Hunter had passed out. Miraculously, she didn’t hit her head on the way down.
In less than five seconds, Gavin was back, his wings tucked in before his foot touched the ledge. He checked Hunter’s pulse, made sure she was breathing, and then lifted her up into his powerful arms. I followed as he carried her back inside like a baby.
I was a little jealous to watch him carry another girl, but I took solace in the fact that it wasn’t my heartbeat that had caused the entire attack. It wasn’t Hunter’s fault, of course, but I could see how she got overwhelmed.
By the time we stepped back down on the cathedral floor, Hunter was awake. Gavin set her down on a nearby chair.
“Oh my gosh, oh my gosh, oh my gosh,” was all she could say. She rocked back and forth a bit, changing her chant. “I can’t do it. I can’t do it.”
“Of course you can, Hunter,” Gavin said. “You’ll be fine. You’re strong.”
“No, I’m not,” she said, looking at him with big, tear-filled eyes. “I’m not. I pretend to be, but really I’m not.”
He knelt down and took her hand. “I know you’re scared, Hunter, but we’re going to get you out of here.” I wondered why I wasn’t freaking out as well, especially considering what I’d just come face-to-face with. Somehow, Gavin made everything seem all right.
“Let’s go get you something to drink,” he continued. “I think we all need a little break right now.” He led us to the steps that curled down to the crypt and the café.
The café was much nicer than I expected—a small, upscale bistro with warm, terracotta tiles on the floor and cheery white paint on the walls. The arched ceilings were filled with tiny spotlights that made you forget you were actually underground.
As the three of us ate, we talked about our next steps. I told Hunter about the sickness in Aviemore, about Jo and the other kids being hospitalized, and how we had to hurry to get the antidote from Magnificat.
Gavin still thought the safest way to Magnificat was the quickest way, which meant going in a straight line instead of meandering around the city in a cab or a subway. We’d been warned about the subway, and we’d already found out how the cab thing would go.
“I get that crossing the Thames is the fastest way,” Hunter was saying, now back to her regular color and energy level after some nourishment. “But we can’t get over that pedestrian bridge. It’s impossible.”
“We can’t go over the Thames, true,” Gavin said, “but I bet we can go under it.”
Since the city had been inhabited for over a thousand years and because it sat on a bed of clay, London was one of the most tunneled cities in the world. Hundreds of tunnels wound under London, as well as carved-out shelters, war rooms, military fortresses, and escape routes from all sorts of places—including, of course, Buckingham Palace. Most of the underground tunnels were completely secret and unknown to the public. Gavin was convinced there had to be a tunnel from St. Paul’s going directly across the Thames, directly to Magnificat. We just had to find it.
“If there is a tunnel from St. Paul’s, it would have to start down here, below ground, in the crypt,” I said.
“The crypt is huge, though,” Gavin mused. “It’s as big as the entire footprint of the cathedral. We can’t just walk around looking for loose stones or secret panels in a place this vast. It would take weeks.”
“We have to narrow it down, then,” I said. “Whose tombs are down here? That might give us a clue.”
“There are over two hundred tombs,” Hunter answered. “Admiral Nelson, the Duke of Wellington, Florence Nightingale . . .” Gavin and I stared at her. “I’ve been in here for twenty-four hours,” she reminded us. “I’ve read the guidebook fifty times.”
“Is there one that might lead us out of here?” I asked.
“I’m not sure. There’s the Sullivan guy from Gilbert and Sullivan. There’s a memorial to Winston Churchill, but he’s not really buried here. There’s the architect Sir Christopher Wren,” she rattled off.
“Architect?” I asked. Something familiar was ringing in my brain. “Of what? What did he build?”
“This church,” she said, shrugging her shoulders. “Why?”
“That’s it! It has to be!” I said. “My mom was a computer analyst—well, that’s what she told me she was, anyway. And in every computer program, the architect always leaves a secret back door for himself so he can get back in if he needs to fix something. Why would this church be any different?”
“So you think the architect’s secret way out starts at his tomb?” Hunter asked.
