Hollowed (38 page)

Nobody should die alone.

Noah drifts closer, and I can feel the warmth of him at my back. How selfish am I? Being glad that he's there while Oliver and Fred can't stand the sight of him. Maybe neither of them believe he didn't do it, but I do.
"
What are you doing here?
"

"
Looking for Ruby or Joel, same as you.
"
He shrugs.
"
You
can
'
t
say you
'
re surprised
.
"

My lips purse.
"
How
did
you know to search down here?
"

He tries valiantly not to smile, but the right side of his mouth twitches up anyway.
"
I didn
'
t. I followed you.
"

"
Like a hyena, scavenging for scraps.
"
Oliver rolls his eyes.

Noah shoots him a dark look.
"
If we
'
re after the same targets and you guys have a lead, I don
'
t see what the harm is.
"

"
You
'
re the one who said you didn
'
t want to work with vampires,
"
I point out.

"
If you don
'
t want my help, all you have to do is say so.
"

"
We don
'
t want—
"
Before Oliver can finish that statement, I clamp a hand over his mouth.

"
Okay, kids. I
'
ve said it before and I
'
ll say it again
: w
e want the same thing, so let
'
s stop with the bitching and get a move on.
"
I pull away. Noah and Oliver
exchange dirty looks like the five-year-olds they are
, but
the bickering seems to be put on hold for now
.
"
Whoever
did this to Alex might ha
ve left her here for us to find
.
"
I say
who,
but I don
'
t think any of us have any doubts that this is Joel
'
s work.

"No useful messages on her phone," Fred says. I make out him scrolling through her
phone, picking a number, and dialing out. A second later he
hangs up and shoves it into his pocket. "And we aren
'
t really getting a signal down here."

"Then we keep moving." Oliver glances at Alex before turning
his back to her
. I hate the thought of leaving her here, but taking her along will slow us down. We can come back for her once this is over.
If there
'
s anything left.
She's deteriorating by the second.

We continue our path through the underground, through wide rooms and small rooms, through some tight and narrow passages where the tunnels have partially caved in on themselves. I'm more worried about them caving in on
us
. I
'
m also worried Noah will leave. Wander off on his own. But he keeps at our backs, a few feet behind, and every now and again when I look over my shoulder he offers me a thin smile.

The farther we go, the farther behind we leave Alex, the more other presences start tickling my senses. I can't place these ones.
They aren
'
t Joel, but they
don't feel
human.

T
here are several of them. Two at first, which multiplies to four, six, eight... From all different directions. In front of us. Overhead. If I focus too much on it, the sensation makes me dizzy.

"You feel that?" Fred murmurs to Oliver, like I can't hear. Oliver nods slowly.

"
Feels kind of like Briar,
"
Noah says behind me.

I scowl at him over my shoulder
.
"
What'
s that supposed to mean?
"

He stares at me a second, then past me at the boys.
"
Like new vampires.
"

No one responds. All I can think is that I hope he
'
s wrong.

The ground begins sloping up as we duck beneath some old, low wooden beams. Heading toward the surface, I hope. I'm totally done being down here where I feel closed-in and vulnerable. Where people like Noah can hide in the darkness without us knowing.

Where people like Alex are left to die.

Fred keeps trying the phone, dialing every couple of minutes. Each time the call drops before it even rings. It isn
'
t until I
'
m
sure
we
'
re nearing some kind of exit that he
halts
dead in his tracks and switches on the speaker phone. It
'
s ringing. We all stop, crowding around Fred in the narrow hall.

The smooth-as-silk voice that answers a minute later sounds way too amused for my liking.
"Hello.
"

This is the first time I've heard Fred sound so sincerely cold and furious. "Alex is dead."

"Is she? Ain't that a shame. I wonder who could've killed her?"

I snatch the phone away from Fred because he looks about three seconds from throwing it.
"
Where are you, Joel?
"

"
Oh, is that
Ruby's baby sister
? Who else is there? Hope y
'
all are getting
'
cozy and familiar with one another.
"

"
Where are you?
"
I repeat.
"
Grow a pair and stop running.
"

"
It ain
'
t my fault you haven
'
t found me yet.
"

"
Maverick
'
s gonna kill you if you don
'
t hand yourself over,
"
Fred says.

