Page 93 of A Light in the Darkness
I don’t bother to point out how nobody could have seen the lights if they were in the mine, considering we’reunderground.
“And if we find something?” Remy challenges.
Rich holds out a radio with an antenna attached. I didn’t stop to think about what was in the bag he had strapped to his back, but I guess I know now.
“How old school.” Remy says drily. “Couldn’t find two tin cans and some string?”
“Cute.” Rich rolls his eyes, passing the other radio off to Rook.
There’s a moment while we all contemplate what we’re about to do… or maybe it’s just me. Kent nods toward the path he’s going to follow, and Rook obediently follows. Michael, on the other hand, hesitates just long enough to smirk at Remy. “Good luck Papa Bear.”
He winks, too, and then turns on his heel to run after the others, leaving Rich’s laugh to echo around us. “Guess that makes you Goldie Locks,” Rich grins at me. “Stay behind me and in front of Papa.”
“Fuck you.” Remy snaps as Rich turns around, chuckling to himself.
“Papa Bear?” I ask, needing to know more. I suddenly remember his confession—the one I never even acknowledged about his wife, his son. He had ababy.
Somehow, though they like to give each other a hard time, I can’t imagine the nickname has anything to do with that. And it doesn’t, because Remy sighs. “He’s a fucking idiot. Started calling me that on our first mission because I’m the one who gathered them all.”
“That’s cute.” I argue, unable to deny the smile on my face. “You created your own little family.”
“These assholes aren’t my family.”
Rich laughs this time, apparently disagreeing with that statement just as much as I do. “Sometimes you have to make your own family.”
“And sometimes you find yourrealfamily.” Remy fires back. There’s no heat in the statement, but I know exactly what point he’s getting at. I’ve been hiding from the truth about my family because I’m not ready to deal with it… not only a father, but a sister, too? Especially a sister who’s clearly been through her own shit. A sister who, for some weird ass reason, has aligned herself withWes.
Rhea’s the only sister I need, and the only one I can focus on. We may have made up, but I need to call her when we get out of here and make sure everything really is good between us. Maybe it’s in my head, maybe she’s been busy with her exams, and I haven’t gotten a new phone since leaving my last on the airplane, and maybe I’ve just traded my dependency on her out with a dependency upon her brother.
Quiet falls between us as we push forward in our direction, and I’m not sure how long we’ve walked when we reach a dead end.
“Shit.” Rich mutters, running the beam of his light over the wall, like he may just find a crack for us to shimmy through. That might be my hard limit tonight, but thankfully, he doesn’t find anything. As he swings the beam down to rake his hands through his hair in frustration, I notice the glint of metal.
“Shine that back here.” I say, gesturing toward the rough surface to our left. He does, and Remy follows suit, illuminating the space I would swear I just saw something. I squint, tilt my head, take a step back…
But none of those things lead me to find the glint of silver again, until Rich shifts his light away.
“There!” I put my hand out to feel the surface… cold, solid. “There’s something here.”
“Let me at it.” Rich says, so I do. He takes my place, running his hand over the space, and then he finds a trigger point. There’s a sudden release of pressure that for half a second, I think means the mine is coming down around us, and then the wall swings open.
“Christ.” He mutters. “What the fuck kind of psychopaths are we dealing with? This shit is next level.”
“People with a lot of money.” Remy guesses, shining his light into the darkness they just unlocked. It does nothing to illuminate anything, so Rich steps forward, shining his own light in.
I follow tentatively, Remy close behind. The temperature is different… the smell, too.
“We found something.” Remy radios at my back. When he presses the button, there’s a moment of static feedback, and then silence.
Rich moves slowly forward, his light doing little to make a difference, while Remy tries again to radio back to the rest of our crew. I’m just starting to get anxious about them not responding when Rich lets out what I can only describe as a yelp. It’s short and high-pitched and sets the most furious things loose in my imagination, but when Remy shines the light at him, he isn’t being eaten by a zombie or anything… although the bottom half of him seems to have disappeared.
“What the fuck?” Remy rushes to offer him a hand, but Rich shakes his head.
“I missed the drop. There are stairs…” He points below him, and we peer forward to see him.
“Stairs?” It sounds like a bad idea. Stairs leading deeper underground? Why would anyone walk willingly into hell’s gates?
But then I realize, that’s exactly what we’re doing… exactly what they’ve been doing these last six months that Remy and I have been apart. He’s been walking into the fire to attempt to save people from their sentences, and it’s the most noble thing I can imagine, but I fucking hate it.
