by L. L. Muir
Had they seen him?
There were a few whispers, then more silence.
“What are you waiting for?” a man finally called out. “Show yourselves!”
Jamison thought about taking off and heading back up. It wasn’t like anyone inside that cell could come after him. But what about guards?
“We know you’re there. Why do you hide?”
Any guards would have come running, he told himself.
The remnants of chloroform still clung to the corners of his brain like cobwebs and kept him from thinking clearly. He had to trust his instincts. He just hoped that his instincts weren’t asleep on the job.
He straightened and took that last step onto the landing.
At least a dozen faces frowned at him from behind the bars. But they were all behind the bars. No guards.
“Who are you?”
“What are you?”
“What the hell is this?”
The questions exploded at him. All he could do was raise his hands and hope they stopped. There had to be another hundred people inside the cell to make so much noise.
Some of them started shushing and the murmurs died quickly. But the echo from shushing sounded like a giant waterfall echoing from around the corner and Jamison couldn’t help himself. He had to find out just how large this jail was.
He stepped out of the shadows and started walking toward the corner. No one tried to stop him. No one warned him about guards or impending doom, so he kept walking. None of the prisoners, he noticed, wore robes. No white. No gray. Just normal clothes. And some were pretty ratty.
He turned the corner and stopped. For a full minute, he didn’t trust his eyes.
The walkway stretched out so far he couldn’t guess the distance. About four hundred yards away, everything was too tiny to tell. Along the left side were bars—thousands of them—with hands and bearded faces pressing out between them, straining to see in his direction.
On the right was a thick metal railing about four feet high with wire mesh between the rails. On the other side of that was a dark void—a black pit at least a hundred yards wide. And over that pit hung heavy, rugged rock that bulged toward the abyss like it was straining to break free, desperate to be at rest, even if it meant resting in the fires at the center of the earth.
Jamison ducked to see the far side of the pit where there was a wide band of dim light. It might have been the reflection of light off gold, glittery rock, or…
He squinted. Then his stomach dropped.
It wasn’t gold reflecting the light. It was a thousand eyes. Women peered out between the same long line of bars. Old. Young. Younger. No children, thankfully.
But children or not, he knew that saving just his own butt was no longer an option.
As he looked over the expanse of faces on both sides of the pit, he wondered if his grandfather had known about them and had simply been using Skye as bait to get him to Nevada. The gentle Scot had occasionally shared horror stories of the way coal miners in Scotland had been treated in the old days, and Jamison could easily imagine Kenneth Jamison’s outrage if he knew so many were being held against their will so deep underground.
It was probably enough to bring the old Scot back from the dead.
But then Jamison had another thought.
What about Lanny? Had she known about this? And if so, why hadn’t she done anything about it? Weren’t the Somerleds supposed to help answer prayers? And out of the thousands behind those bars, surely some had prayed for rescue.
“Hey!” A young man with black hair curling around his face waved to get his attention.
“Don’t talk to him,” said a blond kid behind him. “He’s a plant.”
Jamison stood his ground, not wanting the blond kid to get any more nervous than he already was. “What is this place?”
Curly smiled. “The catacombs, dude. Welcome to Hell.”
Jamison waved at the cave at large. “Anyone ever get out of here?”
Another kid started to speak, but then grunted and stopped.
“Don’t speak to him, I said.”
Curly snorted. “He ain’t no plant, William. He’s bleeding, so he ain’t a Spade. And if he was a Club…”
William smirked. “Yeah, Schiller? Keep thinkin’.”
There was a long pause. Schiller’s face dropped. “I guess he might be a Club.”
It sounded like he wasn’t going to have his questions answered, but Jamison asked another one anyway. “What’s a Club?”
Another long pause.
“All right. It’s not like Clubs don’t know the system,” said the one called William. “There are only four kinds of people in the mountain. Spades, Clubs, Diamonds, and Hearts.”
“We’re in Vegas, man,” said someone from the right. “It’s all about the cards.”
“If you can explain better,” Jamison said, “I’ll tell you which one I am.”
“Don’t trust him,” someone else growled.
“Lighten up,” said another, a hopeful face from the cell to the left. “Yo, dog. It’s like this. You’ve probably seen the Whites and Greys, right?”
Jamison nodded. “Yeah. I can tell from how dirty their robes are. Real Somerled angels and fake ones, I figured. But how could she turn angels against each other?”
The place fell quiet. Either they didn’t know, or they didn’t want anyone to know what they knew.
“Yeah, well,” the hopeful one finally responded. “Angels and humans. The humans can’t ever get their clothes white enough to pass for a Somerled, so they’re Greys.”
Jamison nodded carefully to keep the chloroform bell in his head from ringing again.
“But there are angels and humans on both sides. There are Somerleds who have joined Gabriella—the Spades—and those who refuse to—the Diamonds. And the humans are split the same way. Humans who drank Gabriella’s Kool-Aid are Clubs. The humans who resist—all of us—are Hearts. Colorful, see?”
“Everyone in the catacombs,” someone whispered, “is either Diamonds or Hearts.”
