Page 79 of Obscurity
Something washed through his gaze. The reality of working together was settling on him. He would see her in risky situations. It came with the territory.
His gaze hardened before he finally said, “We, at least, need to call Rex and let him know what’s going on. Just in case something happens and all three of us are taken out.”
Olive nodded. “We’ll probably have reception once we get closer to Brad’s house. We’ll let him know. If he doesn’t hear back from us, he should send in backup.”
Jason’s neck looked stiff as he nodded. “Let’s do that. But for the record, I don’t like this.”
Olive and Jason bypassed going back to the festival site.
Instead, after talking with Rex, they went right to the mine. There was no time to waste.
The lock on the gate of the chain link fence at the mine’s entrance was old and corroded.
Olive’s lock-picking skills made quick work of it.
She and Jason slipped through the opening and moved into the shadows cast by the twisted metal support beams that framed the mine entrance. The contrast between the festival’s chaotic energy and the oppressive silence of this place was jarring—as if they’d stepped from one world into another entirely.
“Stay close.” Jason pulled out a small flashlight and shielded its beam with his fingers to minimize the visible light.
Rusty railroad tracks disappeared into the darkness ahead—twin lines of corroded steel that had once carried coal cars but now served as a path deeper into the mountain’s belly.
Water dripped steadily from somewhere in the darkness above. Each drop echoed with a hollow ping as it hit the metal rails or pooled in the spaces between rotting railroad ties. The wooden cross-beams that supported the tunnel showed signs of age and neglect—some sagged dangerously, while others had splintered entirely, leaving jagged fragments hanging like broken teeth.
Along the walls, old mining equipment sat abandoned where it had been left decades ago: rusted pickaxes, overturned coal cars, and lengths of cable that looked like dead snakes in the shifting beam of the flashlight.
But it was the smell that made the space feel most oppressive—not just the expected odors of abandonment, but something that suggested the mountain itself was slowly reclaiming this artificial wound, filling it with moisture and decay until nothing remained of human ambition but rust and shadows.
They’d advanced maybe twenty feet into the tunnel when Jason’s flashlight beam caught something that made them both freeze.
A body lay crumpled against the tunnel wall, partially hidden behind a rusted piece of mining equipment.
Even in the dim light, Olive recognized the weathered features and mountain clothing.
Her pulse raced.
It was the Grayfall Guardian.
CHAPTER 57
“No . . .” Olive gasped, temporarily stunned.
Jason quickly scanned the area for immediate threats before moving closer to examine the body. The Guardian had been shot twice in the chest, the dark stains on his flannel shirt still wet enough to gleam in the flashlight’s beam.
“This just happened,” Jason said. “Maybe within the last hour.”
Olive’s stomach clenched with guilt and anger. The man had tried to warn them, had risked his own safety to give cryptic but genuine alerts about the danger they were walking into.
Now he was dead because someone had decided he knew too much.
“He was trying to help us.” Olive’s voice was thick with emotion. “All those warnings. He knew what was happening here.”
Jason examined the Guardian’s hands, and his expression suddenly changed. “Olive, look at this.”
The man’s right hand clutched something—a piece of paper that had been folded and refolded multiple times until it was barely larger than a business card. Olive carefully extracted it from the man’s grip, careful not to disturb any evidence.
As she unfolded the paper, Jason moved closer, standing partially behind her and looking over her shoulder.
The paper contained a hand-drawn map, sketched in pencil. It showed the mine’s tunnel system.
