Page 6 of Creep (Vulture Hollow MC #2)

Angel

My first impulse is to sit up and confront him. Lately, I’ve been juggling four pretty shitty guys and have been gaining experience in appeasing awful people since childhood. I know how to endear myself to others. If I get the chance, I’m sure I can talk my way out of this.

On the other hand… I want to know what he’ll do if he thinks I’m sleeping. Is he here just to take the dishes? Bring new food? For all I know it could be morning again. I can’t reveal all my cards too soon, when—

Oh . The bed dips slightly.

Is he… climbing in with me?

I’m trying to control my breathing, but my heart beats in an ever more maddening rhythm. I didn’t even hear him approach. He’s a man of few words, stealthy like a wild cat, and I’m at his mercy. Unless I take my chance when he least expects it…

A soft sigh, and warm, minty air tickles my face as he settles down, stretched alongside me yet not touching, as if he fears that might end up waking me.

It’s a struggle to keep my breathing shallow when a strand of hair falls to my face, but I manage, wondering, if the Devil card I picked during my reading two weeks back stood for him.

With hair and eyes black as tar and narrow, pale features, he does fit the bill.

But what other cards did I contemplate that evening? Justice? Or was it Judgment?

My frantic thoughts stall when I sense his face so close to mine I swear he’s touching me at this point. And then, he breathes in, loudly, more than once, as if I’m a glass of wine, and he’s the connoisseur trying to describe my bouquet.

A strange pang of electricity darts down my spine, and I shriek, stabbing at him with the screwdriver.

I was aiming for the neck, and I don’t know if I managed, but it definitely hit something meaty. I don’t stick around to find out what, because he rolls off me, and the door is open. If I didn’t kill him, I won’t get another chance.

“Wait!” he rasps from the floor, but I’m already sprinting.

Just as I suspected from the way we got to his lair, I dash out into a tunnel. It’s narrow, the ceiling is low, and the farther away I get, the darker it is. I should have considered taking some light, but what kind? A chocolate-scented candle? And risk what might be my one chance to escape?

Still, dread coils in my stomach as I wade deeper into this labyrinth. Because what if the guy didn’t lie about it being dangerous? Could bears live here? Deadly snakes? I don’t even consider the spiders which are surely here and I’m glad I can’t see them.

I sob in self-pity but carry on. I’ve always had only myself to depend on, and I won’t crumble now.

The darkness I’ve been so afraid of envelops me whole, but I keep going, farther and farther into the abyss, with just my outstretched arm keeping me from hitting myself on the head.

There is no doubt about my location. This freak really does live in a cave system, and we might be anywhere .

The loud pulsing between my ears is soon overpowered by the raspy echo of my breathing as I let my instincts guide me down the tunnel.

I’m ecstatic and hopeful when the narrow passage makes way for a larger cavern.

I’m terrified of ending up in some underground chasm, but I keep moving forward by sliding my foot over the ground to check the terrain.

Somehow, finding another narrow tunnel is a relief, but when a trembling glow reaches my face, I back out, because I am running for real, not playing hide-and-seek.

I fall over when the tunnel spits me back into the spacier chamber and continue on my knees, hands searching for a way out of this darkness, for a sliver of natural light, but for all I know I might now be lost for good.

Documentaries about people forever lost in cave systems invade my mind. I don't want to think of the death I could encounter here. Each of my steps could mean falling down some hole, dying from hunger with a broken leg, but not before I get to witness maggots making a home in my flesh.

Eating croissants and reading books for the rest of my life doesn't seem all that bad any more, even if I were to never see the sun again.

At last, I find a passage.

For all I know, it might lead me straight back to the hole I crawled out from, but it’s so dark I can’t even see my own hand when I hold it in front of my face, and the effort I’ve put into fleeing from my captor now feels so futile.

I don’t know if it’s good or bad that the tunnel has a steep incline, but any time I go down, it feels like a descent to hell, so I take it as a positive sign.

I get on my hands and knees for ease, and I swear there’s the faintest strand of moonlight ahead.

I speed up with my heart in my throat, once more on the verge of tears, and then my hand smacks into what I think is a rock, but it cracks under my weight.

I get a feathery smack in the face just as I realize I must have crushed an egg.

I’m so shocked and terrified, I apologize.

The raspy hissing of the massive bird makes me back out so fast I slide down on my ass, praying to every entity I know of for the birds not to follow.

If those are eagles, they could rip me to shreds with their talons.

My hand is sticky, but now I’m also worried I crawled over their waste and might contract bird flu. Wouldn’t that be a fittingly pathetic end for me after I’ve tried so hard to drag myself out of the hole I was born into?

I’m frantic when my hand finds yet another tunnel, and I follow it despite tears rolling down my cheeks, because I don’t even know how long I’ve been lost in this underground labyrinth. Who is the Minotaur in this story? The scary birds, or my captor?

I’m hopeful even when the corridor narrows, because that doesn’t necessarily mean anything, but when I realize it starts descending sharply ahead, the sense of helplessness and loss breaks my heart.

I’m so fucking stupid. How could I ever think I’d get lucky and come out of this unscathed?

Sobs tear out of me, creating a dull echo that surely travels throughout this complex system, perhaps even reaching the demon who brought me here?

I’m shaking when the reality of my situation dawns on me with the weight of the whole mountain. This is a nightmare, and only a stranger I can’t trust is capable of waking me up.

“Help!” I scream at the top of my lungs. “Please, please, help!”

I spend a while like this, painfully aware that I will die if no one finds me.

I cry with relief when I hear the man I stabbed call out to me from far away.

“Don’t move! I’m coming for you! Where are you?”

“Here! Here!” I yell to guide him with my voice, because it’s not like I have the faintest idea how to describe my location.

By the time I spot the faint illumination of a flashlight in the distance, I fall to my knees, gasping for air. I yell to him again, like a kitten crying for its mother, and almost rub my face with the egg-stained hand.

And then I see him approach, a shadow behind the bright light pointed my way.

There’s dried blood all the way down his pale arm when he reaches out to me. In the light, I see his hand is inked with many stars of the night sky and a symbolic crescent moon.

“Come with me,” he says and at this point, even his voice is so soothing I grab his hand without question.

Now that I think of it, The Moon might have been the final card I drew during the last reading.