Chapter 8 #3
They continued their search, working their way around the chamber’s perimeter. The space narrowed at the far end. Water trickled along the walls.
Noah’s flashlight swept methodically back and forth across the floor, the rocks, the dark openings that led to deeper passages. Then his beam paused. Stopped.
Something on the ground.
A shoe?
They hurried forward and rounded a large boulder.
And there was Alex.
He lay crumpled on the stone floor. Unconscious. His chest rose and fell in shallow breaths.
Alive.
Meg dropped to her knees beside him. Her medical bag hit the ground. Her hands moved automatically to check his pulse.
Weak but steady. Thank God.
Her training kicked in, smooth and automatic. She ran her fingers carefully over his scalp, feeling for injuries, for blood. “He’s alive. But he has a sizable bump on the back of his head.”
Maybe she’d been faking calmness all those years in the ER. But she hadn’t been faking competence. Her hands knew what to do even when her mind was screaming.
Maybe that’s all being brave really was. Doing the work even when you were terrified.
She frowned as she looked around the immediate area. “But how did he fall here? There’s nothing to trip over, no loose rocks—”
Noah’s flashlight swept the ground around Alex’s body.
And then he went still.
“Meg.”
Something in his voice made her look up.
He was staring at the ground.
She followed his line of sight and turned her head.
And froze.
Photos. They were scattered across the stone floor like fallen leaves. Dozens of them spread in an arc.
Meg reached for the nearest one. She brought it into the beam of her headlamp. A woman’s face smiled back at her. Young. Pretty. Familiar in a way that made her stomach turn.
Her breath caught. “That’s Lydia.”
She grabbed another. Lydia in a graduation gown. And another—an aged photo of a child with the same eyes as Lydia. Had to be her at about age five.
More photos. Lydia at different ages. In different places.
Personal photos. Family photos.
Then a note card. Just like the ones Meg had been getting. Her hands began to shake as she picked it up, her earlier steadiness vanishing like smoke.
She flipped it open. Bold green ink.
WELCOME BACK.
Noah crouched beside her. His headlamp illuminated more photos scattered across stone. He lifted the note from her hand. “Who would do this?”
“I’ve been getting these notes since…since Lydia’s death. Different words but same cards. Same green ink.”
“Why didn’t you tell me?” Noah snapped, then took a slow, calming breath. “I’m sorry. But you should have told me.”
“I wasn’t sure it wasn’t a prank. The messages were all so vague. ‘Time doesn’t always heal,’ ‘I won’t forget.’ There were a couple others. Do you think it could be Jeremy?”
“Paired with these photos, I don’t know who else it could be. He was pretty angry. But I never thought him capable of this…” His jaw tightened. “Jeremy. He must have lured the kids in here.”
His voice dropped and went flat. “He lured us in here.”
The realization hit like ice water. Meg’s stomach twisted. “Why would he do this?”
Noah’s hand found her shoulder. His touch was warm and solid. “It’ll be okay. We’ll get Alex out. We’ll report this to—”
Meg pulled back slightly. Her flashlight beam shook as she swept it around the cavern.
The shadows seemed deeper now. They were hiding things.
“Do you think he’s still here? Watching us?”
Before Noah could answer, a sharp crack echoed through the chamber.
Loud. Wrong.
Then the world exploded.
The blast came from the passage they’d entered through. A deafening roar shook the cavern floor beneath them and rattled through her bones.
Meg instinctively lunged for Alex. Her body covered his as the concussion wave hit.
Rocks blasted from the walls and rained down.
Noah’s weight crashed over her. He sheltered both of them with his body.
Dust and debris filled the air until she couldn’t breathe. She couldn’t see. She couldn’t hear anything but the roar of collapsing stone.
Then there was sudden, terrible silence.
Meg coughed, dust choking her lungs.
Noah’s weight lifted off her. His hands ran over her face, her neck, her shoulders, her back. Urgent and thorough.
She blinked against the grit in her eyes and tried to focus through the haze. “I’m fine,” she finally managed between coughs, though her ears were ringing and her whole body felt like it had been shaken apart. “What was that?”
Noah helped her sit up. Then he turned his flashlight toward the passage they’d come through. The beam cut through the haze of dust.
Where the entrance had been—their way out—there was now only a solid wall of rubble. Tons of broken stone. The way back completely blocked.
Meg stared at it. Her mind struggled to process what she was seeing.
She’d been brave, but it didn’t matter. Courage changed nothing.
They were trapped.
What had Lydia’s file said? Her father was a explosives expert. Looked like Jeremy must have picked up a few tricks from his dad. Then he’d led them into a trap and sealed their fate. They were buried alive.