Chapter 15
Chapter Fifteen
Bella
The gap was too small. I squeezed forward, rocks scraping my shoulders and digging into my ribs.
Oh God, the gap's narrowing. I dragged myself another foot, gasping, my fingers scrabbling at loose stone.
How did Declan fit through this? A sharp edge caught my hip wound, and white-hot pain exploded through me.
Choking on a cry, I froze for a second.
Don't think about the weight above.
Don't imagine tons of rock crushing me.
Panic flooded my veins. Move. Move! I locked my eyes on the light ahead and clawed forward, ignoring the rocks tearing at my dress, my skin, everything. Just that light. Just get to that light.
“How you doing, Bella?” Declan's voice echoed from the other side.
“I'm okay. Almost there.”
The candle flickered in the distance. Just a little further.
The gap widened. I shoved hard, squeezed through, and tumbled out beside him in a heap.
“Jesus, that was fast.”
As I pushed myself up, Declan helped me to stand.
“It was easy,” I lied. That had been terrifying. But I'd done it. I'd done a lot of terrifying things in the last month. It would be great to get back to normal again.
Who was I kidding? My life would never be normal again. Ever.
I dusted dirt off my hands onto my dress. “Did you find the elevator to the surface?”
He huffed out a laugh. “Yeah, right behind the champagne bar.” He picked up the candle from the rock. “I found this, though. It’s an emergency candle from an old lunch pail. Let's see where the hell we are.”
We walked side by side away from the cave-in. The tunnel stretched into darkness that swallowed our candlelight ahead. Our footsteps echoed strangely, like someone was walking behind us, and I kept glancing over my shoulder, searching the absolute blackness.
The tunnel widened into a small chamber lined with sagging timber supports.
Declan raised the candle higher, and the light spread across the space.
My breath caught. “Oh God.” Men lay on the ground.
No, not men anymore. Skeletons. Three were sprawled across the dirt floor. Another three were slumped against the wall, still sitting where they must have waited for a rescue that never came.
“Jesus,” Declan whispered, crouching next to the seventh body, which was curled on his side, knees drawn up like a small child as if he'd been trying to sleep.
The bodies still wore their work clothes, but the fabrics had rotted to scraps. Their boots were still laced, and dented hard hats lay nearby.
My throat tightened, yet I couldn't look away. They'd died down here in the dark, together. Had they known it was the end?
“They must’ve been terrified,” I whispered.
Declan stood, and his hand found mine, gripping tight.
I bit back the pain in my blistered palm, needing his touch. “What an awful way to die. How come nobody searched for them?”
“It was too dangerous. The mine shut down right after that collapse, and no one ever came back.”
“Until you reopened it.”
He was silent, staring at the skeletal remains of men who'd died doing the same thing we were doing—trying to find a way out.
My throat tightened. “These poor men.”
“Yeah.” Declan's voice was rough. He moved the candle slowly, revealing more of the chamber. Rusted equipment littered the ground—pickaxes, shovels, and other tools I didn't recognize.
“I won't leave them here,” Declan said, still studying the bodies.
I touched his arm. “What?”
“When we get out, and we will get out, I'm coming back for these men. They need a proper burial.” He swallowed hard. “Their families deserve closure. Koolaroo owes them that much.”
I nodded. Declan was a good man. He was different from his brothers and sister, but he was also nothing like the Bransons my mother had warned me about.
He wasn't ruthless or evil. Declan was kind and considerate, and every time he captured my gaze, he took my breath away.
It was like he was truly seeing me. The real me. Not the murderer I'd become.
The earth above us groaned, and I stepped back instinctively. “What was that?”
“Just the mine settling. It does that sometimes.”
I shuddered. This place gave me the creeps.
Declan couldn't seem to look away from the skeletons against the wall. “They couldn't do anything,” he said. “They just waited here in the dark.”
The candlelight flickered, and for a moment, the shadows made it appear as though the skeletons shifted.
They’d been trapped.
Just like us.
The room even felt like a graveyard; quiet, heavy, and filled with the kind of stillness I’d felt at both of my parents’ funerals. That crushing silence had made me want to scream just to prove I was still alive.
Rusted machinery slumped in the shadows, the rough-cut beams overhead drooped under their own weight, and the air held the stale, metallic taste.
“We need to find a way out, Declan,” I said, my voice barely steady.
