25
I hugged Abby to me as the girl clung to my neck. Tears ran down her cheeks and her upper lip was covered in snot. I thought about reasoning with these guys, pleading with them to let her go and keep me. That’s when I remembered that was really stupid because bad guys never let anyone go. Alston looked me over with that wide, creepy grin of his. “What a pleasant surprise to find such a lovely woman here with us.” He glanced behind me to the man. “Don’t you think so, Fuller?”
“Yeah, real tasty,” the man behind us replied. I shuddered at the feral tone in his voice.
“Unfortunately, they’ve come calling at a very bad time,” Alston scolded us.
“Then I guess we’ll leave and come back another time,” I quipped.
Alston chuckled. I didn’t hear any humor in it. “I’m afraid that’s not quite what’s going to happen. You see, your trail leads here to our storage depot, so your mate and his friends will no doubt come looking here for you. We’ll have to make sure they don’t find you, or any part of our plans.” He looked to Fuller. “Get the rest of those boxes to the caves and set everything up. Lance wants to press the button at exactly one.”
“Sure thing.” Fuller stalked past us, gave me a lecherous sneer, and walked behind Alston into a hall that led deeper into the boulder system.
“Now what shall we do about you two, hmm?” Alston mused.
“Let us go?” I suggested.
“That suggestion is becoming very annoying, especially as it will never happen,” he replied. He looked around and spotted another entrance. His eyes lit up with a cold, eager expression, one that spelled doom as clear as alphabet soup. “We’ll have to put you two where you can never be found.” He pulled out a package that contained thick wads of a taffy-like substance, and stepped over to us. He held out two large sticks toward us. “Both of you must eat these.”
“Hell no,” I refused.
Alston pulled out a gun and pointed the barrel at Abby, who cried out and buried her face into my neck. “This gun also has silver bullets. Another refusal and I won’t need to worry about one of my captives.”
I hesitantly grabbed them, but popped one in my mouth while I kept Abby’s in my hand. I didn’t want to be the one to give a child poison. The taffy substance had the flavor of grass and quickly dissolved in my mouth. Abby watched me with terrified eyes until her face twisted into puzzlement. “Your scent’s gone,” she whispered.
“Yes, quite a useful little invention of ours,” Alston spoke up. He glared at Abby. “Now eat yours or you get the bullet.” Abby swallowed hers and we were both left without our scents. Alston gestured with his gun toward the entrance he’d spotted earlier. “Now follow that tunnel.”
I knew he meant to lead us some place in the middle of this rock maze and shoot us, but there wasn’t anything else I could do but obey. With Abby in my arms I stepped through the arch and into a long, curving tunnel with darkness that my eyes could barely penetrate. The walls were wet and molding, and the dust at our feet was replaced with mud, hard-packed dirt, and crumbling of rocks from the jagged ceiling above us. There were tunnels on either side of the long walk that delved for miles into the hillside in all directions, and the winding hall seemed to go on forever and ever. We wound our way through right tunnels and left ones until I was dizzy and tired. I wondered if anyone at Sanctuary knew these tunnels existed. If they did then we might have a chance at escape, or at least being properly buried.
To make this wonderful experience even more fun, Abby raised her head and started picking at her snot. That caused her to squirm in my arms. “Abby, hold still,” I pleaded. She shook her head and grabbed a glob of the stuff which she then lobbed at a nearby wall. Abby was able to repeat this every twenty feet or so for a fifty yards before Alston noticed.
“Stop that!” he ordered. Abby hunkered down in my arms and glared at him, but she stopped. We went another dozen yards before Alston stopped us. “Turn to your right,” he commanded.
I stepped to my right and into a side room. The place was so dark that I tripped over the entrance way, and both Abby and I fell to the ground. Abby scurried to the side of the opening and when Alston hurried in after us she let out a ringing howl that echoed around the cavernous room. The sound was so high-pitched that it pained my ears, and Alston, too, cried out and clapped his hands against his ears. Before the howl faded away Abby tackled the man’s legs and he tumbled over. His gun was knocked from his hand by the rocky ground, and I scrambled for it as he tore Abby off him. Alston tossed her aside and faced me only to find that I had the barrel of his own gun aimed at his head.
