Chapter 23
The passages were dark and they had to use the flashlights on their multi-slates to see. At a crossroads not far from the main room, the paths diverged, ones leading left and right, and another straight.
“We checked the one on the right a bit,” Ellery said.
“Go left,” Ryker repeated his earlier decision. “We’ll keep moving forward.”
“Meet back here within a half hour,” Uriel suggested. “We don’t know how far this goes, but it’s presumably at least the entire building. Since it’s underground, it could go further than that.”
“Push it to forty-five minutes,” Ryker said. “Gives us more time to get somewhere and make the return trip. But if anything happens or feels off, come back immediately. And watch your backs. If this is my father—”
Ellery snorted. “Who the hell else could it be?”
“—he won’t be far from his control room for long,” Ryker finished as if he hadn’t spoken. “If he catches you down here, he won’t go easy on you simply because you’re Black Harts.”
“Clearly,” his friend stated dryly. “This is the same guy who unleashed a flesh ripping monster in the lodge his son is staying at. If he isn’t protecting his heir, he sure as shit isn’t going to care about us.”
With that final warning delivered, they broke off, each group going a different direction, moving further away from each other.
Rue kept a step behind Ryker, allowing the Black Hart to take the lead mostly so he could hang back with Bowie and gauge how his friend was handling things.
“How was your night?” Admittedly, it was a fairly stupid question, but he needed an ice breaker, and that seemed to do the trick.
Bowie chuckled humorlessly. “Fan-fucking-tastic. I spent it curled up in a broom closet in an empty room. You?”
He opened his mouth, catching himself just before saying he’d slept comfortably wrapped in Ryker’s arms. Rue cleared his throat. “Esti’s scream woke me.”
“Yeah, that was brutal.” He shivered and then batted a low hanging cobweb out of the way.
“Hard to believe just last week she was cheating off Lenore’s math test, and now…
We’re all that’s left. Though, I guess…” He reached out and tugged lightly on Rue’s arm, causing him to fall back a little more.
“Do you think Rhys planned it this way on purpose? Made sure the Black Harts wouldn’t be attacked like the rest of us? ”
“You heard Uriel,” Rue reminded. “There’s no way to control those things in that way.”
“That they know of. Maybe they just haven’t found everything yet. Isn’t that why we’re currently here right now? To look for more clues? Ryker is the Hart heir. His dad is a prick, but even he wouldn’t risk his only available offspring.”
“That implies that Ryker is in on it, and he isn’t.”
“How can you be so certain?”
“I just am. I know him.”
“Better than you know me?” Bowie frowned. “You trust him more. I’m supposed to be your best friend, Rue.”
“You are.” He tried to soften his tone, not wanting to hurt his feelings, but needing to put his foot down on this matter.
Bowie hadn’t even seen the game manual or heard about it, yet he was already hellbent on dragging Ryker into things.
They needed to work together in order to make it out of this alive.
Which meant Bowie couldn’t doubt the Black Harts. “You’re my best friend, but he’s…”
“You’re in love with him,” Bowie accused. “Even after everything he’s done? How could you?”
“Hate to break up this adorable heart to heart session,” Ryker called from ten or so feet ahead, barely lifting his voice to do so, “but I would be remiss not to point out that sound travels here, no matter how low you whisper.”
Rue winced.
Bowie glared at Ryker’s back.
They moved silently for a while after that, sticking close together, checking doors whenever they cropped up. There was never anything interesting inside, and more often than not, they spent less than a minute or two looking through them before continuing on.
After a while, they came to the end of the hall and stopped in front of a final door. Ryker reached out without hesitation, finding it unlocked. When he opened it, it revealed a stairwell heading up. At the very top, a faint beam of light could be seen rimmed around what appeared to be an exit.
“Wait here,” he instructed Rue, then slowly made his way up the stairs, head tilted as he listened. At the top, he pressed his ear to the wood, then nodded back once to signal that it seemed safe.
Sunlight filtered in when he opened it, momentarily blinding Rue and Bowie. Rue blinked and held up an arm, and when he lowered it a moment later, Ryker was completely out of sight. Despite the order, he found himself taking the steps two at a time, worry getting the better of him.
A relieved sigh passed his lips the second he came to the top landing and found Ryker standing ten or so feet away.