Before we end up just like them.
Declan nodded, but he still stared at the bodies. “There were eleven men trapped in the collapse. The reports said eleven.”
I looked around the chamber. Counted again. “There are only seven here.”
He turned slowly, sweeping the candlelight across the walls. “The others must’ve tried another way out.”
“Where?”
We moved past the bodies into the tunnel that continued beyond the chamber, narrowing again. We walked in silence, yet our footsteps seemed so loud in the confined space.
The air grew colder, and a steady drip of water echoed from somewhere ahead.
The tunnel twisted left, then right, forcing us to turn sideways in places. The walls pressed closer, and my panicky breath came shorter and faster.
Declan stopped so suddenly that I ran into him.
“What’s wrong?” I asked.
On our left was another passage, narrower than the last. The opening was barely three feet wide, cut roughly into the rock like someone had carved it in a hurry.
He held the candle higher. Someone had painted a warning in faded red letters across the entrance:
DANGER
LOWER LEVEL FLOODS
NO ACCESS
Below it, someone had scrawled in red paint: Balls deep water. This way to hell.
“Jesus,” I whispered.
Declan stepped closer, angling the candle into the shaft. The tunnel sloped sharply downward for about ten feet, then dropped away completely.
He lay on his stomach, holding the candle over the opening.
I knelt beside him and looked down.
Oh God.
A ladder descended into the darkness. But not a real one. This was made of pieces of timber and tools, lashed together with rope so old it had turned black. They'd used the handles of a pickaxe, a shovel, and a hammer as ladder rungs. Even a crowbar had been tied at an angle to create a foothold.
“Jesus,” Declan breathed. “The miners built this. They were trying to escape.”
“Oh Jeez. They must’ve been terrified.”
Declan's eyes filled with sorrow. “And desperate.”
The rope was frayed and unraveling in places, the fibers splitting apart. Some of the timber had rotted clear through, leaving gaps where rungs used to be. Water stains and rust bled together in dark streaks down the stone walls, looking too much like old blood.
The candlelight didn't reach the bottom. But water dripped somewhere far below, each drop echoing to me like a clock ticking down.
“That doesn't look safe,” I said. “There has to be another way.”
Declan didn't answer. He just stared down into that black hole. “The other four men must've gone this way,” he murmured.
I looked at the warning and message scrawled in red again. If they’d gone this way, they hadn’t made it out of hell.
“When the upper tunnels collapsed,” Declan continued, “they came down here and built this ladder from whatever they had, looking for another route out.”
“But they didn't make it, did they?”
“No. The eleven men were never seen again.” He reached down and tested the first piece of timber with his hand. It creaked but held. “Maybe the water level has gone down since then. It's been sixty years.”
Oh God, he really is considering using it. “Maybe.”
He looked at me, his face half-shadowed in the candlelight. “We don't have a choice, Bella. We have to try.”
My throat tightened. I stared at that makeshift ladder disappearing into the darkness. At the rotted rope holding it together. At the gap where a rung had broken away.
I swallowed. “How far down do you think it goes?”
“Don't know.” The dread in his eyes told me he was just as terrified as I was. “I'll go first. Test it. If it holds, I'll call up for you.”
“What? Shit, Declan, what if it doesn't hold?”
He pulled another candle from his pocket and lit it from the first. “Here. You'll need your own light when you come down.”
I took it, and my hand shook so badly the flame wobbled.
“Hold it steady,” he said, draping his hand over my wrist. His touch was warm. Sturdy. How was he staying calm?
For a second, neither of us moved as the two small flames flickered between us.
“We could keep looking for another way out,” I said. “Or we could—”
“Bella.” He squeezed my wrist gently. “I'm doing this. It's not up for debate.”
Of course he was, because Declan was the bravest man I knew.
Brave or crazy. Maybe both. But he was doing this for me.
No man had ever put me first, and I loved him for that.
“Okay,” I said, though it wasn't okay. Nothing about this was okay.
Declan lowered himself over the edge, gripping the first timber rung with one hand while holding his candle in the other. The wood groaned. Rope fibers popped and creaked.
But it held.
“Be careful,” I whispered.
“This thing's survived sixty years. It'll survive this time.” He looked up at me again, his jaw set with determination. “Don't come down until I call you.”