“It makes perfect sense,” Gavin said. “And we’ve got to start somewhere.”
My pocket vibrated. I was getting a text. I switched on my phone screen, and my stomach dropped.
“What’s happened? Who texted you?” Hunter asked.
“Stuart, a kid from my class,” I answered. “Five of the people who were poisoned at the party died this morning, and Jo is barely hanging on. We have to get to Magnificat, fast.”
The rest of the crypt was not as cheerful as the café. In fact, for an actual tourist destination, it was poorly lit, dusty, and super scary. We passed dozens of giant stone coffins, each decorated more gruesomely than the next. Some had screaming lions carved into them; others were protected by snaking serpent tails or tall fences topped with rows of spears.
The crypt was cavernous and completely empty of people. Our footsteps echoed eerily, bouncing off the dead bodies and returning to us magnified. The farther we walked, the darker it got.
Sir Christopher Wren’s tomb was in the very back of the crypt; we had to walk the entire length of the cathedral again. By the time we got there, I was jumpy, convinced a bony hand was going to slide out from under one of the heavy lids like in a haunted house amusement ride. But this was no theme park. This was real.
Wren’s burial plot was by itself, under an arch that had a small, barred window with a view of the street gutter. So we aren’t all the way underground, I noted. Which meant getting to a tunnel wasn’t going to be as easy as opening a door. We were going to have to descend to somewhere else.
I didn’t know if I could handle a place even creepier than the crypt. I had no problem with heights, but the idea of being trapped underground with rotting corpses was my worst nightmare. Hunter, on the other hand, seemed perfectly comfortable, almost excited. I wondered if I had claustrophobia and was only just discovering it. I definitely had hate-being-underground-with-dead-people-phobia. I took deep breaths and tried to calm my racing heart. I was definitely regretting my forced chutzpah with Gavin, since now I couldn’t let on how freaked out I was or he would send me home.
The architect’s grave was cordoned off by a small wrought iron fence. Unlike the other tombs, which had huge statues and elaborately carved coffins, Wren was laid to rest under a simple, rectangular black marble slab set just six inches above the floor. On the wall above it hung a large stone plaque engraved with a bunch of Latin:
SUBTUS CONDITUR
HUIUS ECCLESIÆ ET VRBIS CONDITOR
CHRISTOPHORUS WREN,
QUI VIXIT ANNOS ULTRA NONAGINTA,
NON SIBI SED BONO PUBLICO.
LECTOR, SI MONUMENTUM REQUIRIS,
CIRCUMSPICE.
Obijt XXV. Feb: Ano: MDCCXXIII. Æt.XCI.
Gavin translated: “Underneath lies buried the builder of this church and city, Christopher Wren, who lived beyond the age of ninety years, not for himself, but for the public good. Reader, if you seek his monument, look around you. He died on the twenty-fifth of February, 1723, aged ninety-one.”
A secret tunnel out of St. Paul’s wouldn’t simply be labeled with a sign. We’d have to discover it, and I was certain we’d need to solve a puzzle to do so.
I’d learned that the trick to solving most puzzles—whether they were leisure games or scientific conundrums—was to identify the oddity, like the old Sesame Street song: “One of these things is not like the others . . .”
As he was reading, I was studying the layout of the words, looking for anything out of the ordinary. The quicker we found something, the quicker we could get out of the crypt.
The inscription had eight lines of Latin, all center spaced, all capital letters. I tried skipping around and reading the first letter of every word, but Latin is so weird—and so full of Qs and Vs—that nothing came of it. I counted the words. Nope. Then I noticed that while each line had multiple words on it, there was one that was conspicuously shorter than the others. In fact, it only contained one word: circumspice.
“What does the one word all by itself mean?” I asked Gavin. “‘Circumspice’?”
“‘Look around you,’” he answered. “Why?”
“It’s the only one all by itself,” I said. “I think that means something: look around you.”
Hunter picked up the phrase and started swiveling her head in all directions. “Look around you. Look around you.” The smooth, white stone walls offered no other clue. She then spun her entire body in slow circles. Still nothing.
“What’s the line above it say again?” I asked.
