Chapter 22
It feels wrong to leave,” Miles muttered as he and Gabriel hiked back the way they’d come, starting the climb up the slope.
“I know. But I doubt standing there all day would’ve made a difference. Perhaps there’s a clue, or directions in my mother’s office. Or in the grimoire. I don’t recall seeing a locking spell, but there’s still a large chunk I haven’t read.”
Going back to the grimoire was the last thing Miles wanted to do. “I’ll reach out to Nadia first, see if they know anything.”
Gabriel gave a noncommittal hum.
At the top of the agonizing hill—Miles would’ve been self-conscious about his brink-of-death gasping if Gabriel didn’t sound equally out of breath—they made it back to the fork, heading down the other path this time.
One led to the Hawthorne wine cellar, one to Jocelyn’s tomb, so this third path had to come out elsewhere.
Miles was betting on a secret opening in a tree, right on the outskirts of the woods surrounding the mansion.
If he’d learned one thing about the Hawthorne family, it was to never underestimate their love for hidden doors.
Moving away from the lake now, the path turned dry again, littered with pebbles and cobwebs hanging from the ceiling. It didn’t look like anyone had come this way in a long time.
The reason why became apparent a minute later—the tunnel came to an abrupt end. Not another collapse, this path simply… stopped. Like it’d been half-formed when the diggers decided it wasn’t worth their time.
There was no way out.
They were truly trapped down here.
The tunnel tilted and Miles’s butt hit the ground. It should’ve been jarring but he barely registered it, struggling to suck oxygen into his shrinking lungs. His entire body locked up, paralyzed by the panic clawing its way up his ribs.
He was going to die down here. Choking on musty air he couldn’t breathe.
He needed to get out.
Freezing fingers landed on the back of Miles’s neck with a shock, Gabriel crouched in the dirt with him.
If he was talking, Miles couldn’t hear the words over the white noise in his brain.
Couldn’t hear over the wheezing gasps he could feel sawing out of his throat, or the beat of his heart, going so fast it threatened to swallow him up.
Spots exploded across his vision. He was going to faint.
Gabriel’s grasp tightened, tugging Miles’s head up to meet his eyes, cast in deep shadows from the flashlights discarded at their feet. “Listen to me,” he demanded, like he could hear the screaming mess in Miles’s head. “You’re having a panic attack. You need to take a deep breath.”
Miles tried, he really did. But the air refused to go in, to release the fist constricted impossibly tight around his chest. He sank his nails into the earth, body shuddering like it was on the verge of collapse.
He wasn’t in control.
“Look.” Gabriel refused to let Miles’s head drop, holding him captive with his unrelenting grip and steady gaze. “Watch me. Match mine.” He took a slow, exaggerated inhale, then another. “Do it.”
It hurt, but Miles did as he commanded. Made himself count exhales and inhales, focused on Gabriel’s nods of approval and the press of his fingers. Did it until his brain and body realized he wasn’t suffocating, that the oxygen was good, and his limbs unlocked from their trembling terror.
“I’m okay,” he managed to rasp out. It tasted like a lie on his tongue, sour panic and salty tears.
“You are,” Gabriel said firmly.
“I’m sorry.” He wiped his tear-streaked face on his sweater sleeve in a gross kid move. He was so mortified, he didn’t even know what to say, what to do. Dying down here didn’t sound so bad now. “My brain, it doesn’t—”
“You have nothing to apologize for,” Gabriel interrupted. “Or to act all embarrassed about, so stop it.”
Another sniffle escaped Miles. “You’re scary when you get all bossy.”
“Good. Listen to me or suffer the consequences.” Gabriel reached for the zipper of his coat. “Here, you’re shivering.”
Miles stopped him. “It’s the adrenaline, I’m fine. Keep it.” The jitters and sweat would take a while to fade.
He stood and offered his hand. “Can you stand?”
“Up for debate.” Miles steadied his shaking legs enough to be pulled upright. His knees, however, seemed to have vacated his body, so he wobbled dangerously.
Gabriel helped prop him up against the wall with an insistent, “Don’t move,” before scooping his flashlight up and stalking to the end of the tunnel.
“What are you doing?”
“Finding us a way out.”
Even Gabriel couldn’t conjure an exit through sheer stubbornness. “I think the solid stone wall has us beat.”
“It doesn’t make any sense.” He spun in a slow circle. “Why would you build a tunnel that doesn’t go anywhere?”
“Maybe it was never finished.” It made sense, considering how short this tunnel was compared to the others.
Gabriel frowned, swinging his light to the floor, then the ceiling and stopped. “Or it ends here for a reason.”
Miles looked up. Almost directly above them, the rough stone ceiling smoothed out into a flat plane. In the center, a square had been cut into it.
“What is that?”
“I’m not sure, but it must be a way out.”
Jello legs forgotten, Miles reached up, but his fingertips were at least a foot or two shy of touching.
So unbearably close to freedom.
“C’mere.” He got down on one knee, gesturing to his bent leg. “Stand on me, see if you can reach.”
Gabriel didn’t move. “I don’t want to hurt you.”
“Would you rather go back to the wine cellar and wait for your mom?”
He immediately stepped onto Miles’s thigh, clutching at his shoulder to steady himself. Miles tried to brace him and not topple over at the same time.
“I can barely reach it with the flashlight.” Gabriel’s voice was strained. “I need to be up higher.”
Miles considered his options—he could get down on his hands and knees and let Gabriel stand on his back, but he didn’t think he could take any more embarrassment today. Shoulders it was, then.