“This is the fishing cabin,” Ryker said, keeping his voice low. He was staring at a dark green velvet couch set off to the side, or more specifically, at the hunting jacket resting over the backing. “That belongs to my father.”
Now that it’d been brought to his attention, Rue recognized it. This must be where he and the other two board members had gone the morning the fog first rolled in.
The cabin was small, square shaped, with four blank walls, and a single attached room that had nothing but a toilet and a sink in it. It was far more rustic than Rue ever would have suspected Rhys could handle, but then, he obviously never gave the always polished CEO of Hart Holding enough credit.
There was a window on every side, two flanking the one with the door leading out into the forest. From the one closest to him, Rue could spot the lake. There were chairs set up around it, and a dock off to the side, but he didn’t see anyone out there.
“The fog has cleared some,” Ryker mentioned, moving to the exit. Floorboards creaked beneath his boots, but he didn’t flinch at the sounds he was making, seemingly confident in the blaster he still clutched in his right hand. “It probably only comes up to the knees now.”
“Wait—” Rue cursed when the Black Hart didn’t listen, watching him pull open the door and step out into the wilderness.
He followed quickly, not liking Ryker out of his sight, and caught up just in time to see the other man cross the wide porch and come to a pause at the edge, just before a set of three steps led onto a dirt path that wound its way to the water.
Rue leaned to the side, trying to see what had given him pause, and inhaled sharply when his eyes landed on the body.
Izan Augustine was propped against the side of the railing, missing an arm and with teeth marks torn through his throat. He was no longer bleeding, and the color had turned muddy. Flies zipped around, the incessant buzzing somehow making the whole situation worse.
“He’s been dead a while,” Ryker came to the same conclusion as Rue. His eyes scanned their surroundings, taking in the trees and the clear path to the lake. There were four chairs set out, but one of them had been toppled over. It was the only hint that there’d possibly been a struggle.
Ryker made his way down the steps, then paused a second time.
The fog drifted around his calves and skated up to his knees, but he’d been right in his assumption that it was clearing, and fast. They couldn’t make out the actual forest floor to search for other clues, but if they waited another ten minutes, they might be able to.
Not that Rue planned on them sticking around for that long. He didn’t like being out in the open like this, even with the gun.
“How many bullets are left?” he asked the Black Hart, recalling that Ellery had commented on saving ammunition at some point this weekend. It’d completely slipped his mind, but considering how often the weapon had been fired, they had to be close to the end of supply. “Let’s go back.”
Ryker didn’t answer.
“Ryk, there’s nothing here.” They weren’t going to find anything. The cabin was a decent way’s away from the main lodge too, which meant they’d traveled further underground than either of them must have thought.
“There’s nothing inside,” Bowie called to them, appearing in the doorway. He must have been searching.
A breeze blew past, kicking up tendrils of fog and sending leaves clinking like rain on a tin roof. It could have been pleasant after being couped up indoors the past few days, but it brought a chill with it that had Rue shivering.
Ryker’s gaze dropped to his feet, and even though his back was to him, Rue noticed the tense set of his shoulders and how his entire body went still.
Something in the trees to the right moved, branches displaced loudly.
“Go back!” Ryker spun on his heels and raced back up the steps just as a roar rumbled. He shoved Rue into the cabin and slammed the door shut.
Rue glanced at the window and caught sight of a bear, this one without antlers, bounding up to the cabin. The creature would look normal, if not for the fact its entire face was missing.
One of the altered specimens.
He let Ryker shove him down the stairwell, Bowie yet again taking up the rear.
They ran, not stopping even once they were back underground and engulfed by darkness. Ryker merely tapped his flashlight on, grabbed onto Rue’s wrist, and sprinted straight ahead.
It should have been safe as soon as they’d come back indoors, but they hadn’t been running for long before the unmistakable sounds of something big barreling after them echoed at their backs.
The creature had followed them into the tunnels, gaining speed, its powerful steps mixed with the sounds of its body scraping against the walls on either side of its large form growing louder and louder with each passing heartbeat.
Rue had no clue where they were going, but it occurred to him that they weren’t going to make it. Almost as soon as he had the though, Bowie grabbed him from behind, yanking him back with enough force he found himself roughly separated from Ryker.
Their hands reached out for one another, but in the shock of the moment, Rue didn’t consider fighting off Bowie.