Fearless

chapter 10

"Shit, you're going to have to put up with the food for a while." Jack said, glancing over at me and picking up the papers from the table.

"How are we going to get out? They found us." I asked, perplexed. Here we are.

"Oh, you have a lot to learn about me, baby." he grinned, and then he zipped up his backpack.

I started packing up the things I'd already got, too, and his "baby" was still on my mind. He was a weird guy, to be honest. Some strange feeling of guilt pressed against my temples, memories of Ian floating around in my head. It was all very confusing.

The first door heard heavy thumping, matting, and shouting of police officers. The walkie-talkie on my belt beeped softly.

"Nel, what the hell? Liam said you went home to get your stuff, but you're not here." Ian's voice came through. Something clutched at my heart, and there was a lump in my throat.

"Look, Ian, I'll explain when I get back."

The shouting and noise in the background intensified, Jack opened the hatch made in the floor.

"Come down!" He nodded briefly at the opening.

"Are you in there with Jack? What's going on? What's all the noise out there? Where are you?"

I jumped quickly into the underground passage, my eyes slowly adjusting to the darkness.

"Ian, I... how can I tell you. It's a long story. I'm on my way to the Devil's Mouth."

There was a dead silence from the radio, a deep sigh, and...

"WHAT?!?"

Jack jumped into the move with our backpacks and started to lock the hatch.

"I'll really try to explain everything to you, but right now we're running away from the cops who want to kill us. - I rambled on quickly. Ian on the other end coughed in surprise. - I can't, I'm done." I said, and with a heavy heart, I turned off the radio.

"What kind of romantic snot is this?" Jack snorted, picking up his backpack from the ground.

I didn't answer, just rolled my eyes and picked up my backpack.

We walked in silence for a while through the semi-darkness of the underground passage, only our footsteps and the drops of water somewhere in the underground lakes. Then I remembered the snacks in the side compartment of my briefcase.

"Do you want some?" I asked Jack, pulling out a bag of protein cookies and snickers.

"Sure." He nodded good-naturedly.

I don't know how many hours we'd been walking down this cold and damp aisle, but I was pretty tired and chilly.

"How much farther?" I asked pitifully.

"Not much, about twenty minutes, tops. - Jack answered, referring to the map. - You shouldn't have said too much to Ian; who knows what he'll get up to."

"I couldn't not tell him. I was already guilty as hell."

"Why?" Jack asked, looking at me closely.

"Because... I don't know. - I was embarrassed. - I think I trust him. And he trusted me. And then I just happened to disappear without any explanation or goodbye." I said. My heart ached at the mention that we hadn't even said goodbye, and who knows how our adventures would end?

"I see. But you're not going out to answer to each other, are you?"

"No. But we're friends. And he didn't put me out in the rain alone for some stupid test." I sneered.