Gavin reread it. “Lector, si monumentum requiris. Reader, if you seek his monument.”
“Circumspice,” I finished. “Look around you.” I repeated it. “Reader, if you seek his monument, look around you.”
“We are,” Hunter said. “There’s nothing around us.”
“This has to be it. It just feels right.” I walked through my thoughts out loud. “It says ‘if you seek,’ and we are seeking. ‘His monument.’ Could mean this church, but that’s pretty obvious. His monument is his legacy. Why couldn’t it be the secret way out?”
“Okay, go on.” Gavin seemed impressed.
“We need his help,” I continued. “We’re asking him to show us the way out. And he’s saying, ‘Here it is. Just look around you.’”
Hunter opened the small metal gate, walked into the nook, and stood at the foot of the metal slab. Gavin joined her, moving toward the window and tracing the edges of stones with his fingers, probably looking for a loose one. I preferred to stay outside, away from the deceased. I kept reading.
“Circumspice. Look around you. Look around you.” Suddenly, like a dodge ball in gym class, it hit me. Hard.
“Look around U!” I said. “The letter u. Maybe that’s it!”
There was only one u in circumspice, and I began to read the letters in a circle around it, starting with the letter directly above it to the left. There were seven: N-U-M-O-N-A-C.
LECTOR, SI MONUMENTUM REQUIRIS,
CIRCUMSPICE.
Obijt XXV. Feb: Ano: MDCCXXIII. Æt.XCI.
“Numonac?” Hunter said. “Is that Latin?”
“No, but it’s close,” Gavin replied. “And it could be two words.”
“Numo and nac?” Hunter said. “Any better?”
“Nope,” Gavin answered.
“What if we start with a different letter than the n?” I asked, already mentally doing just that. “If you start with the m and go counterclockwise, it’s M-U-N-C-A-N-O.”
“Mun cano means ‘grey world’ in Latin,” Gavin said, lighting up. “Does that mean anything to anyone?”
“Greyworld is the name of those artists who install large, interactive sculptures around London,” Hunter offered. “Trash bins that talked in Cambridge, traffic posts that played music, trees that sounded like a music box when you turned a golden key on their trunks, a nighttime rainbow in Trafalgar Square …”
“Do their works have anything in common?” Gavin asked.
“I guess the fact that they all use sound,” Hunter answered. “They started with fence railings that played a song when you dragged a stick along them.”
Sound. An odd clue, considering the crypt was deathly quiet.
“I’m not sure reading counterclockwise makes much sense,” I corrected myself. “You’d read a circle more like a rainbow, from top and bottom, left to right each time. That would be num cano.” Goosebumps prickled across my forearms.
“In Latin, num cano is ‘you sing,’” Gavin said.
As if on cue, Hunter let out a piercing warble—“Here lieth Christopher Wren!”—and collapsed on top of Wren’s grave.
Hunter lay motionless on the marble slab, and probably due to shock, Gavin and I stood motionless next to her. But only for a moment. Because then the entire slab started to sink.
She lifted her head, smiling at us. “Rather dramatic, I know, but the occasion called for it. It’s so darn serious down here.” She didn’t seem to realize she was moving with the slab.
“Um, Hunter,” I said, afraid to move in case I made it worse, like jumping in after someone who’s just fallen through ice. “Your singing seemed to activate something and . . . the ground . . . it’s moving!”
The slab, now perfectly flush with the floor, stopped sinking. Hunter rose to her knees. She was now in the center of Wren’s slab.
“It’s not moving now, right?” she asked.
“No, it’s stopped,” I answered.
“Good,” she said, standing up. She took a step toward us, but as soon as she shifted her weight, the entire slab tilted. It must have sunk until it rested on a bar across the middle, because the metal plate was now acting like a giant teeter-totter. It kept tipping under Hunter’s feet, the top rising into the air behind her, until she was no longer able to stand. Her feet slipped out from under her, she landed with a thump on her bottom, and promptly slid out of sight into a black hole now opened in the floor. As soon as she was gone, the tablet righted itself, sealing Hunter below us.
