by Stella Hart
“No shit.” I pushed her further down the passage until we reached a large room lined with gray concrete. One side held a decontamination area with a rusty showerhead and drain, and next to that was a small toilet. On the other side, there were four narrow sleeping bunks and a small kitchenette with cupboards and a sink.
Alexis made a beeline for the far side, where there were two narrow doors. “Where do these go?” she asked.
“Storage.” I headed over and opened one of the doors, revealing an old stash of canned and packaged foods. “You won’t go hungry down here, although I can’t promise any of it will be appetizing.”
Her eyes darted to the other door. “Are you sure this was built using the original Avalon tunnels?”
“Yeah. Why?”
“I was just wondering if it connected to any other bunkers in the area, seeing as they were all originally part of the same network,” she said, running a hand over the smooth concrete on her left. “I figured you might’ve explored it all when you were a kid. It would’ve been a pretty cool thing to do.”
I narrowed my eyes. “Do you have any idea how fucking transparent you are?”
Alexis took a faltering step backward. “What?”
“You’re only wondering about all that shit because you’re hoping you can get out onto someone else’s property and run away,” I said. “But, unfortunately for you, when the tunnels in this area were turned into bomb shelters, they were all thoroughly sealed off from each other. None of them connect anymore.”
She slumped down on one of the bunks and twisted her hands in her lap, lips pressing tightly together.
I opened the other door to show her another storage area, lined with pale brown brick at the back. “See?” I said, smacking my hand on the solid surface to rub it in for her. “All bricked in.”
Alexis dropped her head. “I get it,” she mumbled. “I can’t escape.”
“Exactly. You need to get this through your fucking head once and for all,” I said, twisting my lips into a sneer. “I’m never letting you go. Ever.”
21
Alexis
As soon as Nate was gone, I searched the bomb shelter.
It wasn’t that I thought he was lying—he clearly believed there was no way out of this bunker beyond the hatch, or else he wouldn’t have left me here all alone. I figured it might be a simple case of ignorance. Nate may have come down here and explored when he was a kid, but there was a chance he’d missed something.
I knew from reading a dystopian novel years ago that most bomb shelters had more than one hatch—a primary hatch and an escape hatch. I already knew where the primary hatch was, and it was locked from the outside, so I needed to find the escape hatch.
I started by opening every single cupboard in the space, figuring there might be something hidden behind one of them. Unfortunately, there was nothing behind any of them. Next, I moved on to the two large storage areas at the far end of the cell; the ones that were bricked up at the back. Once I’d taken every single can and package out to free up the space, I crawled in and pressed my hands all over the bricks, feeling for a loose patch.
Nothing.
“Dammit,” I muttered. I didn’t bother pressing the walls of the main shelter or passage leading down to it from the primary hatch. It was all concrete, so there was no way anything was hidden there.
An idea suddenly struck me, and I started tapping on the floor, listening for echoes. A feeling of weightlessness descended on me when I discovered a hollow spot beneath an old rug.
Holy shit. This was it—an escape hatch!
I pulled the rug back, and my lips curved into a triumphant smile. As I suspected, there was a small hatch there.
With tingling hands and a giddy sensation in my stomach, I wrenched the stiff hatch open and peered downward. My heart immediately sank.
It wasn’t an escape hatch after all. It was just another storage locker for extra food.
“Fuck!” I gritted my teeth and slammed my hand down on the solid ground, chest tightening in a mix of disappointment and anger.
So close. I was so close. Then… nothing.
Pain rocketed up my hand, and I got up with a grimace and went over to the sink, hoping to run some water over it to ease the ache. I shouldn’t have smashed it on the ground like that, but I couldn’t help it. I was so fucking mad. So sick of being caged like an animal for something I didn’t even do.
“You’ve got to be fucking kidding me,” I muttered when I turned the tap on to find that the sink didn’t work. I went over to the decontamination area next, and I discovered that the old shower didn’t work either. No wonder Nate ended up allowing me to shower in the house—there was no functional water system down here.
Letting out a heavy sigh, I rubbed my throbbing hand and started investigating the rest of the amenities in the shelter.
Surprisingly, the toilet worked, even though there was very little water in it. It seemed to function via gravity feed, which meant there must be a tank somewhere beneath it. As long as I poured in a little water from one of the plastic bottles whenever I used it, any waste products would go down eventually.
It wasn’t exactly a five-star hotel room, but it was a hell of a lot better than sitting in a cell with a filthy bucket filled with waste products, like I’d been doing for almost two weeks before now.
Another bonus to this place was the food. After inspecting all the cans and packages, I saw that Nate was right—none of the stuff was appetizing to a regular, well-fed person. But he failed to account for the fact that I was practically starving. Anything with calories was good as far as I was concerned, even these old cans of beans and soup.
I wasn’t worried about their long-expired status. I knew expiry dates meant very little when it came to canned goods that had been stored well. They might taste a bit weird, but they wouldn’t kill me.
Even if they did, I’d rather die from that than at Nate’s hands. What an amazing ‘fuck you’ that would be to that arrogant asshole—death from food poisoning before he could murder me.
