Chapter 31
Sorcha
And we do a piss-poor job of it.
Cillian’s hand is still wrapped around mine, a solid weight that’s both an anchor and a cage. I glance at him, at the hard line of his jaw, and he meets my gaze. He doesn’t smile, just gives my hand a squeeze that says everything and nothing.
Axl walks on my other side, a coiled spring of nonchalant violence. Ciar brings up the rear, a fucking mountain of a man acting as our shield. We look like a military escort, not four students heading back from a coffee run.
Every head turns as we step back onto the quad.
The whispers start up again, louder this time.
I can feel their eyes on me, hundreds of them, judging, speculating.
The taskforce is still here, their black SUVs parked near the Admin building, a stark reminder of what we just ran from.
A couple of them clock us, their expressions unreadable, but they don’t move.
Not yet. Alex bought us time, but I have no idea how much.
“Late lunch?” Axl asks. “I’m famished.”
I stare at Axl like he’s lost his mind. “Lunch? Are you serious right now?”
“I’m always serious about food, sunshine.” He gives me that infuriating smirk, the one that says he’s completely unbothered by the fact that we’re being eyeballed by a specialised taskforce.
“We should eat,” Cillian says, his grip on my hand loosening slightly. “Keeps us visible, keeps us looking normal.”
Normal. Right. Because there’s nothing abnormal about being suspected of murder and hiding between floors before being driven around Dublin and then sent back into the hornet’s nest.
But he’s right, and I hate that he’s right. We need to act like we have nothing to hide, even though we have everything to hide. My stomach growls, betraying me, and I realise I haven’t eaten anything substantial since this morning.
“Fine,” I mutter, and we head towards the dining hall.
To my annoyance, it’s packed, students huddled around tables.
Everyone was delayed by the lockdown and manhunt, and here I am, waltzing around like nothing has happened.
My hands are steady as I pile food onto my plate, even though my insides are churning.
Cillian stays close, his presence a solid wall between me and the rest of the room.
We find a table near the back, and I slide into the seat, acutely aware of how exposed we are. Axl sits across from me, Ciar beside him, and Cillian takes the seat to my right, positioning himself so he has a clear view of the entire hall.
“Eat,” Cillian murmurs.
I pick up my fork and force myself to take a bite. Around us, conversations carry on as normal, but I catch the odd glance in our direction. It pisses me off, but I shovel more food into my mouth. I need to keep going, this is going to be long-arsed day—it already has been—and I need to keep going.
“Fuck this,” I say after a few minutes of chewing and swallowing, but not really tasting anything. “I’m going to the chapel.”
“Do we really want to do that while the OCU is still hovering?” Axl asks.
“No, but we don’t have a choice. We should’ve already found what’s down there. We’ve been delayed, and I can’t help but think that is not good.”
I watch the tension ripple across their faces, the silent calculation happening behind their eyes.
We’re all thinking the same thing: that whoever killed Smythe might be after what’s under that chapel, and every second we waste gives them a head start.
It’s supposed to be a secret, but we all know the odds of that are highly slim to none at this point.
“She’s right,” Ciar says, pushing his plate away. “We need to move.”
Cillian grips my hand under the table, his thumb brushing over my knuckles. “Then we move together.”
I nod, grateful for the solidarity even as my stomach twists with nerves. I shove one more bite into my mouth and stand.
We dump our trays and head out into the rainy, grey afternoon.
Across the campus, the chapel waits for us, its Gothic spires piercing the grey sky as if reaching for something they’ll never touch.
My pulse picks up as we approach, and I scan the area for any sign of the taskforce or anyone else who might be watching.
There are students milling about, but no one appears to be watching us or observing. Who knows who is lurking, though? But we don’t have a choice. We have to do this whether there are eyes on us or not.
The chapel doors are heavy oak, worn smooth by centuries of hands.
Axl reaches them first and pulls one open.
We step inside the holy place, the echo of our footfalls bouncing off stone walls and vaulted ceilings.
I shiver as my eyes adjust to the gloom, the only light filtering through stained glass windows.
The chapel is eerily quiet, the kind of silence that presses against your eardrums and makes you hyperaware of your own breathing.
I glance around, taking in the rows of wooden pews, the stone altar at the far end, the massive iron chandelier suspended from the ceiling by chains thick enough to moor a ship.
I pull the map out of my pocket and hand it to Axl. “Where do we start?” I whisper.
“The entrance should be near the altar. There’s a marking here that matches the ones we saw in the tunnels.”
We move towards the altar as a unit, my boots echoing on the flagstones despite my attempt at stealth. I feel exposed, vulnerable, like we’re about to desecrate something sacred.
Ciar reaches the altar first and drops to his knees, running his hands over the stone base. “Here,” he grunts, his fingers finding purchase on something. “There’s a seam.”
