When Leila finally lets him go, her tears have stopped as well.
“He thought it was too dangerous,” she whispers. “Just in case a hunter showed up.”
Reid doesn’t say anything, just nods and brushes his fingers over her hand so she knows he doesn’t blame her. It doesn’t matter, not now. He’ll deal with Marcus when they reach the surface.
If they reach the surface.
“What did you find?” Reid’s voice is low and scratchy and he thinks of the water bottle, pulling it out and looking at it with longing.
“Go ahead,” Milo says. “There’s more where that came from.” He gestures across the open space similar to the one below, toward a tunnel entrance. Gratitude for that small miracle chases down three gulps of water.
“Two tunnels,” Cole says. “Like Milo said, water in one and a blockage in the other. But…” he trails off. “Maybe hope. Come on.”
Reid goes after him, knees wobbling and muscles protesting but refusing to let himself rest. There is a hunter at the bottom of the shaft and probably more on their way. He has to keep moving.
Cole leads him to the first tunnel, a now mute and guilty looking line of kids trailing after, and shows him the fallen rock pile only a short distance in. Reid rests against the wall as Cole talks.
“You can see light,” he points to the gaps in the rocks. “And do you smell that?”
Reid sniffs and his heart swells a little. Fresh air.
“It could be a trick.” He doesn’t want the kids getting their hopes up. Cole shrugs.
“Could be. Or a way out. Either one, we have to try.”
Reid looks up at the ceiling, his tired mind taking a bit to register what he’s looking at.
“I don’t know,” he says. “That’s pretty unstable, isn’t it?”
Cole clears his throat. “Actually,” he says, speaking so slowly it’s like he’s forcing each word out, “it looks worse than it is.”
Reid just waits.
“My dad,” Cole says at last, his words now gushing past the dam he created, “is in construction. Demolition. Was.” His head hangs. “Used to take me on jobs, teaching me the family business. Implosions, pyrotech, you name it.”
Reid still can’t wrap his head around it. Something about what Cole is saying troubles him. “Is that how he died? Your Dad?”
Cole shakes his head, arms crossed over his chest, blue eyes on the rubble. “Stupid fall in the bathtub. Hit his head. Went to sleep and never woke up.”
It’s sad but so is Reid’s story, his parents dead in a car accident caused by a drunk teenaged girl who thought texting was more important than paying attention to the road. It sucks for all of them, their sob stories of loss, being orphaned. Each one of them has a tale to tell but it doesn’t matter right now.
They don’t have time to mourn all over again and Cole is very aware of it, obvious when he spins back to Reid and meets his eyes. He looks so determined and ashamed Reid finally understands why Cole’s background makes him uneasy.
“It should have been me in the tunnel,” Cole says, “back in the beginning. Not Drew. I had the most experience. I could have made sure it was safe. But I didn’t trust you or him and I was scared. And Joel… he didn’t reward us when we spoke up.”
That is it, the nagging thing troubling him so much. Drew. It all seems to come back to Drew.
Instead of dealing with it, Reid pushes himself free of the wall. “I want a look at the other tunnel.”
Cole leads him out. The kids are packed into the end of the tunnel like a silent human plug. They part for him, letting Reid through, fingertips brushing over his clothes. He winces when someone touches his hand. Then he is past them and entering the other gap.
It’s not so much a tunnel as another room, smaller, dominated by a large pool of water. The air here is chill and damp and Reid can tell without testing it the water is very cold.
“Dead end,” Milo whispers, his voice echoing off the still pond.
Reid refills his bottle and takes another drink. It’s clean at least, and he is right about the temperature. He plunges his aching hands into it, letting the cold briefly numb the throbbing. When he stands up, he has to support himself with one hand or he will fall over, he’s sure of it. Reid makes it back to his feet and leaves the room without a word.
And comes face to face with Marcus. His gaze drops away, his face twisted as if he wants to speak. But the coward in him has obviously backed down again.
Reid doesn’t have the strength left to deal with him. He stops in the main chamber and sinks to the floor, his back to the wall, to think. It makes him want to curl up on his side and close his eyes but he won’t allow that. He just needs to get off his feet.
“What do you want us to do?” Cole crouches near him, Leila on his other side while the rest of the kids hover close, held off by Milo who keeps a watching stance over Reid’s extended legs.
“Just give me a minute.” Cole nods, backs off. Reid lets his eyes drift closed then, resting them.
“You need sleep,” Leila whispers.
That jerks Reid awake from a near-doze. He groans and forces himself to stand up. She offers to help him, her hands reaching for him, but he pulls away.
“I’m okay,” he says. “We need to move.”
She looks a little hurt but he can’t deal with that now. Instead, he stumbles to the tunnel where the collapsed rubble waits.
“All right,” he says to Cole. “Let’s get the hell out of here.”
Cole grins at him, nods, but doesn’t get a chance to act. From the other side of the collapse, they hear the distinctive cry of a hunter, so crisp and clear it’s like the thing is in the tunnel with them.
Putting it just on the other side of the block.
“Damn it.” Milo’s temper flares. “Now what?”
“We can’t go this way,” Cole says.
“Really, dumb ass?” Milo spins on Reid. “What do we do?”
He has no idea. And nothing comes to him while they listen to the sound of rocks shifting from the hunter’s side.
“They’re trying to get in.” Alex panics, grasps at Reid’s hands, drawing a snarl of pain from him. “What do we do?”
Reid staggers back away from the kids, back to the tunnel wall, hands pressed to his ears as though their stares are shouts. He squeezes his eyes shut so he doesn’t have to watch them watching him, waiting for him to tell them what to do or where to go next.
He has no idea.
“The elevator.” Leila is beside him. “It’s our only chance.”
There is a hunter down there. Probably a lot of hunters by now. But she’s right. Reid turns and goes with her, the pack following, pressing close behind them. They find Marcus standing in the gaping hole where the elevator had been. He spins and scowls at Reid.
“I fixed it,” he says. “Like the others wanted me to. Now look what happened.”
Reid leans out, the height combined with his weariness making him dizzy. The elevator is descending slowly in its herky-jerky manner, the motor humming away.
“Hunters,” Reid says.
“What the hell is wrong with you?” Reid turns at the sound of Milo’s voice raised in anger, sees the boy striking out at Marcus, his little fists hitting the taller guy’s chest over and over.
“It’s not my fault!” Marcus shoves Milo away, the smaller boy collapsing on the hard stone floor. “It’s not.” He fixes Reid with his hateful glare. “It’s not.”
Reid’s no longer paying attention to him. They are trapped with no way out. He has to find a way, this can’t be the end. Again Marcus’s incompetence spurs Reid to act.
“Come on.” He leads them to the room with the pond and stands there, staring into the water.
“Now what?” Cole looks up at him like he thinks Reid has a plan. He does, sort of, but they’re not going to like it.
“We have three choices.” Reid turns to them and addresses them all. “We can try to fight our way past the hunters on the elevator and go back down.” They groan like that’s not an option. The next two aren’t much better. “We can wait until they break through the rubble and fight our way around them.” Again more groans, this time mixed with whimpers and some crying.
“And the third?” Leila is staring into the still water.
“We make our last stand here,” Reid says. “Fight until we can’t anymore.”
“That’s it?” Marcus shoves his way forward. “That’s your brilliant plan?”
Reid stares him down. “We are out of options.”
Marcus has nothing to say. No one does. Because Reid is right.
***