I opened a can of beans and ate the entire thing within two minutes. Then I amused myself by reading every single label on every single package in this place. I literally had nothing better to do.
After a while, I crawled onto one of the bunks and pulled the itchy gray blanket over my face. It was probably only lunchtime, but I was ready for a long sleep. Being trapped in the Blackthorne tunnels had wreaked havoc on my circadian rhythms.
My eyelids started to feel heavier and heavier until I finally drifted off into a dreamless sleep. That was the one good thing about being in this torturous captivity situation—I didn’t have nightmares as often as I used to. I figured it was probably because my waking life had become a complete nightmare in itself, so my brain was giving me a break when I slept.
A while later, my eyes snapped open. At first, I couldn’t identify what had woken me, but then I remembered.
Music.
With knitted brows, I got off the bunk and slowly moved around the shelter, trying to locate the source of the sound. It was barely more than a vibration, but after spending so much time locked underground, my ears had become attuned to even the slightest shifts in the air.
When I approached the right-hand storage door, the music became clearer. It was still extremely faint, but I could make out some instruments—trumpets, piano, strings, drums, saxophones. Big band music, probably from the 1940s or 50s.
I moved closer and pressed my ear right up to the brown bricks at the back of the storage cupboard. Then a grin broke out on my face. I recognized the song. It was ‘Beyond the Sea’. The cup-muted trumpet riff was unmistakable.
I lay down on the floor with my head in the cupboard and closed my eyes, letting the faint melody wash over me. I knew I was probably losing my mind and imagining the whole thing, but I didn’t care. It just felt so good to hear music again.
It suddenly occurred to my tired mind that if the music wasn’t a result o
f my imagination, then it had to be coming from somewhere. I sprang up and tapped on the bricks at the back of the storage cupboard. “Hello?” I called out. “Is someone there?”
Perhaps there was another shelter on a nearby property, and whoever lived there enjoyed hanging out inside it while blasting old-time music. I couldn’t imagine why, but if I’d learned one thing during my short time on this planet, it was that people were fucking weird.
“Hello?” I repeated, knocking on the bricks.
There was no response. The music was fading now.
“Can you hear me?” I shouted.
Nothing.
A few seconds later, the music was gone. I slumped back down to the floor, figuring I’d imagined the whole thing. That was my initial suspicion, after all, and it made sense. Most people would lose their shit and start seeing and hearing things that weren’t there in a situation like this one.
I let out a sigh and shut my eyes as exhaustion crept back in.
When I finally woke again, there was a scraping sound coming from somewhere down the passage, followed by heavy footsteps. I sat bolt upright, pulse racing.
Nate was back.
I expected to see his torture kit on him, or something similar, but all he held was a thick black woolen scarf and beanie.
“Why are you sitting on the floor?” he asked with narrowed eyes.
“I thought I heard music coming from there,” I replied, pointing to the storage cupboard where the sounds had come from earlier.
“Music?” He gave me an incredulous look. “Why the fuck would there be music down here?”
“I don’t know. Are you sure this is the only bomb shelter around here?”
His upper lip curled disdainfully. “Yes. I already told you that.”
“Well, maybe there was someone walking around up there with music playing, and it somehow filtered underground,” I said, pointing above my head.
“That’s not possible.”
“I’m sure I heard something,” I insisted.
“It was probably just the voices in your head again. Now shut up and put these on,” he commanded, tossing the scarf and beanie toward my bunk.
I stood up. “Why? Are you moving me again?”
“No, but I need you to come up to the house for a while.”
“Why?” I asked, raising a brow.
His upper lip curled with disdain. “One of your little friends wasn’t convinced by our act this morning. The police just showed up here asking to do a welfare check on you,” he said. “I assume it was Laurel who called them.”
A laugh bubbled up in my throat, and I forced it back down, not wanting to risk Nate’s wrath.
Oh, Laurel. Smart, cynical, wonderful Laurel. She wasn’t the sort of girl who fell for slimy pricks like Nate, no matter how thick they laid on the charm. Because of that, she could be my ticket out of here.
“Why do I need to wear a beanie?” I asked.
I understood why he wanted me to wear a scarf—he didn’t want the police to stare at me and notice even the faintest of bruises or scratches on my throat—but there was no reason to cover my hair. Now that I’d washed it, it was much silkier and easier to manage, and it didn’t look like the hair of a girl who’d been held captive in a dungeon for nearly two weeks.
“You weren’t in the house, so I told them you’d gone for a walk around the grounds,” Nate said. “It’s almost seven, and it’s fucking freezing outside, so it won’t be believable unless you look like you’re dressed for it.”
I bit my bottom lip as I considered the situation at hand.
“Why should I cover for you?” I finally asked, arching a brow.
Nate’s eyes narrowed. “What?”
“What’s stopping me from going up there and telling them the truth about everything?”
“I thought I made that clear earlier,” he said, taking a step closer. “Do you want something to happen to Sascha?”
I smiled thinly. “If I tell the cops everything right now, they’ll arrest you and drag you away before you even have a chance to hurt my sister.”
