“Come on out, baby girl. You don’t understand what you found.”
Lily removed the fourth screw.
The cover fell into her hands.
Mercer said, much colder, “Don’t call to her. Listen.”
Lily slid into the vent feet-first.
Her backpack snagged.
She pulled.
Fabric tore.
Something fell out and clattered.
The brass key.
She reached for it.
Too far.
The records room door handle rattled.
No.
Not handle.
Lock.
Mercer had another key.
Of course he did.
Lily left the brass key on the floor and dragged herself into the vent.
The door opened.
Light swept across the room.
Buck saw the cabinet first.
“Damn it.”
Mercer saw the vent.
“Go!”
A gunshot exploded.
The bullet hit the vent wall beside Lily’s knee.
Metal screamed.
She did not scream.
She crawled.
The vent sloped downward, narrow enough to scrape her elbows raw.
Behind her, Buck yelled, “You shot at her?”
Mercer snapped, “You want her alive, catch her. You want your life, stop whining.”
Lily crawled faster.
The vent ended in a drop.
She twisted, grabbed the edge, and lowered herself into another passage.
Her boots landed in cold water.
An electric-blue glow rippled around her ankles.
Lily went still.
Do not touch any water that glows.
Too late.
She stood in it.
The water was shallow, just over her boot soles, but the glow moved like it had nerves.
Blue-green light streamed across the cavern floor in thin branching lines.
Not like reflected light.
Like veins.
Lily stepped onto a dry stone shelf and wiped her boots against gravel, heart thudding.
The cavern ahead was enormous.
Natural this time.
The ceiling arched high above, hidden in darkness.
Mineral formations climbed the walls in pale ribbons.
Pools of glowing water dotted the floor.
And across the largest stone face, carved by human hands, were names.
Dozens.
Maybe hundreds.
Some old.
Some newer.
Lily lifted the flashlight.
The nearest carving read:
TOM RUSK
STILL BREATHING
JULY 18, 1974
Her throat tightened.
Another:
MARIA ELLIS
WE HEAR THEM ABOVE
DAY 3
Another:
D. VOSS
THEY SEALED US IN
MERCER KNOWS
Lily stepped closer.
D. Voss.
Daniel Voss.
Her father.
Her living father.
The carving was old, but beneath it someone had scratched a second line later.
Not in the same hand.
VOSS GOT OUT THROUGH WATER SHAFT
TRUST STILL WATCHING
Lily’s eyes burned.
He had survived.
Her mother had been right.
A shout echoed behind her.
Mercer had found the vent route.
Lily moved.
She followed the dry shelf around the glowing pools, careful where she placed each foot.
The cavern narrowed, then split into three passages.
On the left wall, someone had painted an arrow in old white paint.
WATER SHAFT.
She took it.
The passage dropped sharply.
Cold air rushed upward.
Behind her, Mercer’s light bounced across the cavern.
“Lily,” he called.
Not shouting now.
Almost kind.
That was worse.
