Renegade (The Captive Series Book 2) (3 page)

The tunnel became narrower, William
slid another gate home. The fire of the main room became visible as
the maneuvered another turn, soft laughter reached them. Aria’s
heart hammered, she could barely breathe. She had never felt
claustrophobic within the tunnels before, now she felt like a caged
rat running aimlessly along. If they got out of this she swore she
would never return to these caves. Then again, they could never
return to them anyway, they were no longer safe.

They had been discovered.

William and Aria stumbled into the main
hall. Everyone became silent as William spun around to slam another
gate shut. “They’re here!” Aria breathed.

There were a good hundred people in the
room; panic claimed over fifty of them. Screams rang out, children
began to cry. Though they had run drills, and practiced for this
sort of thing, it had never happened before. Aria was dismayed and
horrified to see the chaos that swiftly took over. Her mouth
dropped as people began to run about, trying to gather as many of
their things as possible. Others kept their heads enough to shut
the other three gates that blocked the tunnels from the main
room.

She wished that her father or Daniel
were here, they would have an easier time at keeping everyone calm,
but they had gone to meet with another group of rebels stationed
about a mile away in another set of caves. “Everyone! Everyone! You
have to calm down!” She raced into the center of the room, holding
her hands up as she tried to soothe the fray. No one paid her any
attention as they began to push and shove their way toward the only
remaining exit. “Wait!” she cried, trying to stop them before they
hurt each other. Trying to stop them before they ruined everyone’s
chance at escape.

Max grabbed hold of her arm, pulling
her free of the crushing bodies. Thrusting her behind him, he used
his body to shield her as people pushed and shoved against them.
Aria clung to his shirt as he pressed tighter against her, trying
to protect her from the jostling and shoving, but he could not
protect her from being pinned hard against the wall.

“Everyone calm down!” his voice was
louder than normal, but not so loud that it would bounce down the
tunnels, and not so loud that it caused the people to hesitate for
even a moment. “Damn it!” he hissed, his anger and frustration
apparent in the constriction of his muscles, and his fisted
hands.

He turned toward her, bracing one hand
against the wall by her head as he fought against the people
pushing against them. Grabbing hold of her arm, he pulled her
against him as he shoved his way back through the crush, fighting
against the seemingly endless sea of people. Her heart hammered
painfully in her chest, she searched wildly for William, but she
couldn’t see him amongst the wave of bodies.

They broke free; she inhaled the fresh
air sharply, trying hard to get oxygen into her abused lungs.
William was before her suddenly, he thrust her bow and a quiver of
arrows into her hands. “We’re going to have to go out another
way.”

Aria’s eyes widened. The tunnel behind
them, the one everyone was shoving through, was the only one that
did not eventually meet back up, in some convoluted pathway or
another, with the main tunnel they had just left. There were ways
outside through other tunnels that led off the main one, but there
was a chance that the vampires could already be in any of those
tunnels. To open one of the gates back up, and go into one of those
tunnels, was a huge risk. It was something they had never planned
on having to do.

She glanced back at the exit tunnel, it
was jammed full of bodies pushing and shoving at each other. In the
drills they had run, and practiced, most of the people were
supposed to be halfway through the tunnel by now. But panic had
hindered things; she was certain that there were people on the
ground in there, people injured and hurt and being
trampled.

“We have to help them.”

She took a step toward them but William
grabbed hold of her arm, pulling her sharply back. “There is no
helping them now Aria; we have to get out of here before we get
trapped in here. We have to go.”

“The people,” she whispered.

“Will be fine, they have the safe exit,
remember?” he retorted sharply. “Come on.”

He pulled her back toward the gate that
they had entered the cavern through. “We just came through there,”
she breathed.

“There are three gates closed between
us and the main hall. It will be the safest one.”

His long fingers worked deftly over the
locks, throwing them swiftly open. Three other men and one woman
gathered with them, apparently deciding to throw their chances in
with them, rather than the crushing mass of people on the other
side. Aria did not know who they were, but the people within the
caves changed often. Most of the rebels relocated constantly,
preferring to stay on the move rather than remain cooped up in one
place. It was a theory that her family often stuck to also, but her
father had stayed here for far longer than normal. Aria knew it was
because of her. Knew that he had wanted her to rest and recuperate
in one place, and maybe even have some sense of stability for once
in her life.

Aria had hated being stuck here, and
now she knew why. She felt much safer moving constantly, felt much
safer outside in the woods she knew so well. Yet, they had spent so
much time over the years running in and out of the cave systems,
that they knew most of them by heart. She always felt like a caged
animal when she was within the caves, but knew them like the back
of her hand. She had wanted to make her dad happy though,
especially when he was so obviously worried about her, so she
hadn’t complained about staying here. She wished she had now. The
caves would have been raided, even if they hadn’t been here, but
she couldn’t help but feel like this was somehow her fault. That
she had somehow brought them here.

“Come on,” Max said softly, seizing
hold of her hand.

They plunged back into the black
tunnels. The darkness enveloped them; she could barely make out the
back of Max’s head as she strained to see. She wished they could
light at least one of the torches, but that was just begging to be
caught and killed, or captured and brought back to the palace where
God only knew what kind of horrible fate awaited her. She had the
distinct feeling that if she was brought back to the palace, it
would not go over well. In fact, although the prince was engaged,
she thought she would be made to pay dearly for her escape. She
knew how badly he hated to be disobeyed, and her escape had been
the ultimate defiance, and she would be punished for it. Either
that, or he wouldn’t even care that she was back there and just
decide to let her go to whoever claimed her this time.

