Chapter 14 The Tunnel
Fifteen minutes.
I stared at the silver key in the dust and the numbers on my watch felt like a countdown to an execution.
11:46 PM.
I didn't pick it up immediately because my hands were shaking too hard. It felt like a trap. It felt like a test designed by a paranoid king to see if his new prisoner would try to escape the moment the door was locked.
If I used it and an alarm went off Dante would come. He would find me with the key in my hand and the proof of my betrayal written all over my face and this time he wouldn't just threaten me. He would put me in the cellar. Or he would kill me.
But if I didn't use it...
If I left it there in the dust and closed the panel and went to sleep in the big soft bed like a good little pet then I was accepting my fate. I was accepting that I belonged to him.
I looked at the writing again.
Use it before midnight.
The letters were jagged. Desperate. Whoever wrote this wasn't playing a game. They were in a hurry.
I reached out and grabbed the key.
It was cold. Heavy. The metal bit into my palm like a promise.
I looked around the closet. The service hatch was small and dark and smelled of stale air and old secrets. I shined my phone light inside. There was no handle. No door knob. Just a flat metal panel at the back of the recess about two feet in.
And in the center of the panel was a keyhole. It was shaped like a skull.
I crawled into the closet. My knees pressed against the floorboards. I felt ridiculous and terrified and furious all at once. I was crawling into a hole in the wall because a stranger told me to.
I inserted the key.
It slid in smoothly. No resistance. Like it had been oiled recently.
I held my breath. I waited for a siren. I waited for the lights to flash.
I turned it.
Click.
A heavy mechanical thud echoed in the wall. The metal panel popped open an inch.
It wasn't a service hatch. It was a door. A hidden door built into the infrastructure of the house.
I pulled it open.
Darkness stretched out in front of me. A narrow tunnel between the walls. It smelled like cedar and dust and cold air.
I checked my watch.
11:55 PM.
I had five minutes to decide if I wanted to be a prisoner or a rat in a maze.
I thought about Dante. I thought about him standing in his office right now, secure in his power. He thought he had me trapped. He thought biometric locks and guards were enough.
He didn't know his fortress was hollow.
I grabbed my knife from the bag. I put the phone in my pocket.
I squeezed through the opening.
The tunnel was tight. I had to hunch over. The floor was rough wood. I hesitated, looking back at the closet, wondering if I should leave the panel open so I could get back quickly.
But if I left it open, the guards might see it if they checked the room.
I pulled the panel shut behind me.
Click.
The darkness was absolute. It pressed against my eyes like a physical weight. It felt heavy, suffocating, like being buried alive.
I fumbled for my phone and turned on the light. The beam cut through the dust motes dancing in the stale air.
The tunnel stretched out in two directions. Left and right.
Left went toward the center of the house. Toward the stairs. Right went toward the corner. Toward Dante’s office.
I should go left. I should try to find a way out. I should try to find a window or a door that led to freedom.
But my feet didn't move left.
They moved right.
I didn't want to escape. Not yet. Escaping meant running away with nothing but the clothes on my back and a terrifying enemy hunting me. I wanted dirt. I wanted to find the thing that would make Dante bleed.
I crept forward. The floorboards didn't creak here. They were solid. Whoever built this place built it for silence.
I walked for what felt like miles but was probably only fifty feet. The air got colder. The walls felt closer, pressing in on my shoulders. I felt like the house was trying to digest me.
I saw a grate in the wall ahead. A vent.
Light spilled through the slats. Yellow light. Warm light.
I stopped. I crouched down. I pressed my face against the metal grate.
I was looking into a room. Bookshelves. Leather chairs. A massive desk.
Dante’s office.
I was directly behind the wall of his office. I could see the side of his desk. I could see the rug where I had stood the night before.
And I could see him.
He was alone.
He was sitting in the high-backed chair, staring at the wall. He wasn't working. He wasn't reading. He was just sitting there with a glass of whiskey in his hand, looking at nothing.
He looked exhausted. He looked like a statue that was beginning to crack. His tie was undone. His hair was messy.
I watched him. I held my breath. I waited for him to do something evil. I waited for him to call a hitman or laugh about my misery.
But he just sat there.
Then he reached into his pocket. He pulled something out.
It was small. Silver.
He set it on the desk.
My breath hitched.
It was a locket. A silver locket on a delicate chain.
He opened it. He stared at the picture inside. I couldn't see the picture, but I saw his face.
The mask dropped. The cold, hard lines of his face softened into something that looked like agony. Raw, bleeding agony.
He touched the picture with his thumb. Gently. Like it was the most precious thing in the world.
Isabella.
It had to be his wife.
I stared at him and I felt a surge of confusion. He killed my mother. He was a monster. Monsters didn't look at lockets with eyes full of grief.
He’s acting, I told myself. Even when he’s alone, he’s acting.
I watched him for another minute, hating him, hating the confusion he made me feel, hating that he looked human.
Then I heard it.
A sound.
Not from the office. Not from Dante.
From the tunnel behind me.
It was soft. A scuff of something against wood.
I froze. My blood turned to ice. I wasn't alone.
I turned off my phone light instantly. The darkness rushed back in, heavy and suffocating.
I gripped the knife so hard my hand hurt. I pressed my back against the wall next to the vent.
I listened.
Scuff. Scuff.
Footsteps.
Someone was walking down the tunnel. Coming from the direction of my room. Coming from the closet I just left.
The locksmith.
He hadn't left the key so I could escape. He had left the key so I would walk into his trap. He was waiting for me to enter the dark so he could corner me where no one could hear me scream.
I looked back at the vent. At the light spilling through. It was the only light in the world.
I could scream. I could yell for Dante. He was right there. Ten feet away. Through the wall.
If I screamed, he would hear me. He would tear the wall down. He would find me.
But he would also find the knife. He would find the key. He would know I betrayed him.
And the thing in the tunnel...
It was getting closer.
I heard the drag of fabric against the rough wood. I heard a soft exhale.
I looked at the vent. I looked into the darkness.
I was trapped between the monster who killed my mother and the monster in the dark.
The sound stopped.
Right in front of me.
I squeezed my eyes shut and held my breath until my lungs burned, waiting for the hand to grab me.