Page 130 of Trapped With You

We both screamed like little girls.

Then I grabbed Ella’s hand and ran in the opposite direction.

“Oh my God,” she cried hysterically. “It knows my name!”

“Cadeeeeeee.”

And apparently mine.

“What the fuck, what the fuck, what the fuck,” she chanted,trying to keep up with my fast stride. “What thefuckis going on?”

I wheezed, taking a right when the hallway split into two. “I have no idea, but keep running and don’t stop!”

“This is what we get for sixty-nining in a haunted place,” Ella wailed. “We probably pissed off some angry spirit!”

I didn’t know if I should laugh or howl with the demon—in Ella’s words—gaining speed on us. I wasn’t one to actually believe in ghosts, but she genuinely believed in the paranormal. And you know what? Tonight might be the first night I actually turned into a believer. St. Victoria was rumoured to be hauntedandsentient, resting over one of the gates of hell. All those unexplainable deaths may be due to the fact that it fed on souls, tormenting them when they were alive and then binding them to it during the afterlife.

I was truly beginning to lose my mind if I was entertaining all these speculations.

“Cadellaaaaa.” The thing behind us called out our names again, a monstrous growl that had goosebumps breaking over my skin. Ella wasn’t moving quick enough in those booted heels. Grabbing her around the waist, I hauled her up the side of my body and she instantly wrapped her legs around my middle.

I gunned it down the hallway like the hounds of hell were nipping at our feet.

Ella started praying in Spanish, but deftly broke off in a strangled, “Oh my God! It’s getting closer. It’s fucking getting closer!”

“Should I try to shoot it?” I panted.

“The solution to everything can’t be a bullet!” she chided, yelling. “It’ll go right through it! And you might just anger it more!”

The hallway before us was like a never-ending black tunnel where the sounds of our heavy footsteps, thudding heartbeats,and the rain furiously crashing against the mosaic windows was magnified.

“Hey, remember that time you wanted to audition as an extra on a horror movie set?” I struggled to keep the teasing tone out of my voice as I ran. “Now you’re in your very own.”

She dug her fingers into my shoulders and glared, unamused. “You’re not funny.”

“I’m hilarious.” And that thing was still stomping behind us. “Admit it.”

“If we make it out alive, I might.”

The thing behind us continued calling our names.

Ella screamed like a banshee.

Fear slickened my palm. I almost dropped her and my flashlight, which was no longer working, on the ground. “Fuck, fuck, fuck.”

From past experience, I knew the end of the hallway morphed into one of the staircases that descended straight into the crypt. However, this one was said to be cursed. No one used it. Too many incidents. The kind that involved people tumbling down and injuring themselves. In one chilling case over three decades ago, someone died too.

Short on options, I took a gamble and went in, hoping Ella’s torch gave us enough light to get down safely.

“Cade, no!” Ella protested. “Not here!”

“We don’t have a choice,” I bit out, trying to outrun whatever chased us.

A musty smell swirled in the atmosphere as I descended the stone stairwell. It was tight like the one in the belfry. I shuddered when my gaze roamed over the brick walls.

Do you pledge your allegiancewas streaked along the surface in faded blood.

I cursed under my breath and Ella gagged into my neck.