He helped Gabriel down, then crouched as low as he could go, bracing his hands against the ground. “Get on my shoulders.”
Gabriel stared in disbelief. “I’m not a toddler.”
“Just… get on my shoulders so we can get out of here,” Miles told him impatiently. “Then we’ll never mention it again, okay?”
“I can’t—how do I—” Gabriel hands settled awkwardly on Miles’s shoulders, then his head.
“Swing one leg up, then hop and get the other. I’ll grab you so you don’t fall.”
“You know I’m not exactly athletic.”
“I hate to break it to you, but this isn’t a feat of athleticism.” Miles had done it a million times as a kid, and carried Amy and Jenna around this way even more.
“You want me to… put my legs around your head.”
Miles’s cheeks burned. “Don’t say it like that. You’re just getting on my shoulders, it’s no big deal.”
At least, it hadn’t felt like one before.
Gabriel muttered under his breath but finally swung his first leg over Miles’s shoulder. Miles was now second-guessing the sanity of his decision. Was this really less embarrassing than letting Gabriel stand on his back?
He took hold of Gabriel’s knee, holding him steady. “Use my head to stabilize yourself and get your other leg up here.”
It took two tries and a lot of cursing, but they managed. Gabriel had a death grip on Miles’s hair, making his eyes water.
“Okay, I’m going to stand. I’ll go slow so I don’t smash your head into the ceiling.”
“That would be preferable.”
Miles cautiously moved into a less severe hunched crouch, his legs shaking from the strain. He embraced the burn, focusing on it instead of the fact Gabriel Hawthorne’s legs were currently draped over him.
“Left,” Gabriel directed him. “Left. Forward a step. Okay, I’m directly under it.”
Miles stood, feeling Gabriel stretch upwards and a low sound, the grind of stone on stone. A glorious rush of cool air ruffled Miles’s hair. He had to blink away sudden relieved tears.
“I’ve got it,” Gabriel grunted. “Push me up.”
Easier said than done. Miles got the back of his head kneed, a sting like an entire handful of his hair being ripped out, and his spine tromped on before Gabriel’s weight disappeared as he wiggled through the hole.
“Oh.”
“Good oh or bad oh?”
“I’m in the mausoleum. We moved one of the marble tiles.”
“Great.” Miles couldn’t have cared less where this came out, as long as it wasn’t another tunnel.
“Is there something up there you can use to get me out?” Even if he could jump and reach the edge, and that was a huge if, he wasn’t delusional enough to think he could lift himself with his unimpressive upper body strength.
Let’s just say he’d never broken any pull-up records during PE tests.
“I don’t see anything.” Noises moved away and clanged. “The door’s not locked,” Gabriel called. His face reappeared in the hole a moment later, squinting in Miles’s flashlight. “I’m going to find something. If I have to go to the house, it might be longer, but I’ll be right back.”
Miles’s throat was tight. “Yeah, okay.”
Gabriel met his eyes. “I’ll be right back.”
“I know.”
Gabriel wasn’t leaving him here. He was coming back. Miles repeated it over and over as he waited. The exit was right there, he wasn’t trapped, he wasn’t getting left behind. All he had to do was breathe and wait. In and out, and wait.
After an eternity, there was another clang overhead.
“Gabriel?” Miles’s voice was shrill. “Is that you?”
“Yes.” He sounded winded. “We brought you a stool from the kitchen.”
“We?”
Charlee’s freckled face and mass of fiery curls appeared. “Watch out, we’re dropping it down.”
Miles caught it, scared it would break in the fall and he’d be trapped even longer.
He climbed on it, gripping the edge of the hole as Gabriel and Charlee each took one of his arms to yank him up.
For a scary moment, his feet kicked at the empty air, the tunnel refusing to let him go; then he was sliding up onto cold marble.
If he’d had any energy left, he would’ve wept into the dusty floor. “I never want to go down there again.”
Charlee wrapped her arm around his shoulders, Gabriel still gripping his wrist and mercifully not reminding him they’d have to go back eventually.
“Hey, we’re out of the tunnels,” he joked weakly, rolling over to face Gabriel. “How about that kiss?”
Charlee made a noise of disgust and pushed away from him. “In front of me? Really?”
But Gabriel laughed under his breath. He had a smear of dirt across his chin. “I seem to recall the deal was if you got us out. I’m the one who found the exit.”
“You’re heartless.” But Miles was grinning, their banter helping calm his racing heart. “Don’t act like the panic attack wasn’t super attractive.”
“The part where you nearly fainted at my feet was especially charming.” Swiftly, he leaned in and pressed a kiss to Miles’s cheek. It was a fleeting brush of warmth, and left Miles stunned. “Take your consolation prize and stop complaining.”
A blaring, dramatic retch came from Charlee and echoed around the mausoleum. “We’re literally surrounded by dead people, and you two are the nastiest thing in here.”
Neither of them had the energy to give her a dirty look.
They took their time getting up—Miles ached like he’d aged a hundred years. When Gabriel kneeled to push the marble tile back, he groaned out loud like his weary bones were protesting.
The marble walls of the mausoleum were illuminated by the weak light coming through the stained-glass window as the sun inched below the horizon, casting a rainbow across the vaults. It was the most color Miles had encountered on the Hawthorne property, and only the dead could appreciate it.
It must’ve rained while they were underground because the grass was soaked, immediately wetting Miles’s boots and the hem of his jeans. He scanned the stormy clouds and begged them to hold out long enough for them to get back indoors.
Gabriel closed the double doors behind them with a muffled boom.