Page 64 of How Much For A Broken Heart?

The passage widened and the ceiling height increased so all three of us could stand upright, and then, a corner led us into a large underground chamber of sorts. We’d been climbing as we walked, and I wondered how close to the surface this was.

“Sierra Base?” Ethan asked, “Sierra two?” But comms were likely blocked down here, and no one acknowledged.

The chamber was lit, but it wasn’t the crates that caught my attention, it was the soft whimper of someone in a dark corner. I held up a fist for Ryder and Ethan to stop, and then, weapon high, I followed the sound. “Come out, weapons down,” I called.

“Don’t hurt us, please,” someone whimpered—a girl’s voice. I holstered my pistol, switched to the flashlight in my empty hand, and raked the area looking for her, catching her eyes as she blinked up at me. Kids. I couldn’t count how many of them were crouched on the cold, hard floor, their small hands bound by chains and their eyes locked onto me with a mixture of desperation and hope.

In the midst of this grim scene, the young woman I assumed had spoken kneeled in front of the children. Her voice trembled as she uttered a simple plea. “No, please.”

I lost my voice; I was frozen, the team needed to know… “Sierra five to Sierra Base, there are people here, young, some kids.” I had to rely on Ethan and Ryder covering any other dark shadows.

I placed my rifle on the ground, hands up to show I meant no harm, glancing at my surroundings and dragging a light from the suspension wire so it shone around them, but tilting it so it didn’t blind them. How long had they been in here?

A door opened, wide and open to the morning sky, the space was flooded with light, and every single one of them shrank back, the crying louder. I grabbed the rifle and swung to face attackers, putting myself between the victims and guns.

“Sierra two, clear,” Zach snapped, and he stalked inside, crouching next to the kids, his weapon missing, probably with Kai, and then, he cursed under his breath. “Door opens into the barn we cleared,” he ground out. “Hidden flat like your trapdoor.”

“I want them out of here,” I ordered, and I needed to move, but it was Ryder who stepped silently past me, then found the end of the chain, helping the kids get out.

Because I was frozen.

“Sierra Base to Sierra Teams, located a radar image of tunnels and excavations, sending it to you now.”

My cell vibrated in my pants, and I snapped out of my fugue state when Ryder cursed right by me. He was talking to Ethan, things were heated, Ryder gesturing, Ethan staying calm, and I stepped between them.

“What?”

“We have an idea of how he got away.” Ryder gestured at the wall on the opposite side of the excavated space, Zach and Kai were standing by a gaping hole, sheets of metal pulled to one side.

I blinked at the victims, at the room. “Another tunnel? Where does it come out?”

“No idea?—”

“Then, we follow it. Why is no one going in?”

I hurried over to the space and stopped as soon as I reached Kai, who pointed at the box they’d revealed. “There’s an issue.”

My heart raced as I kneeled beside the improvised explosive device. The wires were a chaotic tangle around the IED, leading to a small, blinking trip light indicating it was armed and ready to go. The digital timer displayed numbers counting down from fifteen minutes, each second ticking away like a death sentence. I had time to retrieve Amos and get out of the exit—he wouldn’t leave a trap that could kill him as well.

My voice, barely above a whisper, was urgent. “Tell me we have bomb disposal on call.”

“Not gonna happen,” Zach murmured. “We don’t know what’s further down, this could be one of many, and this payload is enough to crater this whole place.”.

“Get the victims out of here,” I snapped, my gaze locked on the wires, mind racing to assess the best course of action. “Find the exit to this shit; I’m going in.”

“August!” Ryder was calling my name, but I didn’t have time to turn back, only his voice wasn’t growing more distant, in fact he was close as we were blocked by a wall of stone.

“Go back,” I snapped.

“How do we get past this?” He shouldered his weapon. “Cover me.” Instead of running back to the exit and out with the victims and the rest of the team he was feeling along the wall, but it was nothing clever like the trapdoor in the container, just a sidestep we would have seen if it wasn’t so fucking dark. I shoved through first, heard Ryder scrambling behind me, and hunched over as the tunnel roof became lower every twenty steps or so. There were no comm, and I had no fucking idea what we were going to face, or if we’d catch up to Amos.

I hoped for an exit. I hoped for daylight.

Instead, we faced another wall, and this time, a heavy metal door.

And then, it rained rock as the earth moved.

Chapter Twenty-Three

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