Declan pulled a stake from the inside pocket of his bomber jacket before shrugging it off and handing it to Asher. He removed the holster keeping his sai swords strapped in an X across his back and set them on the ground; he couldn’t take the chance they’d get caught on the debris jutting into the tunnel and hinder his retreat. He should take off his shirt to avoid getting it snagged on the wreckage of the tunnel, but that wasn’t going to happen.
“I’m coming with you,” Logan said.
“No,” Declan said. “If it becomes necessary, I’ll have to retreat fast, and I can’t if you’re behind me.”
Logan clamped his lips against a protest and nodded.
“Here’s a flashlight,” Vicky said and handed him a small light.
“Thank you,” Declan said as he took it from her.
Kneeling on the ground, he turned on the light and shone it around the chunks of concrete jutting out like monstrous teeth looking to devour him. Now is not the time to develop an imagination.
Gripping the edges of the tunnel, he pulled himself into the opening. Before, a ladder descended into this pit of misery, but if that ladder still stood, the rubble had buried it.
The opening was bigger and easier to navigate than he anticipated, but it still had the stifling, claustrophobic feeling of a tomb. Hopefully, it didn’t become his tomb as he used pieces of concrete to keep his descent slow.
He could have descended feet first as the debris created hand and footholds that could be scaled, but this way, he would see if something came at him. With the concrete muffling all sound, it would be too easy for a hand to snake out, capture his ankle, and tear him away before he was aware anyone was there.
If Savages were hiding down here when Lucien and the others arrived, he understood how they were able to get out of the tunnel to overwhelm them. And that had to be what happened. It was the only thing that made sense.
They probably had a few hunters who could better tolerate the sunlight standing guard in the woods. Those guards would have alerted their cohorts to a threat and helped in the ambush. If there were enough Savages—and there must have been because the Alliance wouldn’t have gone down without a fight—they would have been overwhelmed.
After twenty feet, the ground leveled out, and he realized he was in the main part of the tunnel. Dust danced in the beam as he played it over the rubble littering the floor and the jagged pieces of rock, dirt, and tree roots over his head.
Propped against the walls, pieces of wood attempted to keep the structure from collapsing. How it hadn’t fallen yet, he didn’t know, but he prayed it held up until he was out of here.
He couldn’t quite stand in the space, but he could rise enough to walk down the tunnel in a crouch. The lingering stench of Savage rot hung heavily in the air, but he didn’t hear any noise or see any of them.
He was a hundred feet into the tunnel when a side tunnel opened on his left. Declan switched the beam back and forth between the side tunnel and the main one where he stood. He was right not to let Logan come with him, but no matter which way he decided to go, his back was unprotected.
“Shit,” he muttered as he ran a hand through his hair and tugged at the ends of it.
He debated going back for Logan, but they were losing daylight. Deciding to continue forward, he moved faster as he swung the beam between the wreckage in front of and behind him.
He only covered another fifty feet before the tunnel ended in a wall of debris. Running his hands over the rubble, he pushed and shoved against it to make sure he wasn’t missing something, but it didn’t budge. The Savages hadn’t tunneled beyond this point.
Turning back, he returned to the side tunnel. He crouched lower to avoid taking a piece of concrete to the head, but still navigated the tunnel with relative ease. And then, after thirty feet, the tunnel opened up, and for the first time, he could rise to his full six-foot-three height.
He stretched his shoulders back and turned his head from side to side as he flashed the beam over the closed doors lining the tunnel. He recalled the tiny, cell-like rooms from when they discovered Elyse’s father huddled inside one.
Recalling the battered, broken, and bloodied Raymond they pulled from here renewed his anger. Over the years, he’d grown to like the odd little man. Though it took Raymond a while to warm up to them after his torture at the hands of Savages, he eventually did. The man was a never-ending supply of corny jokes, good with the kids, and a connoisseur of fine brandy that he often shared with Declan.
