
“They didn’t bring us somewhere like this to let us walk back out,” I went on, slower now, even though every word felt like it cut. “You know that.”
“No,” she said, shaking her head hard. “No, you don’t know him like I do. He’ll calm down.”
Something in that almost made me laugh, not because it was funny, but because it sounded like something you said when you already knew the truth and just couldn’t face it.
“I think I know enough,” I said quietly.
That did it.
I saw it in the way her shoulders dropped just a fraction, the way the fight in her shifted instead of disappeared. “You don’t understand,” she said, softer now, closer to breaking. “I love him so much.”
“He’s going to hurt us,” I said, filling the space she left, keeping my voice steady because one of us had to be. “Quit lying to yourself. I’m so damn sick of it. We are going to die!”
Her silence answered that better than anything else.
The quiet settled back in, heavier now, thicker, pressing in along with the damp air, and for a second it felt like the space itself was getting smaller, like the walls were inching closer, like there wasn’t enough air left to fill my lungs, my breath caught.
Stinging.
Too fast.
I dragged in another one and it didn’t feel like enough, my chest tightening, the smell stronger all at once, the dark pressing harder, closer, like it was closing over my head—
No.
I shut my eyes for half a second and forced it down, forced my breathing slower, deeper, even when it didn’t feel right, even when everything in me wanted to fight it, because losing it down here, that would be it.
“I’m sorry,” Ruby said, her voice barely above a whisper, pulling me back. “I know you’re right, but if I let myself believe I never meant anything to him… it makes what I did worse.”
I drew in a slow breath, this one steadier, letting it out carefully before I answered. “You have to believe it,” I said. “Or we don’t get out of here. Working together is the only chance we’ve got.”
Gatsby’s face flashed in my head before I could stop it, so clear it almost hurt, and for a second I let myself believe he’d come for me, that he’d find me, that I wasn’t stuck in this place waiting, I shut that down hard.
Because thinking about him hurt too much.
Ruby let out a shaky breath and dragged her hands through her hair before pushing to her feet, pacing the small space like she couldn’t sit still, like if she did she’d come apart completely.
“How do we get out?” she asked, louder now, more frantic, her eyes scanning the dirt walls like something might be hidden there.
Her voice broke on the last word. That was when it really hit her. Her steps slowed, then stopped, her back to me as her shoulders went rigid.
“We have to come up with a plan,” I said, but even to my own ears it sounded thin.
“We’re going to die down here,” she whispered.
The words hung between us. Heavy. Final. I let them sit there for a second. Then I pushed to my feet, ignoring the way my legs protested, the stiffness, the cold, forcing myself to move because standing still wasn’t an option anymore.
“No,” I said, and this time there was something harder under it. “We’re not.”
She turned toward me slowly, her face pale even in the dark, her eyes wide in a way that hadn’t been there before. “How do you know that?”
I held her gaze. “I don’t,” I said.
Then I stepped past her, moving toward the wall, toward the edges of the space, my hands already reaching out, fingers dragging over the rough surface, feeling every crack, every shift, testing it.
“But I’m not waiting to find out.”