Chapter 36

Ch. 36: Julian

"He was right behind us," Freya says, worry edging her tone. "Had to give Erickson a shove. Fool panicked when he saw that smaller tunnel."

"I didn't think I'd fit!" Erickson snaps. "I thought I'd get stuck in the damn thing."

"Stuck in the..."

Horror floods my gut. The tunnel had been claustrophobically small, but I'd had enough room to wriggle through with little trouble. I'm a slender guy, though. Erickson's slightly bigger, but Dane...

"Oh, shit. He's stuck."

With fear seizing my throat, I take a gulp of air and dive beneath the surface again, hoping against hope that I can still find the entrance to the tunnel and that I'm not too late.

A few meters down I find the bottom and shine my flashlight over the rough gravel and stone. Through my blurry vision, I can hardly see more than vague shapes and shadows, but by a stroke of luck the entrance is obvious. Like a drain in a sink, it's a black circle gaping at the bottom of the pool. I balk at the sight of it, but my fear can't be anything compared to what Dane must be feeling— if he's even still conscious.

Entering the tunnel head first, I swim down at a steep angle. About two meters in, the tunnel flattens out to the bottom of the u-shape we'd come through. The narrowest part of the tunnel was right at the bottom of this, and that's where I spot Dane.

He's wedged fast, one arm forward and one pinned back. He's still struggling, and looks up at my light as I approach. Agony twists his face, and streaks of blood discolor the water where he'd already scraped himself raw in his desperation to get free. I reach for his hand and grab hold, trying to pull him loose, but I have no leverage and he doesn't budge an inch. Upside down, with my legs in the tunnel behind me, I have nothing to push or pull against, and merely tug ineffectively at his hand.

He knows it's no use, and as our eyes meet through our blurry underwater vision, the look on his face changes. Agony gives way to an almost peaceful calm, and he stops struggling.

His lips form my name, and then he releases his breath.

The bubbles escape in a cloud, sticking to the tunnel's roof as they skitter away in little silvery globs of spent life.

Dane's grip loses its strength, his body goes limp, and his locs float free around his face.

I scream, and my own breath escapes to join his as I tug on his arm in a futile effort to free him. My lungs burn, but the pain in my chest is more than physical. It feels as if my heart is being crushed and torn apart within the cage of my ribs.

The primal instinct to survive is telling me to let him go and swim for the surface, but I can't.

I won't leave him.

Shutting my eyes, I feel the sort of peace I'd seen on Dane's face spread through me, and my fear and pain dissolve.

If this is where we end, we'll end together.

Just as the darkness closes in on my mind, something else closes on my ankle with a startlingly strong grip. My eyes snap open, and I just have time to clamp my hand around Dane's wrist before I'm yanked violently from behind. My grip on Dane slips, but I refuse to let go. Another sharp tug, and another, and then, with one final yank, I feel his shoulder dislocate and he comes free.

With the need for air searing my lungs like white hot fire, we're dragged from the tunnel and into the open water of the pool. I can just make out Freya's form, gesturing at me to let go and swim for the surface. As she takes hold of Dane, I successfully command my oxygen-starved brain to obey.

Breaking into the air once more, I cough and gasp, floundering as the last of my strength fails me. A hand grips the collar of my shirt and flips me over to lie on my back, keeping my head above water, and through the fog of confusion clouding my brain, I see Erickson dragging me to shore.

Meanwhile, Freya hauls Dane onto the stony bank and begins CPR. Pinching his nose shut, she breathes air into his lungs, then compresses his sternum rhythmically on a count to five. She repeats this, and repeats it again, all the while swearing at him under her breath.

"Don't you go dying on me now, you son of a bitch," she hisses. "Breathe, damn it!"

By the fifth round of this, my breathless gasps have turned to sobs of despair, and the beginnings of a black hole open in my heart. Then, just as I'm about to fall into it, Dane seizes, vomits water, and draws a deep, ragged breath.

"Oh, thank fuck." Freya sags with relief and rubs Dane's chest as he coughs. She rolls him to the side, thumping a hand on his back to clear the last remnants of liquid from his lungs, and then helps him to sit up, mindful of his dislocated shoulder and the places where he'd scraped himself raw.