She was gone, and the room was eerily quiet, as if she’d never been with us. Terror tightened its grip on my chest. I had to say something, to prove to myself I could still breathe.
“We have to get her!” I croaked.
“I’m on it,” Gavin answered, and he really was, leaping deftly onto the middle of the slab. “I’ll slide down, hold the slab so it stays open, and you come after me. I’ll catch you, I promise.” He shifted his hips, and the plate tipped open at the bottom again. As soon as it was wide enough, he dove into the dark hole, feet first. My heart sank as he disappeared. I was afraid my fear would swallow me whole.
Thankfully, the tomb didn’t swing closed. Gavin held it open.
“I’ve got it,” he called up to me. “Climb on, Maren!”
I looked around the crypt wildly, trying to decide what to do, but my brain wouldn’t hold a sane thought. I had just made a huge scene with Gavin, insisting I was brave enough to continue, but I hadn’t counted on the trip involving subterranean terror. Maybe I should let Gavin take Hunter to Magnificat by himself. But then I’d be stuck in the bowels of the crypt, I reminded myself. Just me and all the dead bodies. There was no good option.
The deciding factor was Gavin. No matter where he was, I wanted to be with him. I took a deep breath to calm my nerves, climbed gingerly onto the marble slope, and let go. I slid into Gavin’s waiting arms, landing against his broad chest with a satisfying thump. I clung to him as I watched the band of light from the opening shrink into a thin line and then disappear as the slab swung shut. It was now completely dark.
I felt Gavin’s lips against my ear. “I’ve got you,” he breathed. I let myself melt into him a little, relaxing into his strong but soft embrace.
“Can you guys see?” Hunter called out from the darkness.
“Nope, nothing,” I answered. I begrudgingly stepped out of Gavin’s arms, since Hunter was right next to us.
I glanced around, willing my eyes to pick up anything: a shape, a shadow, a small movement. It was darker than anywhere I’d ever been—completely and utterly black. The ground had some extra give in it, so I knew we were standing on dirt. And since Gavin was able to hold the slide open, I knew that the room couldn’t be very tall. But other than that, I was at a complete loss. It was a scary feeling to be in total darkness. I found Gavin’s hand and laced my fingers with his. He squeezed mine reassuringly.
“I can see,” Gavin said.
“You cannot,” I answered. “It’s pitch black.”
“Angels can see in the dark,” he replied.
“Of course you can,” I said with a sigh, starting to feel foolish for my fear now that I was standing safely next to him. How could you ever compete with an angel? I thought. Well, at least he hadn’t been the one to solve the puzzle. “So, where are we?” I asked.
“In a low room, quite large, that extends out at least one hundred feet in every direction, except to our left,” he said. “There’s a wall about forty feet away to the left, and it has a door on it.”
“Is the wall with the door the right direction?” Hunter asked. I could hear her shuffling closer to us. I held out my free hand, and she bumped into it with her shoulder. We linked elbows. “Will it lead us to the river?”
“Aye,” Gavin answered. “The Thames is that way.”
“Then let’s go,” Hunter replied, nudging me so that I, in turn, nudged Gavin.
Gavin led us slowly into the dark. We’d only taken about fifteen steps when a whooshing sound filled the air. Two beams of light flared ahead of us. I shut my eyes against the sudden brightness, and when I opened them, I could see there were torches hanging on either side of a large wooden door—actual torches!—and they were burning with a bright fire. A man stood next to them, glowing in the light.
“Is it a ghost?” Hunter whispered, digging her nails into my arm. I was relieved I wasn’t the only terrified one.
“There are no such things as ghosts,” the apparition called out to us in a deep, male, English accent. “You’re either on this earth, or you’re not.” I recognized the voice, but couldn’t connect it to a face.
Gavin picked up the pace, as if he was excited to get to the man. A few steps closer, and I saw why. It was Alfred, the salt-and-pepper-haired guard.
“You’ve found your young friend, I see,” Alfred said, nodding at Hunter. She smiled at him like a family member. They’d obviously run into each other a few times over the last twenty-four hours. I was glad she’d had someone looking out for her before Gavin and I arrived, but I couldn’t figure out why he was in the subbasement, and how he’d gotten there. I hadn’t seen anyone else in the crypt.
