Page 27 of Asphyxia
Anathemahadto use these tunnels to work and navigate the city unnoticed. They only existed to those who knew of them, and the police reports fit the pattern of a secret society—or whatever the fuck they were calling themselves right now.Pitch-black mercenaries.
“This is ridiculous. There is nothing down here, Dean.” Derek growled in frustration as he pulled out his phone, searching for a signal.
So far, he was right, and I fucking hated it. There was nothing down here.
We had been walking for what felt like an hour and never encountered anything out of the ordinary for an old ass sandstone tunnel.
“What could you possibly have to do today that is more important than doing your fucking job?” I barked, unable to control my anger at the situation, and abruptly turned around to confront him.
It pissed me off that he felt as though he was the only one being inconvenienced with this assignment—that I wouldn’t have preferred to have stayed back home, buried between Madison’s thighs, instead of here arguing over bullshit.
“Nothing. Forget it… Let’s keep going.” Derek sighed as he stepped past me, taking the lead.
I frowned, feeling a little like an asshole for my emotionally charged outburst, before following him and sliding my free hand into my pocket, the other still holding my flashlight.
After another fifteen minutes of wandering the endless maze of passages, Derek stopped and directed his light to what appeared to be a boarded-up archway.
“Holy fuck.” I whispered in awe as I took in the symbol of a mangled-looking rabbit that had been burned into the barricade's top right corner. There was a letter A burned into the center of its body, almost like a branding—the symbol of Anathema.
A shiver trailed up my spine, and the air around us suddenly grew heavy. There was an eerie feeling of being somewhere weweren’t supposed to be—of being watched, and all I wanted to do was get the fuck out of there.
“Well, there’s your confirmation, Dean.” Derek’s voice caught my attention before it drifted further than it should. “Mark this location on your phone, and we’ll return later—when we are better prepared.” He instructed, and I was already ten steps ahead of him, not wanting to stay down here a second longer.
I loaded up my GPS to save our current coordinates and find the fastest exit route before what little signal I had left disconnected me entirely from the network, leaving us fucked for getting out.
“Right. Done. That way.” I pointed down the passageway to our left, and we made a beeline towards the nearest exit of the tunnels, neither of us wanting to take a chance of getting caught by any of the members of Anathema.
BeforemeetingDerekatthe mill, I had Agent Kelly pull a full background check on Eli Wilder, the potential third-party informant currently involved with Anathema.
By the time we had left the mill, he had confirmed exactly what I had hoped—that Eli was a solid lead.
The only problem now was figuring out how to approach Eli without scaring him off. Derek has had several run-ins with Eli over the past year, always playing the bad cop and threatening Eli’s life for information—typical Derek stuff.
The CIA could never gather enough evidence to convict Eli of the crimes he was accused of, and so whenever his name was mentioned, Derek was always the one to torment him. It was almost as if he had a vendetta against Eli, and it wouldn’t be complete until he was off the streets for good.
I swung by our apartment to pick up Marcus on my way to the office, but he was already gone when I arrived. Having the bare minimum of cell service underground, I couldn’t update him on when I would be back, so with him already gone, I just assumed he either caught a ride from another agent or had Madison drop him off on her way into work, not wanting to wait any longer for me.
When I checked our office before catching back up with Derek, Marcus was nowhere to be seen. None of his things were there, and the lights were still off.
Marcus was never one to get himself into any kind of serious situation, so I just told myself that he was most likely working on his own assignment and that I would catch up with him after the day was over.
Standing in Derek’s office, I stared out the window, observing the traffic and people on the busy street below.
I knew what we needed to do and where to go now that I had what I needed with the information on Eli. But I couldn’t keep my priorities straight today—my mind constantly wandering back to Madison.
No matter how hard I tried to focus on my work today, all I could see were her beautiful eyes—her sweet sounds from yesterday overwhelming my senses.
Fuck, I was growing hard just thinking about her—
“We need a third party, Dean.” I heard Derek mutter, and my attention snapped to him, shaking me from my drift. “There is no way we are going to be able to progress any further in this case without one. It would need to be someone on the inside willing to risk everything for a way out of Anathema.”
I huffed out a laugh, feeling proud as fuck that I already had exactly what he was asking for. Eli would help us gain entrance into Anathema, and Derek would ensure that happened at all costs.
“Lucky for you, I found us just that,” I grinned, pulling out my phone. “It took a while to find him, but while we were exploring the headrace tunnels, I got a confirmed name and an address.”
I scrolled through my phone for Agent Kelly's email containing the information on Eli while Derek sat there and chastised me for not telling him sooner.
In hindsight, I probably should have told him sooner. However, my mind was preoccupied with a blonde bombshell that I could still taste on my tongue. Remembering how her thighs felt wrapped around my—