“Black suits, bad guys. Red suits, good guys. Got it,” Jamison just hoped he could remember it. “So, you’re all Hearts?”
“Yeah.”
“And where are the Diamonds?”
The dude on the right laughed. “Where you find all Diamonds…deeper in the ground.” He pointed his thumb back toward the elevator and the stairs.
Jamison ran through the suits again, trying to keep them straight. Too bad Gabriella’s goons didn’t wear big spades or clubs on their robes. But then again, the others were locked up, so anyone roaming free was a bad guy. Easy enough.
William lifted his chin. “So why aren’t you in here, with us, if you’re not a plant?”
“I got away when they were trying to put a tracker on me.” He glanced down and realized everyone in the cell had a tracker on. “But I’m no angel,” he said, “so I must be a Heart.”
“So you already chose?”
Jamison shook his head. “What do you mean?”
“You chose not to join her army? She makes everyone choose, right after she tells them we were all angels in our last lives.”
Jamison grimaced. “No. She didn’t give me a choice. And I was never a Somerled. But my girlfriend was. I was just trying to keep Gabriella from getting her hands on her.”
“See?” William stepped away from the bars. “He ain’t one of us. He’s a plant. Don’t listen to him. He’s just trying to sell the Kool-Aid. Trying to convince us we really were angels. Stay tough.”
“That’s too bad, man.” The hopeful dude from his left moved into Jamison’s line of vision. The guy’s hair was long and mingled with his beard. “If you’re a wild card, you’re not getting out of this alive.”
“Gee, thanks.” Jamison sighed. “You might not want to hear this, but you probably were angels in a past life if Gabriella is interested in you.” Hands and faced disappeared from the bars all the way down as his words were passed along.
“But that doesn’t mean you should give in,” he added. “Do you even know what she’s raising this army for?”
No answer.
“Look. I swear I’ll figure out a way to get you out of here. And there have to be Somerleds out there, trying to get help to you.”
Hopeful dude pointed to the pit. “That’s our only way out. If we get summoned, our trackers slide along the track you’re standing on, up through the tunnels and into the coliseum. But if someone can’t take it anymore, they jump the fence.”
Wow. “So no one has gotten out?”
The other guy shook his head. “Only Diamonds.”
That didn’t make sense. If Diamonds were the Somerleds who refused to be corrupted, they wouldn’t feel any kind of pain. They couldn’t be tortured. So why would Gabriella want to keep them there? Time probably meant nothing to them. What use would they be?
“Diamonds only get out if they piss her off,” the one called Schiller said. “But they don’t get out, really. They get a one way ticket to Hell.”
A lot of heads nodded.
Jamison gave a short groan. “That’s ridiculous. Somerleds can’t be sent to Hell. They can’t do anything wrong, even if they try.” That wasn’t strictly true. Skye had been able to say a few things that were…less than nice. And she’d had feelings she wasn’t supposed to be able to have. But she still hadn’t been held accountable for them. “None of them would be accountable until after they were born.”
Jamison realized his audience was in shock.
“Who told you that?” Schiller whispered.
He shrugged. “A Primary.”
“You mean, besides Pilot?” William sneered. “Even if we bought all this crap about angels, Pilot says there are only a few Primaries left. They’re like dragons. Dying out.” He laughed and turned to face the others in the cell. “And we believe all this about as much as we believe in dragons, right? You see how he’s got me talking? I told you Blondie was a plant!”
“My name is Jamison. And since Skye—that is, my girl—doesn’t need saving anymore, I may as well try to help you, whether you believe or not.”
The hands and faces moved quickly back to the bars.
“What did you say?” Schiller hissed. “What is her name?”
“My girl? Her name is Skye. When we met, she was a Somerled angel. Now she’s a mortal, like you. A Heart.” His heart, that was. And she was lost to him again. But there was no time to worry about his heart when his neck, and a few thousand other necks, were in danger.
At the mention of Skye’s name, the whispering grew into a loud wind that made its way quickly around the cavern and across to the women’s side. Jamison was now the paranoid one, wondering why in the hell Skye’s name could excite thousands of people who had never laid eyes on her.
William stepped back to the bars again, but his expression was completely different than before. He was suddenly a believer. Jamison just couldn’t tell what it was the guy believed in.
“You know Skye?” William asked, almost smiling.
Jamison nodded carefully.
“And she’s one of us?”
He nodded again. “Gabriella knows she used to be a Somerled.”
Schiller straightened and grinned at William. “Just like the old ghost said.”
Jamison started. “What ghost?”
William nodded at Schiller, who then turned back to the bars. “An old Scottish guy. He wears a skirt—”
“A kilt,” Jamison corrected.
Schiller nodded. “Yeah. He’s been here twice in the last few months, telling us help was coming. A girl named Skye.” He gestured toward the pit. “We haven’t had any jumpers since.”
The fact that his grandfather’s ghost had been there freaked Jamison out. He would have killed for another glimpse of the old man, but he was also scared to death of disappointing him. There were a helluva lot of people who needed help. What would the old man think if he couldn’t do anything for them?
Probably haunt him for the rest of his life, thumping on his foot every time his eyes closed.