“A-another step and I’ll shoot,” I warned him. Abby hurried to my side and latched onto my leg.
Alston remained where he stood, but grinned and shook his head. “No you won’t. You haven’t the courage to shoot.” He took a step toward me, and I took one backward with Abby following the strange parade. “See? You won’t-” I fired, but my aim was a tad off. Instead of hitting him in the chest the bullet flew into the ceiling. Crumblings of rock fell atop his head as he glared at me. “You stupid bit-” He didn’t get to finish his insult before a large rock fell onto him and he crumpled to the ground like an empty bag of potato chips.
Abby and I looked at his unconscious form for a long, confused moment, and then I yanked her around him and out into the hall. I took us to the left and down the hall a dozen yards until we came to an intersection. “Abby, any way you can put your sniffing skills to the test?” I asked her.
“Yep, we’ll follow my nose,” she replied.
“Huh?”
“My snot. I threw it against the wall because my dad said that was a good scent to follow.”
I remembered the fingernails under Alistair’s skin, and how it hadn’t had a scent. “But we don’t have a scent anymore,” I argued.
“I cried before he gave us that nasty stuff,” she reminded me.
“Oh, right.”
“Come on, Becky. I’ll lead the way!” Abby cried out in glee. She pulled me through the maze of passages and retraced our steps by snot scent alone.
In half the time we reached the opening into the first chamber, but we had one last problem. We heard the sound of voices in the cavern and even my sniffer sensed there were about half a dozen people out there. Abby sniffed the air and her face lit up in a smile before she bolted from me and out into the cavern. “Papa! Mama!”
I followed her out in time to see Abby race into her parents’ outstretched arms. Off to the side I saw Alistair, Stacy, Burnbaum and Luke relieved at the happy reunion . Maybe that’s a bit of a stretch. The first three were happy, but Luke was definitely not relieved. He snapped his head over to me and marched over. I cringed when he wrapped his arms around me and stood before me in all his terrifying fury. “Um, hi,” I squeaked out.
Luke swooped down and captured my lips in a mind-numbing hold. I melted in his arms as that dingy cavern with all its terrifying memories disappeared. Unfortunately, the audience was harder to ignore, especially when Alistair cleared his throat. “As glad as I am to see Miss Becky and Miss Abby are all right, we don’t have time for long reunion s,” Alistair spoke up.
We parted and I was able to breathe. Stacy stepped forward and grasped my hands. “Don’t you ever do that again, you foolish little girl. Going out into the woods was the worst idea you could think of,” she scolded me.
I sheepishly grinned. “But I found Abby,” I pointed out.
“And Becky saved me from the bad man!” Abby spoke up in my favor.
“Bad man?” Luke asked her.
Abby nodded her head. “Yes, he took us down that way and was going to shoot us,” she told them.
At that moment the crowd stiffened and all eyes but mine whipped over to the entrance to the tunnel. I heard a scrape of shoes on the ground inside the entrance and the men rushed after the noise. In a moment there was a scuffle down the tunnel, and the men dragged back a very unhappy Alston. He growled and thrashed in their grasp, but they held him tight. Alistair especially had a tight grip on his former assailant. They slammed him against the wall close to the storage room. Alistair and Mr. Stewart kept their hands on him and Luke stepped in front of him.
“What were you planning for these two?” Luke asked the man. Alston sneered at us, but didn’t reply.
“He didn’t want us to tell anyone about them going to blow up Sanctuary and blame the Lone Wolf party,” I spoke up.
There was a collective gasp and gaping from our allies. Luke growled and grabbed Alston by the collar. “Is this true?” Alston kept his mouth shut, and Luke shook him hard. “Well?”
My eyes widened. “What time is it?” I asked around the group.
A half dozen eyes glanced at their watches. “A quarter past twelve,” Mrs. Stewart replied.
My heart skipped a beat. “The explosives are supposed to go off at one!”
Alston took advantage of the shock to free himself of Alistair and Stewart’s holds. He pushed them aside and lunged at Luke. Alistair recovered quickly and grabbed Alston’s ripped coat. It was ripped because Alston was transforming into a werewolf, and chaos erupted in the cavern. Mrs. Stewart pulled Abby away, and Stacy pushed me to the side. Alston turned on Alistair and their clawed hands collided as Alistair himself transformed.