“Mustin, Marcus, get on that chain gun. Call everybody up. The entire team.”

“What are you going to do with him?” Marcus asked, jutting his chin toward Ethan.

“He and I are heading up to surveillance to take a look at what he’s got.”

“We were told to kill him,” Marcus said, raising his gun.

Alan stepped toward Marcus, the barrel of the AR-15 digging into his sternum.

“Would you mind not pointing your weapon at me, son?”

Marcus lowered his gun.

“While you and Mustin make sure we don’t all get eaten, I’m going to look at what the sheriff says is proof concerning what happened to my friend. And if it’s anything less than advertised, I’ll execute him on the spot. That all right with you?”

THERESA

THERESA

“You’re almost there!” Theresa whispered.

Ben lowered his shoe toward the next foothold.

The cries and the screams from the Wanderers’ cavern were still audible. That narrow ledge had just run out, and now they were down-climbing a fifty-degree stretch of cliff. So far, the abundance of handholds and footholds in the good, hard granite had saved their lives, but Theresa couldn’t ignore the two-hundred-foot fall that awaited the slightest misstep. The reality that her son was on this rock wall with her was almost too much to bear.

If Ben fell, she’d jump right after him.

But so far, he was listening, following her instructions, and doing a damn fine job of holding his twelve-year-old shit together.

Ben stepped down onto the ledge where Theresa had been perched for the last few minutes. It didn’t lead anywhere, but at least there was enough of a surface so they didn’t have to cling desperately to a handhold.

They still had a long way to go, but progress had been made, and the tops of the pine trees were only twenty feet below them.

Another scream broke out of the tunnel far above.

“Don’t think about it,” Theresa said. “Don’t imagine what they’re going through. Just focus on where you are, Ben. On making smart, safe moves.”

“Everyone in that cave is going to die,” he said.

“Ben—”

“If we hadn’t found the ledge—”

“But we did. And soon we’re going to get off this cliff and find your father.”

“Are you scared?” he asked.

“Of course I am.”

“Me too.”

Theresa reached over and touched her son’s face. It was slick and cool with sweat and rosy with exertion and the beginnings of a sunburn.

“Do you think Dad’s okay?” Ben asked.

“I think he is,” she said, but her eyes filled with tears at the thought of Ethan. “Your old man’s one tough hombre. I hope you know that.”

Ben nodded, glanced down the face of the cliff into the welcoming darkness of the dense pine forest.

“I don’t want to get eaten,” he said.