Much less carefully, I throw myself into his arms and hold on tight, wracked by shivers and shaking with sobs.

Gradually, I become aware that Dane's rough coughs have subsided, and that instead he mumbles reassurances as he holds me with his good arm. I lift myself to look at him.

"You okay?" he whispers.

I choke on a laugh and drink in the sight of him: his amber eyes, the dark lashes clumped with water, the hard line of his jaw and the softness of his lips. "I am if you are."

"I will be, thanks to you. You saved my life, Julian."

"Actually, Freya saved both of us," I point out weakly.

He smiles. "Yeah, but you came back for me."

"You know I'll always come for you," I whisper through a watery smile, and then the tears win again as our mouths meet in a rough, desperate kiss. I cling to him—to his warmth and scent and strength: to everything that, for a nightmare moment, I thought I had lost.

"Okay, okay," Freya says, intervening gently. "Y'all need oxygen, remember? And I need to get that shoulder back in place before it heals wrong."

Dane continues to kiss me for a few moments longer, anyway, his lips brushing mine with a caress and a soft exchange of breath, both of us needing the contact and reassurance almost as much as we need air. Finally, he draws back with a sigh and a wince of pain. Beckoning to Freya, he taps his dislocated shoulder.

"All right. Make it quick."

She rolls her eyes. "You know I will. Erickson, gimme your belt."

Erickson frowns. "Why?"

"Cuz mine's Italian leather and yours looks cheap, and because I said so," she snaps.

Scowling, he obeys.

She folds the belt in half and holds it towards Dane's mouth. "Bite down."

He shakes his head, grimacing at the belt. "Just do it."

Freya huffs. "If you'd all stop being difficult we could get this over with. Now open your damn mouth."

She might not be an alpha, but she gets results like one.

Dane opens his mouth and she places the belt between his teeth. He bites down, features twisting with disgust, while Freya grasps his arm and braces her foot against his chest.

"Okay, on three. Ready?"

He nods.

"One."

With a sharp, twisting motion, she pulls hard, popping his shoulder joint back into place.

"Nnngh!!"

Dane's muffled groan of pain contains a sound that any lesser man (myself included) would have released as a scream.

Breathing hard, he spits out Ericsson's belt and tosses it back to him. Dane's canine teeth have lengthened noticeably, and Erickson examines the new set of holes in the leather with wide eyes, but threads it back through his belt loops without complaint.

As Freya moves aside, I stroke Dane's damp brow as he lets his head drop back and shuts his eyes.

"Any better?" I ask.

"Mmm. Hurts less already," he mumbles.

"Muscle and ligaments heal fast," Freya says, watching with her hands on her hips. "And Dane's the fastest healer I know."

"I thought I lost you," I whisper, pushing a sodden loc away from his face.

He opens a bloodshot eye a crack and looks at me. "I thought so, too, for a minute."

My breath catches. "I'm sorry, Dane. You were right. This was a crazy idea, and way too dangerous. I should have listened to you."

"Nah." He coughs, clearing some lingering liquid from his lungs, and squeezes the back of my neck. "If I was right about anything, it was letting you take the lead. If I'd insisted on going first, I'd have taken the wrong tunnel, or got stuck and blocked the way. Either way we'd all be dead."

I search his eyes. "When I passed out after the reading—I know how you felt, now. Don't do that again, okay?"

He laughs, and then coughs. "Hey, that's my line. But if you won't, I won't. Deal?"

"Deal," I say.

"As happy as I am that we're all alive," Freya says, "I don't think we should hang around celebrating much longer. How about it, Juju? Anything look familiar?"

Reluctantly, I relinquish my hold on Dane and get to my feet, finally taking stock of my surroundings properly.

Beyond the rocky banks of the pool, an immense and primordial forest extends into the gloom. Colossal trees stretch towards a shadowy canopy almost beyond the range of sight, while dark ferns choke the ground between their trunks. The musky scent of sylvan decay hangs heavy in the air, an oppressive silence fills the quiet left in the wake of speech, and if a Tyrannosaur stepped from the shadows, I'd hardly be surprised.