"
Nah. I don
'
t think Mav
'
s gonna be doin
'
much of anything, to be honest. Have you seen him recently, Freddy?
"

Dread works its way into my chest. He could mean anything with a statement like that. Either Maverick is on his side after all, or
—

I turn to Oliver, keeping my voice low.
"
Is Joel strong enough to kill someone like Maverick?
"

Oliver shakes his head slowly, but there
'
s a sliver of doubt in his gaze, and the way he
'
s frowning tells me he isn
'
t quite so sure about that. I wonder if that magic blade of Noah's is
capable of doing
to an older vampire what it did to Artie and Alex.

"Where is he?" Fred asks.

"You're cutting out. Guess the reception in those tunnels ain't so good? Keep moving forward. I'm waitin' for you guys."

"Joel!"

"One more thing. Bunny, your sister says 'hello.'"

The line goes dead. This time I'm ready to
smash it into the wall.
Fred yanks it from my grip with a curse and tries dialing out again. Doesn't take a genius to know that Joel won't answer.

I'm going to be sick. If I didn't feel claustrophobic before, I sure as hell do now. The walls are
suffocating. Noah, Oliver and Fred...
all too close. Joel has Ruby.
L
ike I was afraid of. We were too slow.

I push
by
the boys to
keep moving
.
Joel
said he was waiting for us, and I'm not going to waste anymore time.

Oliver calls after me. I ignore him. I hear footsteps hurrying to cat
ch up, a hand grabbing my arm—
but it isn't Oliver, it's Noah. He pulls me around to face him.

"Hey, you need to stop for a second so we can figure things out."

"What is there to figure out? Joel has my sister. I'm going to rescue her." I jerk my arm out of his grip, trying to turn away. This time when he grabs me, it's to push me against the wall and hold me there.

"You aren't
thinking.
Why would Joel keep Ruby hostage, huh? It doesn't make any sense. If he wanted her dead, she would be by now."

Whatever he's implying, I don't think I like it. God, I want to punch him in the mouth and make him shut up! What does it matter whether Joel has her or not? So long as he's a threat, he has to be dealt with. I push at Noah, but he doesn't budge. "Right. Enlighten me, all-knowing
one. What the hell is he doing
?"

Noah scowls. The places where his fingers dig into my arms are starting to throb, but he doesn't ease up. "Either he's lying and he doesn't
have her at all...
or he does, and they're working together."

"Oh, of all the stupid shit
—
" I shove him again, harder this time, enough to push him back against the opposite wall and rip his grip off of me. "
You can
'
t for once think Ruby might be the victim in this, can you? We
'
ve pissed Joel off. That
'
s all the reason he needs to keep her hostage. He knows it
'
ll get to me.
But y
ou know what? Whatever. Sitting around here
figuring things out
isn
'
t going
to get me anywhere." Talking. That's all it seems we've been doing, and I can't fight on my own; I need the boys. But if they want to stand around 'figuring things out,' then whatever.

Noah doesn't try to
restrain
me when I walk away this time. More importantly, the three of them follow, and that's all I could have hoped for.

Within minutes we're out of the narrow tunnels again.
We have to duck through a hole in a brick wall to continue further.
This room feels more lived in. Directly overhead is a light bulb hanging from a cable running the length of the ceiling. I follow it to the wall and
find
a switch. The string of lights flicker
s
to life, flooding the room in a gloomy yellow glow.

We're in some kind of basement,
for a warehouse,
maybe. It stretches out on all sides of us with abandoned crates and broken chunks of machinery littering the floors
,
and an old water heater in the corner
. The only way out is the way we came, and a set of stairs on the opposite side.

On those stairs stands Joel, smiling triumphantly. Which wouldn't seem so daunting except for the people in the room standing between us and him.

That tickle in the back of my mind, the feeling of their presen
ces...it was them. Ten, eleven
...
A dozen, all together
. Some my age, some older. The youngest can't be any more than thirteen. They watch me and the boys with their hungry dark eyes, waiting. For us to attack, for Joel to give the command, I
'
m not sure.

This is the family Joel has been building. The people he deemed
worthy
to join him.

"
Took you guys long enough,
"
he
drawls.
"
The kids here were all sorts of excited to see you.
"

Oliver and Noah
are at my sides. I
n unison they shift forward to nudge
me behind them. I can feel Fred at my back,
his tension and anger rolling over my skin and making it prickle. More than any of that...I
'
m hyper aware of Noah
'
s gun tucked against the small of my back. Wondering if I would be a good enough shot to take out Joel from this distance. I can
'
t find the confidence to risk it.

"
I
'
d say you
'
ve officially screwed any chance you had at getting out of this,
"
Oliver
says
.
"
This many new vampires
,
killing Maverick
?
How much deeper do you want to dig your own grave?
"