Page 76 of Calico Descending

Standing before the silver box, which somehow seems bigger than before, I’d be lying if I said I wasn’t just a little nervous. Cadmus might be slightly weakened in mind, but his body is still as strong as an Alpha’s.

I run my finger over the canteen strap slung across my body that could very well act as a means of strangling me, if Cadmus is ambitious enough.

Beside the box, Valdys stares back at me, his eyes holding both determination and uncertainty. “Bear in mind, I will not hesitate to kill him.”

Okay, maybe not so much uncertainty. “Only at my signal, or unless I’m knocked out and unable to speak.”

“You find humor in this.”

“A little, maybe?” With a nervous smile, I shrug. “Okay, no. But he is going to come at me, I’m certain of it. All I’m saying is, don’t make a move until I’ve had a chance to calm him.”

“Fine. But I know Cadmus better than you. And I won’t hesitate if my instincts tell me differently.”

“Deal.” Inhaling and exhaling a deep breath, I give him a nod, and the switch is flipped.

Heart pounding inside my throat, I wait for the door to slide open, and the moment it does, Cadmus lunges forward. Tripping over my own feet to get away, I fall backward onto the bed of the truck, and he scrambles up my body, mirroring the behaviors of a Rager.

In seconds, his hands are at my throat, eyes dilated and crazed.

Out of the corner of my eye, I see Valdys lurch toward him, and I hold out my hand to stop him, while I attempt to pry his fingers loose with the other hand.

Setting my gaze square on Cadmus, I don’t so much as flinch. “Cadmus,” I rasp, as the air withers from my throat. “Cadmus!”

His grip doesn’t wane, as he squeezes my neck like he hopes to wring every drop of air out of my body.

Stars explode before me, the blackness on the fringes shrinking my field of view, and I lift my hand to signal Valdys.

“Cadmus, please!”

Caught by his neck where Valdys’s massive bicep nearly strangles him, Cadmus releases me, and as I roll to the side to suck in a breath, I catch the same flicker in his eyes that I saw back in the tent. A cross between clarity and sadness.

“Cali?” he asks, while Valdys drags him away.

“Wait.” Holding up my hand again, I cough and wheeze, gasping for air.

Valdys pauses, his arms flexing around Cadmus’s throat, as the two of them crouch across from me. Cadmus doesn’t fight, or scramble to get away, instead he frowns back at me, looking disoriented, as if he’s just awakened from a nightmare.

When the air finally fills my lungs again, I sit forward, onto my knees, and face the two of them.

“Cadmus?”

“I hurt you.” He lowers his gaze from mine, the lines of his furrowed brow deepening.

“I’m fine. It’s okay.” I slide closer, and he flinches against Valdys.

“Cadmus, I want to know … what happened to you down in those tunnels?”

He exhales sharply, and with his gaze still cast downward, he shakes his head, pulling at Valdys’s arm to get loose.

“Cadmus!” The sharp bite of my voice seems to stun him, and he snaps his gaze to me, eyes brimming with perplexity. “What happened to you? What did you see?”

He stills against Valdys, and stares off somewhere beyond me, and his gaze turns vacant as if he’s been transported back to that very moment. “They lowered me down into the ventilation shaft. Must’ve been four … five hundred feet down. I don’t know, for sure. The air got thinner. Colder. By the time I reached the bottom, I swore I fell into winter. I unhooked the line and turned the brightness of my light up. At either side of me were long stretches of dark, concrete tunnels that just seemed to go on forever.”

Perhaps sensing a calm in his voice, Valdys releases his throat and crouches beside him.

“I started walking in one direction, when I heard something in the other direction. I turned around and headed that way, instead. Felt like … something was watching me the whole time.” His throat bobs with a swallow, while his eyes remain fixed on the unseen visuals inside his head. “I lifted my flashlight, and I saw something ahead. A girl. I called out to her but she wouldn’t stop. I don’t know how long I chased after her, but somehow I lost her.”

His breaths hasten, brows flickering, as if panic is only on the fringes. “But then I heard this sound. This Godawful scream. So I followed it to a … cave. Something told me not to go inside, but I did, deeper and deeper, until it opened up to a room, a maze of tunnels made of dirt and stone. Gathered in the center of it were these … things.” His body trembles, and I watch the terror in Cadmus’s eyes brimming to the surface, turning his skin somewhat pale. “I’ve seen all kinds of things in that shithole. I’ve watched them turn men into fucking monsters, but I’ve never seen anything like these. They had no faces, just a mouth, but I’m certain they sensed me there, just by the way they turned toward me when I entered the room. Their skin was ghost white, like the mutations, but they didn’t look human. And they didn’t attack, at first. It’s like they wanted me to see what they were gathered around, because a few stepped aside. And those screams … those screams were so fucking loud inside my head. I lifted my flashlight, and I could see … a woman. Stuck to the wall in some kind of cocoon. Covered in a cluster of something that moved. I rushed toward her, knocking those faceless things out of the way. They still didn’t attack me. And when I reached her … I swear to fucking God she looked like you.”

---