“So, where’s Skye?” Schiller waved to get his attention again. “You said she didn’t need saving now. Where is she?”
Huge warehouse lights, hanging above the walkway, flooded the cavern with bright light and everyone winced. Jamison looked frantically for a new escape route, figuring the lights were a sign that guards would be coming to investigate the uproar.
“Where is she?” Schiller repeated, shielding his eyes with his hands.
Jamison didn’t dare go deeper into the cavern, not knowing for sure if there would be an exit. But they couldn’t have brought all these people in through one stairwell, one elevator.
“I need to hide,” he hissed and moved close to the bars.
Schiller shook his head. “Tell us where Skye is, or we’ll rat you out!”
The kid looked serious.
Jamison confessed. “I don’t know. Far away from here, I hope.”
The kid’s face fell. After staring at Jamison for a minute, probably trying to tell if he was lying or not, he finally pointed back the way Jamison had come. “Go down…and keep your mind blank.”
Jamison ran, grabbed the corner bar to make the turn, and hurried toward the stairwell. But the elevator doors were already opening.
CHAPTER SEVENTEEN
Stone walls. Bars. The pit. Breathe in. Breathe out. Stone walls. Bars. The pit. Nothing. Nothing. Nothing.
Seven steps down, Jamison listened to see if the guards had noticed his less than graceful exit. A minute went by. The cavern was silent.
Go down, Schiller had said. So he went down. And down. And down.
He didn’t know if he’d actually descended three stories, or if his fuzzy mind blew everything out of proportion. Surely there hadn’t been as many bars and as many faces as he’d imagined. In all the world, could there be that many former Somerleds?
He’d always believed Skye’s choice to become mortal had been a rare thing, but maybe not.
And maybe the pit between the men’s and women’s cells hadn’t been as massive as he’d imagined.
Lost in thought, descending in circles, he nearly passed the landing. If there hadn’t been one long slab of stone interrupting the rhythm of the stairs, he might not have looked up for some time. He stepped through the arch, forgetting to listen first for guards.
The light was dim, more of a glow. With his dark clothing, he felt safer in such a shadowy place. Twenty feet away, a group of Somerleds stood waiting for him. Their white gowns didn’t give them away, though. It was the light glowing beneath their feet, lighting their way…like it would have lit their way walking through a corn field in Colorado.
A familiar form with wide shoulders stood at the front.
“Lucas?” Jamison’s chest imploded. “Lucas! What are you doing here?” He stumbled forward. “And if you’re here, where in the hell is my mom?”
CHAPTER EIGHTEEN
Skye took a deep breath and released it slowly as she took the familiar exit. She really didn't need to pay attention. Her body and her car were on automatic pilot and she arrived on the street in front of Fernando's without any thought at all. The next thing she did was a first, however. In two years, she'd never been able to pull up and park in front of the restaurant. But no one was going to tell her where she could park that day.
She wasn't afraid of Blair the Creep noticing her car and causing problems. The last thing he wanted was for Skye to have a chance to tell anyone about the money he'd stolen from her. And if he called CWS, she'd have plenty of people to complain to…on the way to detention.
But the best thing about taking that spot in front of the restaurant was knowing that Fussica and Fernando were all too aware that the green Corolla belonged to her, and for as long as she was parked there, they would be left wondering what she was up to, and hopefully, waiting nervously for her to come through the door and make a scene.
But she didn't need to go inside t
o solve her problem.
She locked the doors, stuffed the keys deep into her pocket, and set off for the corner. She was a little surprised there was no Somerled fruit stand in the spot where it had been nearly every day for as long as she'd been driving down that street. But then, that Somerled woman had been at the old church that morning, and maybe that alone had thrown the entire fruit stand off schedule.
Still, it was strange for the little sidewalk business to suddenly be missing the first day she was no longer working at the café around the corner. Had they been there all along, just to keep an eye on her?
That was so messed up.
Why in the world would they care about her? Had they mistaken her for someone else? It was the only reason she could think of. She wasn’t some long lost child of a billionaire or something. Her parents had been normal, average people. And she had no special talents or abilities that might interest anyone—unless dealing with the Garzas while remaining sane was a marketable talent.
The truth was, she was clean out of logical ideas. There was simply no reasonable explanation for anyone to be looking for her. Or kidnapping her.
Who in the world did they expect to pay her ransom?
Of course, they were near Vegas and there was a sex trade that snatched girls off any street in any country. She wasn't ignorant of that danger. But these people weren't after some random teenager who would fill the bill. They were after her, specifically, or so the Somerled woman had implied. And some mysterious, cute guy shows up to save her from them? For no reason? A perfect stranger?
That was so stupid.
Skye headed to McDonald's and tried to sift through her past for some brain injury that might have stolen some of her memories. Did she know these people at some point in her life and she just didn't remember?
She thought specifically about the blond and remembered sitting in that very McDonald's, three booths away, facing him. She tried to remember exactly what he’d looked like yesterday, before she’d been spooked. And she had to admit that her heart had gone pitter-patter. Was it because she remembered him from somewhere, or because he was hot? Because he was hot.