She shuddered at the thought. Her hand
clung to the bow and quiver slung over her back. They were her
specialty; she could shoot an arrow better than anyone else. She
just wasn’t going to be able to do it in these narrow confines, and
from the way that William was heading, she knew that it was about
to get a lot tighter in here. She hated this route through the
caverns because it was so narrow, but it was the one that made the
most sense right now. It would be harder for the vampires to
navigate through here also, and at this point the other tunnel
options led out to a waterfall. It was a beautiful sight, but the
sound of rushing water blocked out the noise of their pursuers, and
they needed their sense of hearing most right now. Their sight was
just about useless. The rocks were also slippery, and climbing them
under the best of circumstances was dangerous enough, without
adding the bonus obstacle of rushing.

William took a sharp right. The tunnel
began to climb steeply upward. They were heading toward the back of
the mountain, and what had once been an old coal mining operation,
or so she had been told. Aria hated the old coal mines; they were
creepy, dangerous, and filthy. Thankfully William took a left and
began to climb toward the backside of the mountain. The air became
easier to breathe, although the walls were still tight against
them, she did not feel quite as pinned in.

Max’s hand tightened around hers. She
was grateful for his reassuring presence, his solid strength and
warmth as he led her swiftly along. William stopped suddenly,
causing the woman to bump roughly into him. They stood silently,
straining to hear anything within the dark, damp space. They were
only a hundred feet from the end of the tunnel, only a hundred feet
from freedom, or certain death.

“We’re going to have to move fast. Stay
low and head straight for the woods. If we get separated for some
reason we’ll meet up again at the south edge of the lake,” William
instructed. “If we can’t get to the south edge of the lake, we’ll
meet at the banquet tree.”

The banquet tree was a tree she and
William had discovered when they were children. It was simply an
extremely large apple tree, but it had seemed massive and wonderful
to them as they spent hours climbing its massive limbs, and gorging
themselves on the apples they picked from it. For a couple weeks
every year they’d had an ample supply of fruit, and aching bellies.
But it had always been worth it.

They were also the only ones who knew
where the tree was. They had brought the fruit back to the camps,
willingly sharing it with everyone, but they had never revealed its
location, and now that she thought about it, she didn’t think
anyone had ever asked. It was as if they had all understood that
they’d needed a place of their own, and allowed them to keep
it.

Aria’s hand tightened around Max’s. She
understood that William was mostly concerned with her safety, but
she could not lose Max. He had risked his life for hers; he had
sacrificed himself for her. She would not take the chance that they
were separated now. She thought that she should feel more guilt
about possibly losing the others but she didn’t, not when it came
to her brother, and her friend. Their world was cruel, brutal, and
for most people it was every man for themselves, except for the few
people that ran in slightly larger circles. As she did.

It was nice to have friends, and family
that she could rely on, that she could trust with her life. But the
downfall of it all was the hurt that would come with the loss of
one of them. And she had been lucky so far. Before her time within
the palace, she had naively believed she would be lucky forever.
She was not so naïve now.

William rushed forward, leading the way
as they raced through the dark, up the slope, toward
freedom.

They plunged into the night. Aria
inhaled large, greedy gulps of the fresh air, relieved to be free
of the confining space of the caves. They were almost a hundred
feet from the cave exit when the screaming pierced through the
rapid beat of her heart in her ears. She froze, horror coiling
through her as she turned slowly back around. They were higher up
on the mountainside, staring down across the way. The lake was
beneath them, gleaming in the moonlight that reflected off of it.
Across the lake was the exit from the escape tunnel, hidden within
a copse of trees.

The exit had been selected because it
was the farthest point from the main entrance, and well concealed.
It was also where the screams were coming from. Aria’s mouth went
dry; she took a step forward as horror and terror coursed through
her. Across the lake, through the moonlight, she could see people
scattering in every direction, fleeing as they tried to escape the
monsters pursuing them.

Aria gaped for a moment longer, unable
to believe the carnage before her. They had to do something. Now!
She darted forward, determined to get down there, determined to
help, determined to try and stop this somehow. Max seized hold of
her arm, pulling her back. She struggled against him as he started
to pull her toward the woods.

“We have to help!” she
gasped.

He grabbed hold of her other arm,
holding her tight before him as he shook her slightly. “There is
nothing we can do Arianna, we have to go! We have to go
now!”

She tried to fight him, but he retained
his fierce hold. “We can’t just leave them!”

His eyes were dark, sad, broken in the
moonlight. “There is nothing we can do Aria, it’s too late for
them.” Her gaze turned back to the sight below her, she couldn’t
abandon them. “It’s how we were captured before Aria; you cannot
run heedlessly in again.”

His words froze her, she couldn’t move
as her heart lumbered to pump the blood through her suddenly frigid
body. It was how they had been captured before, it had been her
fault that they had been taken, and she couldn’t allow that to
happen again. Her gaze wandered hopelessly over to William. He
stood at the edge of the forest, waiting impatiently for them. The
others had already fled into the darkness. If she went down there
again, if she tried to interfere again, they would follow her, and
they would be caught. And there was nothing that any of them could
do to help the people being hunted now.

There was no way to stop the massacre
that was raging below them, no way to silence the screams. There
was no one to save them if they were captured again, no one to
rescue them as Jack had blown his cover amongst his family. They
knew he was a traitor now, and would not welcome him back. They
might not even be captured this time; they could just be
slaughtered outright.