Declan shone the beam into the window of the first room on his right. The beam bounced off concrete walls before settling on a cot. The room was small enough that nothing could hide in the corners, so he didn’t bother to open the door.
He strode across the hall to inspect the room across the way. He didn’t bother investigating this room as a pile of rubble filled the window. Making his way down the tunnel, he checked more of the rooms. Some of them were empty, and the tunnel collapse destroyed others.
He didn’t realize part of him was hoping to discover Willow and Lucien here, but as he neared the wall of debris at the end of the tunnel, it looked like that wasn’t going to happen. At the end of the tunnel, the last door on the left was open.
As Declan neared it, he scented the air, but the rot of the Savages didn’t increase, and he didn’t hear or sense the emotions of anyone. Still, he held his stake tighter as he prepared to drive it through the heart of anything in that room.
When he reached the door, he stuck his foot out and pulled it further open with his toe. Nothing rushed out at him, and the only sound in the tunnel was the steady rise and fall of his breaths.
Declan stepped into the doorway and aimed his flashlight inside to reveal a cell five times the size of the others. Pushed against the far wall was a massive, king-sized bed. Black cloaks hung inside the open armoire on the wall closest to him. He recalled the demon wore a cloak just like them. This was that thing’s room.
Declan’s lip curled in disgust, and after inspecting the rest of the room, he kicked the door shut. Standing in the tunnel, he played the beam over the walls as he tried to figure out what they were trying to accomplish here.
He suspected whatever it was had something to do with the demon’s room and that they accomplished their mission before Lucien and the others arrived. He could picture them all crowded into the main tunnel, waiting for nightfall when the Alliance arrived. And they would have burst out of here and taken them all down.
There were a lot of Savages here if they’d accomplished what they had here in the short time the cameras were down. But what was so important they’d risk returning to this place?
They knew the Alliance monitored it and would come for them. They might have been setting a trap, but they’d done too much digging for it to be entirely a trap.
Declan tried to puzzle this out as he made his way back toward the main tunnel, but he had no idea what could have brought them back here. The demon was dead; he was sure of it. The flames it emitted burnt his cheek before he released it and watched as fire consumed its body.
The clatter of rocks from somewhere up ahead caused his step to slow as his lips skimmed back. He was spoiling for a fight that would unleash some of his mounting frustration and fury. If there was a Savage in here, he would make it regret its poor life decisions.
“Declan!” Logan hissed from the main tunnel.
Some of his tension eased, but he’d still enjoy beating the shit out of something. “I’m coming back.”
Logan’s feet scraped against concrete as he retreated. At the end of the tunnel, Declan grasped pieces of debris and scaled it in less than a second. Yes, the Savages could have flooded out of this tunnel and overwhelmed the others before they knew what was happening. At the time, the Alliance had the sun on their side, but the Savages would have had the shadows of the forest, and there were plenty of those.
Declan sat on the edge of the opening with his feet still dangling into it as he blinked against the sun’s rays. Lifting the back of his arm, he wiped away the dust and debris clinging to his forehead.
“What did you find?” Vicky asked anxiously.
“They were digging their way toward something.” Declan took the container of water Asher handed him and dumped some of it over his head before scrubbing his face. He used the rest to wash the dust from his hands and handed the bottle back to Asher. “Thank you.”
“No problem,” Asher said as he shoved the container into his bag before swinging it onto his back.
“What were they digging toward?” Vicky asked.
“I don’t know what they were searching for down there, but I think they found it,” he said before filling them in on what he discovered below.
“What are they up to now?” Logan muttered.
“I don’t know,” Declan said, “but they’ll come for us when they’re ready, and if the Savages have Lucien and Leonard, they’ll find us.”
“We’re going to find them,” Vicky said.
“What do we do about the tunnel?” Saber asked.
“Blow it,” Declan said.
Saber grinned. “My pleasure.”
“There’s a side tunnel down there too.”
“I’ll make sure it doesn’t survive.”