His hands shot out to my shoulders, and I yelped as he shoved me up against the wall behind me. “We both know what’ll happen if you do that,” he said in a soft yet deadly tone, mouth hovering right over my lips. “You’ll never win.”
“Why not?” I asked, voice barely above a whisper.
It was moments like this when I wished Nate wasn’t so attractive. With his face so close to me and his warm breath ghosting over my lips like he was about to kiss me, it was hard to think of him as the monster he truly was.
“You seem to have forgotten how much my family is worth,” he said, eyes flashing with derision. “Do you have any idea what kind of special treatment people like us get from everyone else?”
“Not enough to stop you from being arrested and charged for everything you’ve done to me.”
He smirked and drew back. “They might arrest me, but my lawyer would have me out within an hour. That’s not enough time for you and your sister to make it very far, is it?”
I swallowed hard as dread trickled down my spine. He had a point. The ultra-wealthy people on this island got away with everything.
“I really don’t want to hurt Sascha, because she’s innocent in all of this, but if that’s what it takes to keep you in line, I’ll do it,” Nate went on, eyes glittering with malice. “So what’s it gonna be? Are you going to cry to the cops, or are you going to be a good girl for me?”
“I’ll be good,” I mumbled.
A smug grin spread across his devilishly handsome face. White-hot fury spiraled inside me, and my fingers itched to hit him and claw at his skin. Make him bleed. Hurt him the way he was hurting me.
Instead, I swallowed my rage and wrapped the scarf around my neck. As I pulled the beanie onto my head, a new idea struck me, and I glanced over at Nate. “I need to pee before we go,” I said, hoping he couldn’t hear my thunderous heartbeat.
He lifted one shoulder in an indifferent shrug. “Fine. I’ll wait at the top of the hatch. Don’t take too long.”
He stalked away, and I waited until I could hear him ascending the steps at the end of the passage before I sprang into action. I dashed over to the toilet, licked my finger, and ran it along the base, which was coated in a thick layer of dust.
Using the partially-wettened dust as a sort of paint, I wrote a quick message on a single piece of toilet paper.
HELP ME.
I breathed warm air onto the paper to make the words dry as fast as possible, and then I folded it in half and slipped it into my coat pocket.
“I’m done,” I called out, hurrying up the passage.
Nate barely even glanced at me as I joined him at the top of the steps. He didn’t suspect a thing.
We trudged across the estate grounds and headed up to an entrance on the western side of the mansion. It led into a large, well-lit kitchen.
Colette was standing at a marble counter, loading coffee cups onto a silver tray, and a tall woman with dark hair was watching her, face drawn with worry. “Take them out to the police now,” she said, waving a hand at Colette when the tray was full. She glanced over at us when she heard the door, and her face lit up. “Oh, thank god. You’re finally back.”
She stepped over to us and held out a hand toward me. “You must be Alexis. I’m Annalise, Nate’s mother,” she said. “I’m sorry I wasn’t here to welcome you when you arrived earlier. I only just got back from my trip.”
“That’s all right,” I replied, shaking her warm hand. “It’s nice to meet you.”
“You too,” she said, eyes flickering with curiosity as she stared at me. “You know, I had no idea my son was seeing someone. I have to say, though, I’m very glad to hear it. I’ve always thought the greatest loves are those you meet when you’re young.”
I forced a smile. “Me too. I’m so sorry about all of this drama.”
She waved a hand. “Oh, no apology necessary. It’s not y
our fault. It sounds like one of your friends is a little confused. Or maybe they’re just jealous of you and Nate.” Her eyes rolled upward, and she leaned a little closer. “Anyway, don’t worry. Everything should be fine. We’ll just go in there and explain the misunderstanding. If they try to harass you in any way, just say the word and I’ll call a lawyer for you.”
“Thank you,” I murmured.
I felt sorry for her. The poor woman had no idea she’d raised a complete monster. She just blindly believed everything Nate told her.
We headed out of the kitchen and into a spacious sitting room with pale yellow silk wallpaper and white sofas. Two uniformed officers were sitting on one of the sofas, sipping at cups of coffee.
They put their drinks down and stood when we entered.
“Sorry for the wait,” Annalise said with a polite smile. “Alexis only just got back. She’s been out exploring the grounds.”
The officers ignored her and stared at me. “You’re Alexis Livingston?” one of them said, forehead wrinkling as his brows rose.
“Yes.”
“An acquaintance of yours raised some concerns about your recent behavior, so we’re here to conduct a wellness check,” he said, stepping closer.
“Yes, I heard.” I smiled and held up my palms. “As you can see, I’m totally fine.”
He nodded slowly. “Would you be able to confirm a few details for me?”
“Sure.”
“Could you tell us your full name, date of birth, and home address?”
“I’m Alexis May Livingston, and my birthday is November 23rd, 1999. I’m staying here with my boyfriend at the moment, but my address is officially Apartment 3C at Redstone Hall. That’s at Blackthorne University,” I said. “I have an apartment in Avalon City, too.”
“Could we see some ID?”
My breath hitched in my chest. “Um… I didn’t take my purse with me on my walk. I can’t remember where I put it,” I said, glancing around the room as if it would magically appear somewhere on a table or shelf.
