Cam nodded again, but a smile lifted his lips. He didn’t demand an apology for the last twenty years of my dad being an ass to him; he simply accepted that Dad knew he was wrong.
I took his hand, and we waved to Dad as he took the track switch and headed back to the mine’s entrance.
The lights were on, but the smells, the sounds… They were all the same.
“Breathe in through your nose and out through your mouth,” Cam suggested gently as we started walking.
“This way,” Art said at a random offshoot.
“Dad…” Cam said. “I don’t remember coming this way or taking any downhill path until I found that shaft.”
“That’s because you took the long way. I told your little Rose how to find the shortcut.” He sounded like he was slipping into an episode, but his eyes were clear and certain.
“What shortcut?”
“It was a ventilation shaft. What did you think it was ventilating? Look, you can trust me or not. I’m telling you it’s this way.” Art turned and started walking.
“This should be a great story to tell at my funeral,” Gideon muttered.
“Okay, I guess we’ll trust you,” Cam said, then took my hand and followed his dad.
“How far do you think it is?” Gideon asked.
“Probably ten minutes if you stop whining and start walking,” Art chided.
Cam smiled and shot Gid a knowing look over his shoulder.
The tunnel narrowed, and we passed the demarcation line of where it had been reinforced. The lighting ended, leaving us with only our headlamps as the tunnel began a steep descent into the mountain. The beams that supported the sides and roof were mostly intact, but there were a couple I had to climb over.
“Here’s where it starts to get sporty,” Art said with a grin.
Starts? I sucked a deep breath in through my nose and out through my mouth, then trudged on into my personal hell, praying we’d find Rose in time…or at all.
Chapter Twenty-Seven
Camden
We trudged down a tunnel so narrow, I could have touched both sides if I stretched my arms wide. The grade was steep, and bits of loose gravel slid where we stepped, but at least the floor was dry.
“Dad, are you sure this is the way?” I asked, my fear growing every minute that his mind would slip.
“I’m as sure as I can be. I know today is July fourth, you’re Camden, and you’re holding on pretty damn tight to Willow Bradley, so I’m lucid, if that’s what you’re asking.” He didn’t even look back, just kept moving down the dirt-covered floor.
Willow tightened her grip on my hand, but the tunnel became too narrow to walk side by side, and she had to fall behind me. I hated not being able to see her, but I wasn’t going to let her walk across any ground my weight hadn’t tested this far into the mine.
The air stirred from ahead, and Dad’s light bounced as he nodded. “See?” He pointed to the tunnel that appeared on our right as the path leveled out and widened into another large chamber. “This is an offshoot of one of the 1930s.”
“It’s not on any of the maps,” I said to myself as I took in the expansive tunnel and its sturdy beams. To the left were dozens of smaller chambers, some with wooden half walls, trimmed and topped with vertical iron bars and swinging doors made of the same, and some barren, left from exploratory blasts.
“I know it’s on at least one map,” Dad replied. “I just can’t remember where it is.” He touched his forehead. “I thought I gave it to you, but that can’t be right.”
Apprehension landed in my stomach like a brick. “Dad, are you okay?”
“Yeah. Of course. I’m fine.” But the lines in his forehead told me otherwise.
“How deep do you think we are?” Gideon asked.
“Sublevel three,” Dad declared, his headlamp illuminating the expanse of wall that was dotted with mined alcoves stretching as far as the light could reach on either side as the chamber narrowed to two tunnels that ran to either side. “Found a vein down here that wasn’t worth much, but something was better than nothing. But the miners needed air.”
His headlamp shone right, then left. Where the hell did we go from here?
“Them and me both,” Gideon said, walking past my dad and following the curve of the tunnel.
“Are you okay?” I asked Willow, noting that the rise and fall of her chest had increased.
“I just want to start screaming her name.”
“I’d hold off on that,” Gideon said, shining his light on a rubble pile in the back left of the chamber. “The entire thing is caved in over there.”
“Been like that for years,” Dad muttered. “Don’t just stand there—start looking. Don’t go moving rocks around or causing another cave-in.”
“Left or right?” Gideon asked.
My throat tightened.
“Doesn’t matter,” Dad stated, his headlamp swaying as he shook his head. “It’s a fifty-fifty shot. Pick one and start looking.”
“It matters,” I countered as Willow slipped her hand into mine.
“Split up but stay in this section,” Dad ordered. “We can search twice as fast.”
Left or right? There was no obvious choice as I looked both ways. It was a coin-flip dilemma.
“Left,” Willow said, her lamp shining on the barred chambers.
“You sure?” I asked.
“Left,” she repeated, quieter this time.
“We’ll take the right,” Dad announced and walked off with Gideon on his heels.
The first alcove was empty, save a wooden desk and a flat, raised surface that must have served as some kind of bed.
“Cam,” Willow whispered as her hands ran over the iron bars. “I remember this.”
“You’re sure?” I asked, but the way her face drained of blood told me she was certain.
She nodded. “The shadows from the bars, then darkness. Charity shrieking. Xander saying to keep calm…then I fell…” Her voice trailed off as she left the chamber, and I followed her into the next one, this one lined with shelves and an array of dust-covered canned goods. “I hit so hard. God, it still smells the same down here. It’s not this one,” Willow declared, and I got the hell out of her way as she pushed by me. “Or this one,” she said at the next and the next.
“We found the shaft!” Gideon called out loud enough to make me cringe. Did I think shouting would bring a cave-in? No. Was I sure? Also no.