Chapter 23 Diantha
Diantha
The group breaks apart according to our plan.
Orfeo and Misha head to “work” the event, the new Italian vampires take up their positions inside and around Paquet Manor, and Leo and I get back in his car and head toward the library.
Anxiety rocks my stomach as I pull my phone out of my jacket pocket to check for new messages one last time.
But Evie still hasn’t gotten back to me.
Leo’s eyes flit toward me, away from the road. “You’ll have to leave your phone in the car.”
“I know.” I shake my head. “I just don’t understand why Evie hasn’t texted me back. I even tried calling her last night. It just rang and rang.”
“We’ll find her, Diantha,” he says gravely. “I promise.”
I want to believe him. I really, really do.
I don’t have much time to dwell, because we’re soon parking the car on Main Street and darting through the night toward the University of Echidna library.
My badge scans us into the back entrance with no problem, but finding the catacomb entrance based on a few footnotes on Leo’s map takes an infuriating amount of time.
Eventually, we find the entrance in a back room of the library archives, behind an empty bookshelf bolted to the wall.
Leo and I regard it with fists pressed to our hips.
“You planning on finishing your degree here?”
“Uh.” I frown. “No, why?”
Leo grabs the bookshelf and, with a deep and guttural grunt, yanks it clean off the wall. Bolts shoot across the room, dust flies up in a puff, and I duck, covering my face. He then drops the bookshelf to the floor where it lands with a horrible, clanking metal thunk.
“That’s why,” he says, dusting his hands off.
The tunnel entrance is nothing special—an older, smaller wooden door painted over with fifty-million coats of white paint—but when I press my fingertips to it, that tingling, singing sensation courses through my limbs, the same as I felt the night we went into the catacombs.
I nod. “This is it.”
“Perfect.” Leo pulls a butterfly knife from his back pocket, flicks it open, and jams the blade into the lock.
He jiggles it until we hear a satisfying click.
“Before we go in…” Leo turns back to face me.
“I know I couldn’t take the pledge tonight, but informally, I wanted you to know…
” He clears his throat, folds up the knife, and slips it back into his pocket. “I am willing to die for you.”
“Oh.” I blink. “Thank you, Leo. That means a lot to me.”
“Don’t mention it.” Then, he pulls open the tunnel door and disappears into the darkness.
I turn on my phone’s flashlight and step into the unknown.