Gavin stepped forward and gave Alfred a hearty handshake.
“And you’ve chosen a path,” Alfred said, gesturing toward the door behind him. “You’re off to Magnificat, then?”
“How do you know that?” I asked, startled that a night watchman knew about Magnificat or our plan.
“Why else would you be down here?” he answered simply.
“It’s all right,” Gavin assured us. “He’s an angel.”
“How do you know?” Hunter asked.
“Angels can see the breath of other angels and demons,” I explained, secretly wishing I had the same ability. Alfred did seem like an angel now, especially the way Hunter was beaming at him.
“Very true,” Alfred answered. “And I’m happy to assist you in any way that I can.” He had a calming presence, just like Gavin.
Hunter seemed awed. “So Magnificat is behind this door?”
Alfred nodded. “Aye, through the tunnel. And after your handiwork on the roof, I’m guessing you won’t be alone in there.”
“What do you mean?” Her wide eyes danced in the torchlight.
“Once you pass through this threshold, you’re no longer protected by St. Paul’s,” Alfred answered. “While it is easier for demons to fly in from an open sky to snatch their prey, they can still come after you on foot. They’re quite fast, you know. And they do roam the tunnels, in every direction they are able.”
“Tunnels? You mean there’s more than one tunnel behind this door?” I gulped.
“There’s an entire network under London, and they’re all connected,” Alfred said, confirmation of what Gavin had told us in the café. “Every tunnel has hundreds of offshoots and openings. But luckily your path to Magnificat, while one of the longer tunnels, is straight as an arrow. All you need to do is keep running, and leave the rest to Gavin and myself.”
“You?” Hunter asked, her face softening. “But I don’t want anything to happen to you! I’ve already caused everyone enough trouble.” She moved forward and gave Alfred a big hug. That Hunter, she sure likes to hug people. Although in this case, I couldn’t blame her. There was something so sweet about Alfred. He reminded me of my grandfather back home, and I felt a pang of homesickness. Weird, I thought to myself. That’s the first time I’ve thought of Scotland as “home.” Just in time to possibly never see it again.
Alfred chuckled. “I’ll not have you worrying about my wellbeing, young lady. I can hold my own, you know. Besides, I can’t let Gavin here have all the fun. Two beautiful ladies are too much for this young chap.”
“Hey!” Gavin said, playfully punching at the older angel’s shoulder. Before Gavin’s fist could connect, Alfred’s hand shot up and caught it in a white-knuckled grip. Alfred was no weak old man.
He tossed Gavin’s fist aside and opened the door with a flourish. We peered over his shoulder and saw that the tunnel was made of tightly packed earth on all four sides, was extremely narrow, and was very, very dark. My new-found claustrophobia kicked in. As long as we don’t have to go too far and Gavin is with me, I thought, I can make it. Hopefully.
“It’s exactly five hundred meters from here to Magnificat,” Alfred explained. “Not terribly far, but in the dark, you can get disorientated.” Five hundred meters didn’t seem too bad, until I did the metric conversion in my head: five hundred meters was about the length of four-and-a-half football fields. As if a long, suffocating tunnel filled with demons wasn’t bad enough, I remembered I was not a great runner.
“What do you mean ‘in the dark’?” Hunter asked. “We have the torches.”
“We won’t be taking the torches with us, Miss Hunter,” Alfred answered. “It’s better for you girls to run in the dark, so your eyes won’t serve as a distraction.”
“Being able to see is a distraction?” I said.
Alfred nodded. “It is when what you see might override your desire to run. Can’t have you stopping. For anything. You two must run straight, run strong, and not stop until you reach the end. Just keep running!”
“So the demons can see in the dark?” I asked.
“Yes, same as Gavin and me. But you needn’t worry about them. Just run as fast as you can, and let us deal with any uninvited visitors.”
The tunnel’s small girth required us to traverse it single file. We decided that Gavin would take the lead, followed by Hunter—since she was a faster runner and wouldn’t end up crashing into me—then me, and finally Alfred, who would guard us from the rear.
