Pangaia: Agendas (Year One: Fall)

Chapter Thirty-One - Cheyenne

 As promised, Denver found her after class while she was on her way to the dining hall. She wasn't sure how she was going to excuse herself, but as always he had a plan for every situation.

The excuse was she needed space for a little while, which wasn't far from the truth. Her friends, most particularly Zes, wanted to at least provide an escort back to the dorm, but she politely declined the offer.

Later that night she and her parents had made plans. They were attending some sort of alumni meeting and would be back to collect her in a couple of hours. This gave her just enough time to meet Denver.

He waited for her in the courtyard underneath the angel fountain.

She would've thought him to be the impatient type. Instead she found him staring up at the statue as though he had all the time in the world. She risked a glance up at the fountain as well, and once more, she could have sworn it was in a slightly different position than before.

"Ready? Cause for now, you're not being followed," he said.

"I'm ready, but can we make this fast? I want to get this over and done with."

"Yeah, no problem," he said with a wide and toothy smile. She couldn't take her eyes off his fangs.

He led her down the path to her dorm and then off into the forest onto the hidden trail she and Zes had followed a few days before.

"I hate to burst your bubble, but I've already seen this," she said with a smirk. "So—"

"No, I promise you haven't." Denver tugged at her shirt. "You might have seen the gate, but you haven't seen what's inside." He led her into the gazebo and checked to make sure they still weren't being followed.

"I told you, I—" She began, but stopped as Denver found a small and barely noticeable button camouflaged in one of the stone pillars above a rose carving. Once pressed there was a quiet clicking followed by an equally quiet rumbling.

The next thing she heard was the distinct sound of stone scraping against stone. In the middle of the floor, stairs began to appear in a circular pattern and descended downward for ten feet or so. The hole was deep enough to be dark but not so deep she felt as if she were in any danger.

"Is that your bat cave?" she asked.

Denver laughed. "I don't like bats, sweetheart. No, this is about the dream. That's what the smell is on you. You smell like the dream. That's how I knew we were sharing it."

How much she should trust him, she wasn't sure. It seemed too farfetched to be true. At the same time, if he knew about the dream when she hadn't told a soul, that had to mean something.

"I'll go first and I'll trust you to follow me. I promise I'm not gonna do anything bad," he continued.

"Because nothing you do could ever be bad," she said and pushed her way in front of him with defiance.

"Right," he said, a small smirk forming on his lips. It didn't take long for him to catch up with her on the stairs.

"How long have you known about this?"

"A long time, but I've been here a while too. I guess you could say I've had a lot of time to explore."

"So what's down here that's so cool and important?"

"You'll see."

Cheyenne huffed and stepped off the stairs and moved to the center of the floor. Off to her right was a tunnel with a decorative stone archway depicting cherubs, fruit, flowers, and cute baby animals. The darkness enveloped everything else, and a draft of warm air blew past her every so often.