Page 99 of The Tomorrows After You
Riot’s voice, angry andhurtechoedin my brain,bouncingoff the walls of my skull, making me dizzy.
Then do right by him, Nicolette.
The minesweregated, a chain-link fence with barbed wireissuinga fierce warning to intruders like me. Idiscardedthe bike at the entrance.
I scoured the perimeter until I spotted a loose section where the fence separated from one of the poles. Holding my breath, I was able to shimmy through.
I crept across the field toward the towering, black entrance. Of course, it was chained off with a heavy lock.
Thank God I was a good listener, though. Back at the prom, I remembered Jeremy boasting about how he and a few buddies had snuck into the mine to smoke weed. They went through a small service entrance that was used for maintenance on the elevator. I scoured the opening until I spotted it. Prying it open with my desperate fingers, I took a breath. Stale air and peculiar smells wafted from below. The cage was at the bottom but there was a narrow ladder that I could reach on the inner wall.
I took a deep breath and stepped inside, feeling my pulse in my throat. I grabbed the rungs of the ladder and began to descend several stories into God knows what.
Pryingopen the elevator doors, itwasalmost pitch black. I could see equipment, coats, hazmat gear, and hard hats hanging to my right. Ipulledout my phone to look for the light switch,prayingbeyond hope the electricitywason.
The lightwaslow and red, almost like backup generator lights, but itwasenough.
I turned to face the cavern in front of me. My eyes wentwide.
“Holy shit…”Ibreathedout. Istartedto record a video. moving through the massive operation. Ihadno service, of course, but Iattachedthe video file and more photos and documents to an email to Dr. Moore anyway,hopingit would send if Iwalkedinto a bar of service.
The vindication flooded through me and Istruggled to keep a level head.
I could do right by Riot. And Brennan. And Grace. And this whole town. A tinge of disappointmentcloudedmy victory. Part of mehadhopedIwasoff track. But not now. Not after this.
My mindstartedto reel,spinningin so many directions that I didn’t hear the chain on the main doors unlock until theyswungopen. Iheldmy breath,pushingmyself against the wall, my eyesdartingaround for escape routes.
Inchingmy way back to the elevator entrance, I warilypeeredup the shaft.
“Just couldn’t leave well enough alone,” the familiar face peered down, and rage boiled inside me.
“You…” I growled.
39
Riot
Ididn’t sleep a wink that night. I tried to distract myself by searching all kinds of federal laws about false confessions but the more I searched, the deeper into a vortex I went. None of it was good. But Nicolette had made a valid point — why would a simple domestic manslaughter case interest the feds?
The thought of her name gripped my heart in a bitter ache. I would never understand how someone could hurt another person like this, let alone a person they claimed tolove.
The despairclungto my hollow chest. Ireplayedher words, her expression, her body, all of it.
Riot, I love you!
The words had sent me flying. It was exactly what I had been hoping to hear less than an hour before. And now they were the worst words in the entire world.
Because they were either a lie or worse. They were the truth, and she was a person willing to betray someone she loved.
The next daywasa frantic scramble of phone calls. Icalledmy attorney, whowasout of the office because itwasSunday. I couldn’t find an FBI office in Charleston so Icalledthe police department.
“We’ve got nobody named Brennan Asher anywhere in our custody.”
“No, I know that. He was taken by two federal agents. They said they took him to an office in Charleston. Sam Billings and someone named Gibbons.”
“We don’thaveany officers by those names, sir.”
I wanted to scream. Break something. I hung up and found the generic number to the FBI but that was a black hole of pointlessness. When Ididget through to a human being, it was a lot of “we can’t give out that information” or “we’re uncertain at this time”.
