Reclamation (The Ravening #3)(10)
Author: Erica Stevens

Lloyd half stepped back into the doorway. "It’s clear," he announced.

"Move out!" Darnell ordered crisply.

Everyone trudged down the stairs and out the door. I was one of the last ones through and I stopped so abruptly that Darnell slammed into my back with a muffled curse. The force of his body rocked me forward but my feet remained planted in place. Cade stretched a hand back for me and frowned as he realized I wasn’t beside him anymore.

I finally managed to move by taking another step back into Darnell. "Bethany!" he barked from behind me. "Damn it, move." I stepped to the side to allow him enough room to slip by me. He gave me a disgruntled look that quickly faded. "Bethany?"

I shook my head. My hands fisted so firmly that my nails dug into my palms. It was dark, so enclosed. So tight! The walls were within arm’s reach and there was no way to know where the passageway went as shadows enshrouded it. The air was so heavy with moisture that my hair stuck to the nape of my neck almost instantly. The smell of it brought to mind images of crypts as mildew and the scent of decay hung heavily in the air.

Darnell took a step toward me, but Cade moved in front of him. He took hold of my hands, but I couldn’t get them to unclench even though my nails were digging into my skin and my blood was filling my clamped hands. Cade seemed to blend into the shadows surrounding him. He was part of the dark, I realized with a moan that didn’t escape my clamped lips.

Closing my eyes, I inhaled deeply. I could do this, I had to do this, but once it was over I was going to allow myself some time for the meltdown I was going to have at the end of it.

My hands uncurled. Cade’s eyes narrowed and blackened at the sight of the blood trickling from my self-inflicted wounds. I reached out to try and calm him but he took a small step away from me. There would be no comforting him right now. In fact, I was only agitating him more. I closed my hands and pressed them against my side to staunch the blood seeping out.

I knew he was dying to get away from me but he stayed by my side. "I’m ok," I breathed.

He managed a feeble smile. "You’re strong Bethany."

"So are you Cade."

His eyes lit with amusement. "Like a rock," he said with a wink.

I couldn’t help but smile at him as some of the tension in my chest began to ease. For a moment I could almost believe that we weren’t trapped here, that he was human, and that none of this awfulness had happened. I could almost believe that I’d simply caught him watching me in the hall once more, but this time I’d actually had the nerve to smile at him instead of shyly looking away.

Then motion behind him caught my attention. The moment faded as I realized that everyone was waiting for us, and that all of them were watching us with a mixture of curiosity and suspicion. I took a deep breath, wiped my hands once more, and stepped away from the wall I had plastered myself against.

"Well let’s see where this goes," Darnell said as he propped his gun against his shoulder.

Cade’s fingers wrapped through mine. An electrical current rushed up my arm from where we touched as we made our way cautiously down the dark hallway. It became so restricted in some areas that Cade and some of the others had to turn sideways in order to fit through the winding passage.

"What is this?" I heard Abby breathe from ahead.

"Boston’s an old city; I imagine there are thousands of tunnels and passageways we don’t know about." Bret’s answer was muffled by the concrete wall nearly pressed against his face as he slid sideways.

"Opening!" Lloyd called back.

The breath I didn’t know I’d been holding exploded out of me. We stepped onto a platform and fanned out as everyone moved to the side to make room for each other. My eyes widened, my mouth parted on a small puff of air. "What is this?" Jenna whispered.

I stared at the tracks, faded posters, and broken signs in awe. I could barely make out the colors and lines on one sign and had no idea what it was supposed to be. Another sign boasted the faded picture of women in bathing suits drinking beer, and yet another advertised a luxury car.

"It is part of the T line, or it was," Bret said slowly.

"It’s nothing like I remember," Jenna breathed.

I’d never seen the commuter line that ran through Boston and the surrounding towns and I definitely never would have come here willingly. The station we were standing in was shaded and dirty, but I could picture how different it must have been before the aliens had banned all forms of transportation. I could almost see the people pushing and shoving, jostling about as they tried to get through the daily grind of their lives.

The thought made my skin crawl but at the same time I was filled with amazement. I would have hated being surrounded by all those people, but it would have been wonderful to have the simplicity of the every day, average life once more. It would have been breathtaking to see the train arrive through the underground tunnel and to watch the people move about with the confidence that came from their routine. There was so much that we had all taken for granted, and now it was gone.

"The stairway is blocked." Lloyd was standing by a pile of rubble as he surveyed it. I hadn’t even realized that there had once been a stairwell there until now. It was obstructed by concrete and rock that blended seamlessly into the darkness.

"Did the survivors do it?" Frank inquired.

"Doesn’t look like it. The walls look like they were exploded inward."

"To keep people out?"

"Or to keep them in," Molly breathed.

I shuddered at the thought. We didn’t have many supplies left, if we couldn’t get out…

My gaze slid to Cade. His shoulders were thrust back and his eyes narrowed as he stared at the wall of debris. "Can we dig our way out?" Darnell inquired.

Lloyd shook his head. "Even if this was just one flight of stairs, and not two or three, it would still take at least a week."

At most, if we were conservative, we had enough supplies for a week. We didn’t have the supplies it would take to fuel us digging through that rubble though. Sweat trickled over my arms and forehead. We were trapped like rats in a maze. It was no surprise those things just hung around in the tunnel up there, they must know that there was a good chance we would reemerge.

"It looks like we’re heading for the tracks then," Aiden said. He was staring at a faded poster with squiggly colored lines going across it. I moved closer to him as he wiped the dirt and dust off the glass plating. It appeared to be a map of some kind as he traced one of the lines and nodded to himself before stepping away. "Right now we’re on the junction of the red and green line, but if we go down a little bit we can meet up with the orange line. That will either take us out or hook us up with the blue line."