Page 121 of Hunted By Fae
I shift my stare back to the handle.
The rust is so thick, so layered and brown that it blends in with the old floorboards it rests on… but with my nightlights glowing over it, I see it as plain as I would see a moon in this empty darkness…
It’s notinthe neck. It’sunderit.
It is a handle. It’s… a latch to a cellar.
An escape.
Teeth bared, a sudden surge of fight bolts through me. I creep closer to the handle, then gently guide the decapitated head out of the way.
Sorry, Carlos.
My gloved hands are firm on the handle.
I wait, one heartbeat, two, then brace myself for the noise of the hinges. With a rusted handle like that, in the cold like this, I know it won’t be quiet.
So I rush it.
I lift the cellar door just a few inches off the ground with a single, hard tug. Then I still.
The groan was swift and loud, but fast to end.
If he, somewhere out there in the dark, wonders what that sound was, he will come find out.
I don’t give him a moment. I have none to spare.
I fumble my way through the gap as quickly as I can manage, balancing my boots on the rickety steps of a ladder.
The moment I find my footing, I gently lower the door above my ducked head, then shove the bolt into place for good measure.
Dare is a dark male, he can rip this latch open with about as much effort as a human swatting a fly, but I somehow, stupidly, feel better with it latched.
I scramble down the ladder into the cellar.
Aiming my nightlight bracelet ahead of me, I inch through the darkness.
Above, the floorboards creak.
Dare has entered the brewery.
He will figure it out in a second if he hasn’t already.
I spot a short, narrow window above a row of shelves. I’m not so sure I’ll fit through it, but what other choice do I have? There are no doors down here that I can see, and just the same narrow windows down on the other wall.
A murmur escapes me, “Fuck.” Bitter and twisted, like my face as I move for the shelves. No time wasted, I start climbing them the moment I reach them—
And I’m halfway up when the cellar door rattles once.
The rattle pauses.
I don’t.
I haul my tired body up the shelves to the window.
A thunderous noise booms through the cellar, the clatter and clang of metal thrumming with it.
I don’t need to look over my shoulder to know that Dare has ripped the cellar door clean off its hinges and thrown it back into the bar.