My chest tightened. “Declan—”
Ignoring me, he descended the ladder, dropping into the darkness.
I lay on my stomach at the edge, my own candle trembling in my hand.
The rope ladder twisted and swayed in the candlelight, casting wild shadows on the rock face. The golden glow shrank as he dropped lower. Five feet. Ten. Fifteen.
“You okay?” I called down.
“Yeah.” His voice echoed up, strained with concentration. “How's the view up there?”
“Terrible. You?”
Each creak of the wood made my stomach drop. Each groan of rope sounded like it was about to snap.
“Same. I liked it better when I could see up your dress.”
I giggled despite myself. “Just concentrate on what you're doing.”
“It's hard. The white panties with the daisies are permanently burned into my vision.”
Leave it to Declan to crack jokes while dangling from a dodgy ladder.
The light dropped further. Twenty feet. Thirty.
“Well, if you don't make it to the bottom, you'll never see them again.”
“Oh, now that's an incentive.”
The candle flame stopped moving. But Declan didn't call up to me.
“Are you there?”
Silence.
My heart lurched. “Declan?”
“I'm on a ledge.” His voice was different now. Tight. “I found something.”
“What is it?”
“One of those lunch boxes.” A pause. “Okay, your turn. Be careful.”
Resting the candle on the ground, I swung my leg over the edge and found the second rung with my foot.
The rope creaked and wobbled.
Shit. This is going to be hell.
My heart hammered against my ribs as I grabbed the candle and lowered down another rung.
The makeshift steps were rough under my blistered palms, and holding the candle while climbing down made it even harder. So, I blew out the flame and tucked the candle into my pocket.
“Bella! Are you okay?”
“Yes, I just couldn't hold the candle and the rope. My hands...”
“Okay, just take your time.”
The ladder seemed endless. My arms burned. My blistered hands stung with new agony.
“How you doing?” Declan's voice echoed from below.
“Fantastic,” I lied.
Down. Down. Down.
My foot slipped on a rung slick with moisture, and I gasped, gripping tighter.
“Easy does it,” Declan called up. “Just a few more feet.”
The candlelight below grew brighter. I could make out the narrow shelf of rock jutting from the wall where Declan stood.
“Almost there.” He held the candle up, reaching for me with his free hand.
I lowered myself one more rung. “You're looking up my dress again, aren't you?”
“No.”
“You absolutely are.”
“Okay, yep. Guilty. Best view I've had in hours.”
I giggled. “You're impossible.”
“Me? You're the one always flashing your knickers at me.”
I laughed louder, and the sound echoed off the stone walls.
My foot finally touched down on solid ground, and Declan gripped my waist, steadying me as I stepped onto the ledge beside him. He pulled me to the side. “Sit here, and rest for a bit.”
I sat on the ledge with my back against the stone wall.
Declan sat beside me. “Here.” He handed me a yellowed, folded piece of paper. “Found this in that metal lunch box.” He nodded at the rusted metal container beside him.
I unfolded the yellowing paper, and using his candle to see, I read the handwritten note.
May 3, 1963
We've been trapped in the darkness for four days since the shaft collapsed.
Me, Roger Thompson, Jonas Horton, and Mike Thatcher all drew the fucking short straws.
So here I am, stuck in a flooded mine in the pitch black, listening to water rushing so loud I can't hear myself think.
I'm trying to be brave. Be a hero. But I'm scared out of my mind.
We plan to reach the old drainage tunnel that runs west. That's our only chance.
If you find this note, please tell my wife, Margaret, and my son, Billy, that my thoughts are with them.
Thomas Reilly
“Oh God. That poor man.” I folded the note up and handed it back to Declan.
“Yeah. It would’ve been terrifying. The water must’ve been up to here, Bella.” Declan pointed at a watermark on the wall. “That's where I found the lunch pail, shoved in that gap. This section must've been completely flooded.”
I tried to see where the water was now, but couldn't see over the edge. I rolled onto my hands and knees, and at the edge, I peered down.
My heart sank. I could just see the water, about seven feet below. The ladder had either rotted away or been torn apart by the water, ending just a foot below us.
Declan crawled to my side and leaned over the edge beside me, our shoulders touching. “So, the good news is the water is nowhere near as high as it was when those men tried to escape.”
“And the bad news?” I asked.
“Once we get down there, we can't get back up.”