I crouch beside him, and sure enough, there’s a barely visible line in the stone, so faint it could be mistaken for a crack. My heart hammers as Ciar applies pressure, and I hear a soft click.
A section of the floor beside the altar shifts, revealing a dark opening and stone steps descending into blackness.
“Why do I feel that was too easy?” I mutter.
“Because it was,” Cillian replies, shining his phone flashlight down into the hole. “I’ll go first.”
I don’t argue.
He takes the steps slowly, disappearing into the ground, and I follow, hoping there are no more underground rivers or anything potentially trauma-inducing down there.
The steps are steep and narrow. I trail my hand along the cold stone wall for balance. The air grows colder with each step down. It smells of damp and the earth. Behind me, I hear Axl and Ciar following, their heavier footfalls creating a rhythm that’s almost comforting in the oppressive darkness.
“How far down does this go?” I ask, my voice bouncing off the walls.
“Not much further,” Cillian says.
We reach the bottom, and I crowd in beside him, my hand brushing his as we stand in a small antechamber. The ceiling is low enough that the guys have to duck slightly, and the walls are lined with more of those interlocking circle symbols, carved deep into the stone.
“There,” Axl says, his light catching something ahead. “Another passage.”
We move forward into a corridor that’s wider than the stairs, thank fuck.
My pulse thrums in my ears as we walk, every shadow making me jump.
I keep expecting something to leap out at us, or for the ceiling to collapse, or for Mickey Ryan to materialise from the darkness with a garrotte in his hands.
The passage opens into a chamber, and I stop dead, my breath catching in my throat.
It’s massive. The ceiling arches high above us, supported by stone pillars carved with elaborate symbols. The chamber is empty, which sets my nerves on edge.
“Axl?”
“I think we need to keep going.”
“Where?” I ask, looking around. “There is nowhere to go.”
He rustles the map, turning it around and frowns. “It’s not to scale, so it’s really difficult to tell.”
Axl squints at the map, rotating it like that’s going to magically make sense of what we’re looking at. My frustration spikes. We’ve come all this way, risked everything, and now we’re standing in an empty chamber with no clue where to go next.
“Give me that,” I say, snatching the map from his hands. I hold my phone close to it, studying the faded ink and intricate lines. The chamber we’re in should be marked, but he’s right, the scale is so off I can’t tell where we are.
“Look,” Cillian says, pointing to one of the pillars. “Another symbol.”
I move closer, tracing my fingers over the carved circles. They’re deeper here, more pronounced, and there’s something about the way they’re arranged that feels deliberate. “These aren’t random,” I murmur. “They’re a pattern.”
“A pattern for what?” Ciar asks, coming to stand beside me.
I study the symbols. “I don’t know. Not my area of expertise.”
A grinding sound suddenly echoes through the chamber, making me jump. I spin around to see Axl pressing his hand against one of the symbols on the opposite pillar.
“What did you do?” I hiss.
“Pushed it,” he says with a shrug.
The grinding intensifies, and I watch in horror as the pillar he’s touching sinks into the floor. My stomach drops as the entire chamber shudders, dust raining down from the ceiling above us.
“Axl!” I shout, but it’s too late.
The floor beneath our feet shifts, and I grab onto Cillian’s arm to steady myself. The pillar continues its descent, disappearing into the stone floor with a final, echoing thud that makes my teeth rattle.
For a moment, nothing happens. We stand frozen, waiting for the ceiling to collapse or the floor to give way or something equally catastrophic.
Then another grinding sound echoes around us, but this time it’s coming from the far end of the chamber. A section of the wall slides open, revealing yet another passage.
“Well,” I say, my voice shaky. “I guess that worked.”
“Don’t sound so surprised,” Axl says, though I can hear the relief in his tone. “I knew what I was doing.”
“Did you?” I snap, my fear translating into anger. “Because it looked like you were just randomly pushing shit.”
“Educated guess,” he fires back.
I roll my eyes and force myself to breathe and head towards the newly revealed passage. My phone light illuminates rough stone walls that look older than anything we’ve seen so far. The air is stale, thick with centuries of undisturbed dust that makes my throat itch.
“Stay close,” Cillian murmurs behind me, his hand on the small of my back.
I nod, even though he probably can’t see it in the dim light. The passage is narrow, forcing us into single file again. My shoulders brush the walls on either side, and I have to fight down the rising panic that wants to claw its way up my throat. Not again. Not another confined space.
This one stays level, which is somehow more unnerving. My boots scuff against the stone floor, the sound too loud in the oppressive silence.
“How far does this go?” I whisper.
“Can’t tell,” Axl says from behind Ciar. “The map doesn’t show any of this.”
Of course it doesn’t. Because nothing about this day has been straightforward.
The passage opens abruptly into another chamber, and I stumble forward into the space, grateful for room to breathe. My phone light sweeps across the area, and I freeze.
This chamber isn’t empty.