“In retrospect, maybe I shouldn’t have made inappropriate jokes about murder,” Gabriel replied. “Hindsight is twenty-twenty.” Whatever he could see of my face must have made an impact, because he stopped cracking jokes. “If I go first, and you freeze, I won’t be able to help you. But if you go first, and something happens, I can get you out.”

“I don’t…” My muscles were already going rigid. There was a roaring in my ears, an indescribable whisper—

“You don’t need protection—check. We’ve been through this. Are you, by any chance, capable of humoring me?”

I was vaguely aware that his tone was low and soothing, like the one Mac had used with Saskia the day before.

“Okay, so no humoring. What about a bribe?” He paused and waited for my eyes to find his. Eventually, they did. “You asked me why I lied to you about the caves. In response, I deflected, rather skillfully, if I do say so myself.” He waited until he had my full attention. “You want to know what I’m doing out here, if it has something to do with my brother. Under normal circumstances, I’d deflect those questions, too. But if you do this for me”—he jerked his head toward the tunnel—“I’ll tell you whatever you want to know.”

Chapter 33

Gravel and stone bit into the flesh of my forearms as I pulled myself forward. I could feel my heart beating in my abdomen. I concentrated on the visceral sensation of my flesh scraping against the tunnel floor. Pain would keep me in the here and now—pain and my awareness of another living being, right behind me.

“Why did you lie to me?” It probably said something about me that this was my first question. “Yesterday, when you pretended that you didn’t know the cave was there—”

“I wasn’t pretending.” Gabriel made good on his promise: no flippant comments about how untrustworthy he was this time. “Like you said earlier, I’ve been mapping out the caves for years. I thought they might go all the way through Bear Mountain. I looked for an entrance on the northern slope. But yesterday was the first time I’d found any evidence to back that up.”

I kept a hold on the flashlight as I dragged myself forward on my stomach. The beam of light was lost in the black hole ahead of us, the end of the tunnel nowhere in sight. I focused on forming my next question. If I could think—if I could talk—then I could believe that the flashlight wouldn’t go out, that the mountain wouldn’t shake again.

That I wouldn’t die in the dark.

“Do you think your brother’s disappearance is related to Bella’s?” I focused on forming the question, and then I focused on waiting for his answer.

“Anything is possible, right?”