Page 6 of Fearless

“Will you two stop bickering?” Griff mutters. “Got better shit to be worrying about than you getting your panties in a fucking twist.”

We fall silent.

There aren’t many people in this world that I’ll take orders from or listen to. But Griff is one of them.

The shuffle through the tunnel is fucking endless.

“Is this fucking thing getting smaller?” JD barks.

“Yes,” all three of us reply simultaneously.

“Brilliant.”

“We’ve got to be almost there,” Griff says, his watch lighting up our dark, dank surroundings.

I’ve smelled death a lot in my life. And this tunnel stinks of it. That and shit.

I don’t want to even think about what’s been living down here. What we’re crawling through…

The darkness continues, the space around us getting tighter and tighter with every bit of progress we make.

But eventually, Griff says something that isn’t a grunt, and it is like magic to my fucking ears.

“I think this is it, boys.”

“Thank fuck,” JD barks from behind me as Mav just sighs in relief. Motherfucker must be hurting right now.

“Fuck, I can’t budge it,” Griff says.

“Probably hasn’t been used this century,” JD helpfully offers.

“We’ll move it. There is no other choice. We can’t fucking go back.” And not just because it’s almost impossible to physically turn around. “How much space is up there?”

“More than back there.”

“Will we all fit?”

“Dunno, you’re a fat motherfucker, Harris,” he teases.

“I thought we weren’t allowed to bicker?” I mutter before telling Mav to move up as much as he can.

“It’s gonna be a tight squeeze,” Mav says.

“We’re friends now, aren’t we?” I joke.

“Hell yeah, we are. Tapping the same?—”

“JD,” I bark. It’s not that I care about Griff knowing what’s going down between us all. Hell, I’m pretty sure he’s already figured it out, but now is not the time for a discussion about it. "Can you shut up and get up here to help us, yeah?”

I continue moving forward, but slow when I begin to shimmy past Mav.

“You doing okay?” I ask quietly, although in the confined space we’re stuck in, it’s not like everyone still can’t hear.

“Will be better when we get the hell out of here,” he mutters.

Unable to argue, I continue forward, JD hot on my tail.

Pulling a new burner from my pocket, I turn the flashlight on and inspect the door we need to get past.

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