Chapter 145 Tough Pt. I

Chapter 145 Tough Pt. I


"Don't you dare give up."

Grace's voice bounced off the tunnel walls and Enzo did not respond, he could only groan.

Over the past hour, more and more of his weight had settled against her. Stubbornness had carried him this far, but even that had its limits.

His skin burned beneath his shirt.

Sweat clung to his forehead, cold enough to make her stomach tighten. His breaths had grown shallow, each one shorter than the last. Every few steps he slowed, his boots dragging against the uneven ground before he forced himself forward again.

Grace tightened her grip around him.

"We're almost there," she murmured, though she had no idea if it was true.

He didn't answer, he was weak too. Grace noticed that the tunnels had changed, she'd noticed it little by little. The stale, lifeless air had begun to move, brushing gently against her face instead of hanging heavy around them. It carried the faint scent of damp earth and rain, the kind that only existed above ground.

She'd first noticed it nearly forty minutes ago but hadn't said anything.

Hope was dangerous when you were trapped underground. If she was wrong, hearing the disappointment in her own voice would only make the walk harder.

So she'd kept quiet. Then she heard it again, it sounded like a distant rumble.

She stopped for half a second, listening.

Cars.

The sound was faint, muffled by layers of rock and soil, but it was unmistakable. Engines. Tires rolling over pavement.

The surface.

She'd been hearing it on and off for the past twenty minutes, and each time it sounded a little clearer.

Her heart lifted.

She looked ahead into the darkness, tightening her hold on Zion.

"We're close," she whispered.

They had passed skeletons.

Some were little more than scattered bones half-buried beneath years of dirt. Others still rested against the tunnel walls as though they'd simply sat down to catch their breath and never stood again. Time had stripped away everything except the quiet reminder that not everyone who entered these tunnels found their way out.

Grace looked once before dragging her gaze away, there was nothing to say about them that would make them any less dead. She tightened her hold around Enzo and kept walking.

His footsteps had been slowing for a while now. At first, it was barely noticeable. A slight drag of his boots. A longer pause before the next step. Then he began leaning on her more heavily, his breathing turning rough enough that she could hear it echoing softly through the tunnel.

"Enzo." She lightly shook him, he groaned. "No, you have to speak. Enzo." She whispered.

"I'm here."

"You don't sound very convincing." 

"I'll survive long enough to prove you wrong."

She frowned but said nothing as she led him a few more steps, then he stopped completely, his knees gave way beneath him.

"Enzo!"

She barely caught him before he hit the ground. Together they sank onto the cold stone, his back resting against the tunnel wall, the torch rolling away from his hand. Grace knelt beside him, one hand still gripping his arm.

He closed his eyes for a moment.

"Hey." She gently tapped his cheek. "Look at me."

His eyes opened, but they weren't the same.

The sharpness she'd grown used to was fading, replaced by something distant that made fear creep into her chest. She pressed the back of her hand against his forehead.

Her heart dropped, he was burning up. It wasn't a normal fever, the heat beneath her skin felt unnatural, fierce enough that she pulled her hand back on instinct.

The venom was getting worse.

"Go," he said. His voice had almost nothing behind it, stripped down to the barest functional version of itself. "Leave me here."

"I'm not leaving you here."

"You'd be doing the world a favour." A ghost of the expression that usually lived on his face when he said things like that. Barely there. "Grace. Go."

She shook her head, willing herself not to cry. "You idiot, you should stop pretending."

"I'm not pretending."

"You are. Look at you, pretending you couldn't even take a few steps, so I had to drag you all the way. The roles are meant to be reversed, you know." She sniffed.

"I'm merely walking slower." He shrugged and she frowned at him.

"Enzo."

"What?"

"You can barely stand." Grace deadpanned as she looked at him all over.

"I've been told I have excellent posture."

She looked at him with a frown:

"You really are impossible."

"I've survived worse."

"You were bitten by a venomous snake."

"I said worse, not different."

She rolled her eyes and sat back on her heels watching him, letting him rest a bit. She looked at the tunnel ahead and looked at her hands.

'I'm hungry.'

Her throat felt like sandpaper.

She couldn't remember the last time she'd had water. Every swallow hurt, and the thirst had grown into something deeper than discomfort. It clouded her thoughts, slowed them down, made it harder to think past the pounding in her head.

She was exhausted.

Not the kind of tired that disappeared after a night's sleep, but the kind that settled into your bones and stayed there. Her legs ached. Her shoulders burned. Every muscle in her body begged her to stop.

She couldn't.

Somewhere inside her, the wolf refused to.

Grace still didn't fully understand what it meant to be half werewolf. She didn't know what she had inherited or what she hadn't. But if there was even a fraction of that strength in her blood, she needed it now.

She pushed herself to her feet.

Enzo looked up at her, his face pale beneath the dim light.

"You are not allowed to die," she said, pointing a finger at him. "Not until I get you back for everything you've put me through."

The corner of his mouth twitched.

"I was hoping for something a little more romantic."

She sneered at him, "You'll live."

"I admire your confidence."

She ignored him before he could see the smile threatening to break through.

Bending down, she slipped her hands beneath his arms and carefully pulled him away from the wall. She adjusted her footing, braced herself, then lowered into a squat, testing the weight before committing. “Get on.”