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Buck

IF SOMEONE WERE TO ask him, Buck couldn’t tell them exactly how long the climb down took. Time didn’t seem to work right in the hole, and it only got worse as they went deeper. He noticed something else, and this was far more disturbing—he had no trouble climbing down. Handholds seemed to find him, not the other way around, same with his feet. As if the hole wanted to get him to the bottom. The two kids climbed silently behind him, and he didn’t have to ask to know they were experiencing the same thing. Robby probably had a theory on that, too, but Buck wasn’t about to ask him. He didn’t want to hear about whatever was at the bottom and what plans it might have. All he wanted to do was find Emily.

Rescue Ellie, Mason, and Evelyn.

But yes, find his Emily.

Robby said she was somehow still alive, and out of all the craziness that had come from that boy’s mouth, that was the one thing he wanted to believe. Had to believe. Because, on some level, he knew it, too. He always had.

His breath hung all around him, this icy mist with no place to go. The air grew colder with each inch.

When Buck’s foot found solid ground, it surprised him, and he looked down for the first time since they started descending. The flashlight beam pooled beneath him, a perfect circle in what could only be ice. But unlike ice found on the surface, this ice had a rough texture to it and when Buck lowered himself from the opening of the hole to it, he didn’t slide.

“Careful now,” he told Riley anyway, grabbing her by the waist and helping her down. He went to help Robby, but the boy gave him a look that quickly reminded him he didn’t like to be touched. He backed up and let him drop from the hole himself. He was wearing his red backpack; how he managed to get that all the way down, Buck had no idea, but at the sight of it, he remembered his shotgun slung over his back. He retrieved that and handed the flashlight back to Riley, who quickly rolled the beam over their surroundings.

They were in a narrow cave.

The icy air smelled of sulfur, heady with minerals.

The beam only caught her for a second, but that was enough for the heart in Buck’s chest to level a hard thump.

Emily stood at the far end of the cave, maybe thirty feet away. She wore the same sundress she’d been wearing the day she disappeared. She turned quickly and vanished down another passage, but not before a near-silent whisper left her lips—

This way.