We stood in the doorway, tense with readiness. The inside of the tunnel was silent, and the air tasted cold, but stale. I hoped there was enough oxygen for all of us. I tried not to, but was already breathing heavily, probably using up more than my fair share.
Suddenly, Gavin pulled away from the tunnel, his face twisted with worry. “I’m sorry, Alfred, Hunter,” he said. “But before we go, I need to borrow Maren for a moment.”
He lifted a torch off the wall, grabbed my hand, and led me away, into the dark.
Once we were well out of earshot, he turned to me.
“Maren,” he said in a low whisper, “I need you to do something for me.” My fear of the darkness and the demons seemed to evaporate as he said my name. Gavin’s power over me was almost mystical. Just the tone of his voice seemed to clear my head and my heart of cobwebs, worry, and anything ugly. I imagined I could see his angel breath, rolling over me, protecting me from every angle.
He reached out and gently stroked my cheek, and I heard him inhale sharply as if touching me was too overwhelming. I could have fainted for the pure pleasure of his fingers on my skin, but I didn’t want to miss a moment.
“Mmm-hmm?” I said, not really caring what he asked, as long as he kept caressing my face.
“I need you to stay alive.”
“What?” I asked, startled.
“I need you to stay alive, no matter what. Promise me that.” I felt a flood of panic rush through me. No matter what, again? Did he know something I don’t? What is in those tunnels?
“You’re here, you’ve chosen to go with us, but I can’t have you giving up, okay?” he continued, looking so intensely into my eyes, I was afraid I might start crying. “Even if you’re taken, stay alive. I will come and find you. Promise me you’ll stay alive.”
“Why do you need me to promise that?” I swallowed hard.
“Because I’m afraid I’ve fallen in love with you,” he answered. “And I won’t lose you. Not now. Not ever.”
My heart fell into my toes. After pining for Gavin with every ounce of my being, of praying he would like me, he was finally standing in front of me, confessing he actually loved me. Loved me. Me, the girl from Missouri. And the biggest miracle of all was that because of who he was—the most gorgeous creature I’d ever seen and an actual angel—I believed him. I could believe him. I felt deserving of his love. I felt more special than I’d ever felt in my life.
“I love you too,” I whispered back.
“Promise me, then,” he repeated.
“I promise,” I said.
“Good,” he said with a smile. He then leaned in and kissed me. It wasn’t an accidental kiss this time. It was the kind of kiss that makes you believe in fairy tales and shooting stars and happy endings.
We were back at the tunnel entrance, lined up as before. Only this time, I knew Gavin loved me, and he knew I loved him. It should have made me more confident in the journey ahead, but now that we were in front of the door, now that the kiss was a memory and the darkness stretched out to eternity, it made me more scared. Now I had something to lose.
“You’re sure there are demons in there?” Hunter whispered.
“I’m afraid so.” Alfred nodded solemnly.
I glanced at Gavin, to see if he looked worried. He smiled to reassure me, but I knew he was nervous. Otherwise, he wouldn’t have made me promise to stay alive.
What kind of promise was that, anyway? Stay alive. How about, “Don’t get hurt” or “Run as quickly as you can”? Stay alive? I realized that meant his biggest concern was that I would die. Actually die. And I knew why. I had pretended it hadn’t bothered me, but I couldn’t forget the horrifying sight of the demons on the cab and the cathedral roof. And I’d more than just seen them, I’d smelled their hot, acrid breath, been grabbed by their terrible claws, had heard their beyond-the-grave yowling.
I suddenly remembered the first time I’d heard the demonic screaming. Before Campbell Hall. Before I saw Gavin in the woods with Bertie. I’d heard it at my mother’s funeral.
Images of the sudden “storm” swept through my brain: the darkness, the priest running away in terror, the men from my mother’s work disappearing . . . It hadn’t been weather-related after all. Demons had interrupted my mother’s funeral. I wondered if any of those good-looking coworkers were angels. Where had they gone? I supposed they killed the visiting demons or I wouldn’t still be alive. Why were the demons there in the first place? What could they possibly get from my mom after she was already dead?