"The fuck is this place?" Erickson asks under his breath. His voice, usually so brash and obnoxiously self-assured, sounds small and uncertain now, and he stays close to Freya's side.

Typical bully, I think. Big and tough when he has the advantage; pissing his pants when the tables turn.

Then he shivers and hugs himself, and I reconsider.

I don't know that much about Erickson, and I'd never cared to learn more. I'd taken a dislike to him when his clumsy come-ons turned me off, but I got the feeling his relationships seldom lasted longer than a one-night stand. For whatever reason, it seemed he'd chosen a lonely path. What I do know is that he cares about his sister and his niece, and that he's scared; and for the moment, that's all that matters.

"I don't know, precisely," I say, answering his question, "but you can think of it like an alternate dimension—or like Narnia, but scarier. Either way, it's not our world, and we should be careful."

He turns to look at me, wiry reddish brown brows pinched above the bridge of his nose. "You're one of them, aren't you?" he asks. "One of these Fae."

"Yeah, I am."

He nods at Dane and Freya. "Him and... her. They're really... uh..."

"Werewolves, yeah."

He swallows, looking pale and a little ill.

I sigh. "Look Erickson: we're the same people you've always known and harassed. Relax. Let's concentrate on finding your niece and getting the fuck out of here, okay?"

He nods. "Okay."

I turn back to Freya. "All I have are a few fragments of Stephanie's memory. Except for the pool and the general atmosphere, nothing looks familiar. Can you pick up a trail?"

"If there's a trail to find, I'll find it," she says.

While the rest of us wring out our clothes and dry our hair as best we can, Freya makes a thorough inspection of the ground surrounding the pool. On the opposite side, she stops and crouches to inspect the gravelly bank.

"Somebody came ashore here recently," she says fingers tracing a slight impression. "Somebody light, with small feet."

Straightening again, she turns away from the pool and pushes aside the bracken, taking a few steps into the deeper shadows beyond. A few paces in, she stops again.

"Found it," she calls softly.

I help Dane to his feet, and we make our way around the pool to join her. She stands facing the gray gloom beneath the trees, and points a finger as if at a straight and obvious path. To me, the thick bracken, tumbled outcrops of stone, and detritus of dead trees looks the same as anywhere else, but Dane nods.

"You take point, Frey," he says. "I'll bring up the rear. Everybody stay close, and stay quiet. Got it?"

I grasp Dane's hand—he doesn't have to tell me to stay close—and Erickson nods.

Freya said to work, like a hound on the trail, leading us from mark to mark. Things I wouldn't notice stand out like red flags to her: an overturned pebble, a broken fern frond, the trace of a scent only a wolf's nose could detect. Our progress is slow, nonetheless, and the deeper we penetrate into the strange, oppressive forest, the more our unease increases. As Stephanie's memories had shown, strange noises break the silence—low clicks and distant knocking sounds, hoots and whistles that are almost, but not quite, the cries of birds, and now and then the snap of a twig underfoot that makes us all jump.

We've been walking for about fifteen minutes when Fria comes to a halt, raising her hand and then closing it in a fist which I recognize as a military gesture to stop and freeze. Then she lowers her hand palm down and we slowly drop to a crouch.

After a moment, she gestures for us to come together, and we gather in a little huddle beneath the ferns.

"What is it?" Dane asks.

"Blood," Freya whispers. "From the smell, a lot of it."

"Human?"

"Can't tell."

"Close?"

"Must be. There's no wind."

As she says it, I realize she's right: not a breath of air stirs the bracken, which accounts for the eerie stillness beneath the trees.

"All right," Dane says. "Scout ahead. We'll stay here."

Freya nods, but as she turns to go, I reach out and catch her arm.

"Wait," I say. "Let me. I can move silently, and I can go Unseen."

Freya looks to Dane for confirmation. Reluctantly, he nods.

"Be careful," he whispers, squeezing my hand. His voice is a little wheezy from his close call, but Freya was right, and his lungs are healing fast. Still, I'm reluctant to leave him. Then he smiles, and places his trust in me again. "You got this, Jules."

Smiling my gratitude, I squeeze his hand in return. Then I release him, turn away, and will myself Unseen.