Chapter 9 - INTO THE DARKNESS"Wait, Claire! Don't do it!" a trooper yelled, grabbing my arm just as I reached for the heavy steel door. "That's a trap. We need to breach with a tactical team."
"If you breach, she'll panic," I hissed, wrenching my arm out of his grip. My voice was chillingly calm, born of a mother's desperate, terrifying clarity. "She's not a criminal, Officer. She's a broken woman who has spent thirty-two years living in a nightmare created by the people standing behind me. If you go in guns blazing, she will take Mia down with her."
"Ma'am, protocol—"
"To hell with protocol!" I screamed, turning to face him. "That is my daughter down there! You give me ten minutes. If I don't come back up with her, you burn this whole damn hill to the ground."
Without waiting for his answer, I gripped the rusted handle of the heavy steel door, pulled with all my weight, and swung it open.
A wave of damp, freezing air billowed out from the subterranean depths, smelling of wet earth, iron, and old concrete.
I stepped over the threshold and plunged headfirst into the pitch-black abyss.
The tunnel was narrow, dripping with moisture, and completely devoid of light. I groped along the rough concrete wall with my right hand, my boots splashing through shallow puddles of stagnant water.
"Mia!" I called out, my voice echoing off the curved stone ceiling in a haunting, metallic shriek. "Mia, can you hear me?!"
Silence.
Just the steady, rhythmic drip, drip, drip of water somewhere deep in the bowels of the earth.
I took another step, and then another, my heart hammering against my ribs like a caged animal. The tunnel sloped sharply downward, winding deeper and deeper beneath the limestone ridge until the faint sliver of daylight from the open door vanished completely behind me.
Suddenly, a faint flicker of yellow light danced against the far wall around a sharp corner ahead.
I froze.
"Hello?" I called out, my voice trembling.
"Mom?"
Mia’s voice. Small, terrified, and choked with tears.
"Mia!" I screamed, sprinting around the corner.
The tunnel opened up into a large, circular chamber—an old pump station dating back to the mid-century. A single, flickering kerosene lantern sat on a rusted metal drum in the center of the room, casting long, dancing shadows across the damp concrete walls.
And there, sitting on a wooden crate in the corner, was Mia.
Her hands were tied loosely in front of her with a length of old rope, and her eyes were wide with terror.
Standing right beside her, holding a small, silver-handled kitchen knife, was Helen.
Up close, she looked smaller than she had in the photographs. Her frail frame was swallowed by an oversized wool coat, and her white hair fell in tangled strands around a face carved with deep, sorrowful wrinkles.
She wasn't looking at Mia.
May you like
She was looking at me.
"You came," Helen whispered. Her voice was surprisingly soft—not the voice of a monster or a madwoman, but the voice of an exhausted ghost. "Just like I knew you would."