I realized with a sinking feeling that I knew. That I was carrying the answer on my back. Her secret journal. The journal that had led me here, just outside Magnificat, to the antidote. What else did the demons not want me to discover?
My mouth became desert dry. I tried to swallow, but couldn’t. There was a distinct and very real possibility that I was going to break my promise to Gavin.
I jumped up and down a little to get my blood flowing, to jerk the negative thoughts from my head. I had to get through this. Hunter needed to get to Magnificat. Jo needed the antidote. The High Council needed my mother’s journals. I would get through this. And I would be with Gavin.
I focused my attention back on Alfred and Hunter, determined to concentrate only on the present.
“And we never turn? Just run straight?” Hunter recounted.
“Yes, the tunnel ends at the door to Magnificat,” Alfred said. “Although, come to think of it, we don’t want you running right into the door. It should take you about two and a half minutes of nonstop running. If you count to one hundred fifty, with elephants, you’ll stop just in time.”
“With elephants?” I asked.
“Yeah, like ‘one elephant, two elephant’ . . .” Hunter replied.
“Oh, we use Mississippi in the States,” I said.
“Same thing,” she said.
As it turned out, it really wasn’t. The extra syllable in the muddy Midwest river caused me more physical pain than I’d ever felt in my entire life.
To give us enough room to run, we were supposed to wait for a count of five from the time the person in front of us left before we ran after them. That’s when my trouble began.
Gavin dashed into the darkness first, and Hunter stood her ground, counting out loud: “One elephant, two elephant, three elephant, four elephant . . .” Then she bent her knees like a professional sprinter and shot off.
I immediately began my count, but silently to myself: “One Mississippi, two Mississippi, three Mississippi . . .” I hadn’t yet gotten to number four when I felt Alfred give me a small nudge. I was confused—I’m not at five yet!—but my body responded to the suggestion, and before I knew it, I was running.
The tunnel air was much colder on my cheeks than I anticipated, probably because I was running as fast as I could. Even though I could feel my feet pounding on the ground, and knew from the burning in my chest that I was running at full speed, it didn’t feel like I was going anywhere, because it was absolutely black all around me.
“Seventeen Mississippi, eighteen Mississippi . . .” I was somehow still keeping count in my head, even while I was noticing every little thing around me. Splash! I ran through a puddle. Whoosh! I felt the breeze of an opening to my right. Huh-huh! I heard my own breath coming out in short bursts.
Things were going well. I was up to number ninety-seven, and didn’t even have the side cramp I usually got when forced to run laps in gym class. Maybe we’d make it without any problems after all.
And then I heard the screeching.
The familiar, high-pitched yelp was in front of me, growing louder by the step, and I was running directly toward it. Blindly, in the dark.
And then I heard the screaming.
It was Hunter, and she sounded hurt, or hysterical, or both. I felt myself running faster, trying to get to her, and then, unexpectedly, as I passed an opening on my left, I heard her voice now behind me. I was running away from it. Had she been grabbed? Where is Gavin? Should I go back and help her?
My feet propelled my body forward, even as my brain begged it to stop. I felt like I was under a spell, jogging against my will. Maybe I was still running because that’s what I was supposed to do. Yes! Just keep running. Alfred and Gavin had told us just that, over and over.
But I had completely lost count. How long ago was I at ninety-seven? Was I at one hundred twenty? One hundred thirty? Was I close? Far away?
A deep boom resonated, like an underground explosion, and the entire passage shook. Tiny bits of rock and dirt fell into my face, but I just kept running.
The screeching rolled in directly behind me now, and something jerked on my hair. But I just kept running. Alfred grunted behind me. I heard him swing; something flew through the air. There was another small earthquake. More silt in my mouth. I just kept running.
And then I hit the wall. At full speed. One second there was nothing but air in front of me, and the next second I slammed into the solid end of the tunnel so hard, I actually bounced backward. I heard a sickening squeal, felt something sticky on my neck, and then . . . nothing.