Page 118 of In Prey We Trust

“I think it’s lovely, Dolly,” Raina pipes up and I give her a pretend glare. She laughs softly, but I see her men gathered around her protectively, so maybe she understands.

Felix clears his throat, chuckling as he and Aubrey start down the hallway. Chess and Fitz flank me, then the crew walks behind us with Rennie at the back. I feel like I’m being escorted by my personal squadron, but since I’m moving slowly, I let it go. I could defend myself if I had to, but it would exacerbate my injuries. I’m not stubborn enough to risk all our lives just to feel like a big girl.

“Why did you have to hunt for info about these tunnels?” I ask Raina. “At Apex, all the prey knew about them. Is there a reason they’re cutting you and the nurses out?”

“Sometimes when groups of prey bond over time, they get as territorial as preds. They forced us into their ranks without preamble, and I believe they fear our connection to your family.”

“Bunch of lollygagging cowards,” the Captain mutters. “None of them maintain good order in their crews.”

Rennie chuckles, the sound echoing a little on the stone walls. “You are a consummate disciplinarian, Captain. None of the prey under your banner could ever be accused of shirking their responsibilities.”

“We take pride in our work,” Kirby chirps. “The prey staff at Apex may have been terrified of half the campus, but they were a tight ship with standards. Half the departments at Cappie are filled with personal servants from higher tier families. They only work hard for their actual employers and skate through everything else. Raina says it’s some sort of tax scam.”

“Shhhh!” Aubrey interrupts as he and Felix pause. “Do you hear that?”

I frown, tilting my head. The sound of water trickling becomes obvious quickly. “A fountain?”

“I don’t know,” Felix replies as he squints. “It’s a little further down, but we wanted to quiet everything down before we come up to it.”

Oops. I’m not only injured, but distracting.

We creep down the passage silently, everyone on guard as the sound gets closer and closer. The tunnel opens up into a larger antechamber flooded with water on the floor. Everything is covered in moss and swamp flora, including a large door to the left that has several different sized water wheels on it. They’re covered in greenery, looking as though they haven’t been touched for years. Each wheel has a pipe made of a different metal over it, and the scent of swamp fills my nose.

“Shit. It’s Bruno’s family vault,” I mutter. “Who the fuck knows what will be in there?”

“The Captain and I will stay here and figure this out,” Renard says as he looks over the room. “It’s some sort of water puzzle, and I believe it will open the door. The rest of you should keep moving while we focus here.”

“Be careful. My father is clownish in his villainy, but Grandmére is not.” I look at my broody boyfriend seriously, then at the Captain. “I’ve only met her twice, but she’s scary as hell. I had ‘accidents’ both times she visited when I was a kid. No one ever told me how I ended up in the hospital—or why.”

Aubrey huffs smoke rings that float up towards the ceiling before he looks at Chess. “Add her to the boards when we get home.”

Walking over to the big man, I put my hand on his cheek and smile. “You realize we can’t kill everyone who was ever mean to me, right?”

“Not true, Baby Girl. I’ll happily hunt down every motherfucker who ever made you frown with Hot Sauce. Hell, we can make it a game. You like games, right?” Fitz tugs me back, his expression full of the crazy I love.

“Focus,” Chess says to us as I wrap my arms around his neck. “We don’t want to be down here all day.”

I pout as I pull back, turning to our leader. “Alright, General Khan, let’s move out. Chess is right; we have more to explore while they work on whatever my cranky croc relatives have in store for them.”

We leave Rennie and the Captain to work on the weird water riddle, heading out of the alcove to the hallway on the other side. It seems appropriate that the rooms here are fancier than at Apex; Cappie boasts a celebrity student body, but finding my father’s family storage here is odd. I wasn’t aware the Drews had this kind of notoriety, but then, neither of my parents has given me much information about their heritage. I’ve barely met Bruno’s mother and, to my knowledge, never met Lucille’s father. They kept me as insulated and naïve as possible my entire life—to the point of threatening everyone around me to keep their secrets safe, I suppose.

It only takes a few more minutes before we happen upon another round atrium, this one cold and sterile, like an operating theater. It’s fairly empty, only sporting light green tiled walls and a metal door with an odd stone in the center. Chess squints at it for a moment, then looks around the space. He walks around, touching shiny surfaces here and there, then looks at us with a satisfied expression.

“This is some kind of light puzzle, I believe. Given the sparse decor and cleanliness, I think it might belong to our incarcerated Heather’s family. The Maclachlans are loosely affiliated with the Khans in a legitimate business venture that runs the medical industry. I can stay here with one of the triplets and work on getting the door open while you guys press on.”

I hate separating, but I know we have to do it.

We need as much information as we can get in the shortest time. Our mission is to gather it before anyone knows we’ve been down here, so dividing resources is the only logical choice. “Okay, but be careful. You have the earwigs and we should check in like we did at Apex now that we’ve started breaking off.”

He comes over and presses a kiss to my temple. “Don’t worry, Angel. We won’t do anything stupid.”

Sighing, I look at Felix and nod. “Let’s keep going.”

His gaze cuts to my cheetah, exchanging a wordless conversation before he turns to lead us across the circle into the passage on the other side. The path is getting darker, and the temperature has dropped, which makes me think we may twist along or under the river that split the campus. Our maps are fairly useless given the lack of lighting and basic sketches of the tunnels. They’re more like original architectural drawings and they’ve obviously upgraded and added to this system since they made the drawings. Every time we come across a room that seems to correlate to it, I become more certain that all the drawings we’ve been trying to identify are underground tunnels under the five private pred academies across the world. It makes sense that all the ruling families would hide their dirty secrets in them and that means we’ll find one for all or most of them eventually—including my guys’ families.

No way the Khan vault is anywhere but that hellhole they rule over, though.

“Wait.” Felix’s voice cuts through the darkness as we approach a brightly lit opening that is definitely the next alcove. Everyone stops as he creeps toward the light carefully, his animal instincts clearly telling him something is wrong with the place we’re approaching.

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