Page 42 of Abyss

A slight depression, subtle enough to miss unless you knew what despair felt like under your fingertips.

“Move back,” I instructed, pressing hard. A click, and the wall shuddered open, revealing the path forward, and for a moment, hope flickered brighter.

“Good work,” Teo said, nodding at me. “Lead the way, Jace.”

We poured into the newly discovered passage. “Almost there,” I said, more to convince myself than them. We rounded a bend, and there it was—the ladder to the door that spelled our escape,deceptively ordinary against the backdrop of horrors we had traversed.

“Go, go, go!” Teo said with urgency. “Everyone accounted for?”

He let us all go before him. “Looks like it,” Victor said, before he started to climb up the ladder.

Teo passed me. “You go, Jace,” he said, then sighed. “What a fucking mess.”

I nodded. “Agreed,” I said. “Can’t unsee that.”

“Thank you for coming down here, Jace,” Teo said. “You didn’t have to do that.”

“I know. I just…I needed to make sure you guys got out of here safe. Sof…”

“Yeah,” he replied softly.

“But I wasn’t expecting that,” I said. “I can’t unsee that.”

He nodded. “Come on,” he said. “Let’s get back to the boat.”

This wasn’t the time for weakness; there were moves to be made, a brother to find—and a very big snake to kill.

It didn’t take long before we were on the boat again. The air slapped me as I dropped into a chair, the others milling around on the deck. Teo sighed before he walked up to me. “Tell us everything,” he said. “Don’t spare any details.”

My gaze darted between him and Sofia. “Are you sure, boss? It was pretty brutal.”

“She needs to know,” he said. “She has to know the truth.”

I swallowed. It took me a second, the boat swaying under me, but I told her everything as she paled and looked progressively more sick.

She had to brace herself against Teo before she sat down noisily, and looked at me with glassy eyes. “That’s so fucked up, Jace.”

I swallowed. “Yeah, I know,” I said. “I’m sorry.”

“I’m getting Sam back. No matter what it takes,” she declared, her silhouette rigid against the starry sky. “If he’s with my dad…there’s no telling what my dad is capable of.”

“You’re right. We need to do something,” Grayson said.

“We have done something!” Sofia said. “Everything we do, it’s like…fucked. So fucked. We do shit and then nothing happens.”

“I hate to say it, but you’re right. Going through the cops is out; they’re bought and paid for,” Teo said, leaning on the railing, his face grim. “We gotta think bigger. Riskier.”

“Go on, boss,” Grayson said. “Tell us what you’re thinking.”

“The Feds,” he answered, and I felt the weight of those words like an anchor to the chest.

“Are you nuts?” Victor said before he caught himself. “Sorry, boss, I…”

Teo shrugged. “Maybe,” I said. “Whatever happens, I’ll protect you. All of you.”

Water lapped up against the side of the boat, the night air feeling hot against my skin.

I knew he meant it.

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