Page 120 of Fated In Forever
All we have to do is find to Evie.
We slipped through the back door, Blake’s shadows forming a living shield, fire heating my fingertips as we passed down a dark, empty corridor, lined with shipping containers and more of those wooden crates we’d seen the last time we were here.
The warehouse was one big, empty area, and it took us all of a minute to clear the space.
She’s not here.
Blake shoved one of the containers to the side, leaving grooves in the cement floor, his fingers desperately tracing every inch of the concrete wall behind it.
What the fuck are you doing?
Looking for a hidden door. Something. I can’t sense Evie or Malachi, but Angel and Eldric are right beneath our feet.His gaze dipped to the old, cracked floor, and I spun in a circle, searching every crevice, until…
There.I pointed at a ventilation grate in the corner, half hidden by a pile of junk.
Okay. Blake’s narrowed eyes met mine.There’s another level, but that doesn’t explain why I can’t sense Evie.He sent his shadows spinning across the floor, then funneled them down through the grate, his face twisted in concentration. A second later, on the other side of the warehouse, tendrils of darkness leaked out of the door of one of the shipping containers.
There. The opening is there. Blake and I rushed across the floor and opened the container, which hid a set of stained concrete steps leading down into darkness.
I followed him down, copying his exact footsteps, keeping our movements synchronized. Knowing the Silverwoods, this stairwell could be wired with explosives, and I trusted Blake’s instincts over my own, when it came to this shit. At the bottom of the steps, I muffled my curse.
This wasn’t a basement.
This was a bunker, from the feel of the space, the space stretched beneath the entire property, corridors leading in both directions, the dark too dense for even my eyes to penetrate. If I used my fire, I might as well wave my hands in the air and tell them we were here.
We keep inside my shadows, we take it slow, and we kill everything we come across.
Sounds good to me.But the hair stood up at the back of my neck, a sense of wrongness growing with every careful, quiet step. What the fuck was this place, buried so deep underground? And we were barely ten minutes behind Evie and Malachi…where were they?
Something's wrong,I thought as we continued deeper.This feels like a trap.
Yeah, no shit, but we can’t turn back. Evie’s in here somewhere.Blake's fury blazed through our connection like wildfire.After we find her, we’re burning this place behind us.
The deeper we went, the more the walls pulsed with malevolent energy, that sense of wrongness growing thicker. Something wasn’t right about this. This was something more than a trap, but even knowing that, I wasn’t about to turn back. Then we made another turn, and found what we were looking for.
An endless row of cells carved directly into the bedrock, their iron doors thick with rust. Most were empty, a few still held their long-deceased inhabitants, who were—from a cursory, visual inspection—notthralls.
Vampires, left over from the Silverwood’s hunting days?Blake observed.Been down here for years with no food.
They could be in stasis.I pointed out.
Could be, but I’m not stopping to find out.Once Evangeline is safe, along with her sister and Eldric, we can have Sylvester check them, see if they can be saved.We moved from cell to cell, until finally?—
Here. I’ve got them.Blake’s voice echoed with relief and rage in equal measure.
I peered through the bars and my heart beat faster. Angel, curled in the far corner, her clothes torn and dirty but her chest rising and falling with every breath, one hand resting on her belly. Beside her, crowding her in, Eldric sat with his back against the wall, his half open golden eyes dulled by pain, one arm bent at a very wrong angle and shackled above his head, blood splattering his pale face.
“Can’t stay out of trouble, can you?” Blake growled, winding his shadows around those bars and heaving the door open. “Bet you wish you had one of your books now, don’t you, library-boy?”
“Fuck off, vulture.” Eldric slurred thickly.
I went straight to Evie’s sister. “Angelique,” I whispered. “Angel, wake up.”
She didn’t rouse, but when I checked, her pulse was steady. Eldric’s eyes slipped closed, his head slumped onto his chest as I fed a tendril of fire into the shackle around his wrist until the circle of iron broke.
“Arm’s busted in multiple places.” Blake muttered. “He must have a concussion, he’s slipping in and out of consciousness, as if he’s fighting it, but I’m getting mixed signals.”
I sniffed his breath, then Angel’s. “Drugged,” I said. “They’ve both been drugged. They’re not walking out of here under their own power.” For a moment we both debated what to do next. “We carry them out.” I decided. “Finn will be inside the compound by now. Then we come back for Evie and Malachi.”
