“Jesus fucking Christ,” Jaxon mutters. “Tell me again why we let the others go for lunch but not him.”
“I’ll go,” I tell him, chuckling under my breath.
I leave Jaxon cursing at Reid and head inside. My footsteps echo on the hardwood floor as I walk through the foyer to a wide set of stairs that wind up to the second and third floors. There’s another set just like it towards the back of the house, yet they aren’t as wide as the main ones.
My boots hit the red carpet runner that leads all throughout the upstairs until it reaches a door. Some rooms are carpeted, and some are laid with dark wood floorboards partially covered with old, tattered rugs. The house is ancient and the guy who lived here clearly struggled to maintain its upkeep. From what I’ve seen of the interior, no one has been upstairs in years. There’s dust and cobwebs in every corner and surface up there, whereas downstairs, although outdated, is clean and tidy.
Turning left at the first hallway, I stroll towards the door leading to the library. I can hear Reid cursing from here, so when I reach the doorway, I’m not surprised to see him still half-hanging out of the window.
The soft beige curtains are pulled open, and although visibility is skewed by the dust and grime living on the glass, it doesn’t take away from the breath-taking view of their land. Two blossom trees sit on either side of the main gate, the arched branches elegantly bowing and bobbing in the wind. The place has character, a sense of home, even if it does need a lot of work done to it.
I scan the large room. The once full honey-coloured shelves that span the entire room, from floor to moulding, even above the door, are now empty of books. The boxes left are dumped in various places, not even taped and ready for transport. A few boxes are stacked upon the large, unpolished oval table that sits idly in the corner.
I head over to the shelf with the ladder leaning against it, fascinated by the sight. I’ve never seen one in my life, only in children’s movies. It’s off its runner, but once upon a time, you would have been able to slide this to whichever bookcase you needed to grab a book from.
I move over to the next shelf, where a book still lies on the floor. I bend down, picking it up, when the scuff marks dented into the wooden floor pulls my attention.
“Holy shit,” I whisper, gently placing the book in the nearest box, not making a sound.
Straightening, I take in the edges of the shelf, seeing at a closer look that they are different to the others, thicker and wider. I run my finger over it, feeling a rougher edge than the others.
Reid was fucking right.
I grip the shelf edge and the tiny bit of frame and pull, taking a step back once I feel the shelf come away from the wall.
“Hey, Lily,” Reid yells, still unaware of me in the room.
Grinning, I step inside quickly, briefly taking in the set of concrete stairs before slowly shutting the door behind me, leaving only the tiniest of spaces for me to see Reid.
“Oh alright. Fucking hell. I’ll get back to work,” he yells, before pushing himself away from the window. “Reid, you can’t do this; Reid, you can’t do that. I’m the fucking man, Jaxon, not you.”
I struggle to keep the laughter at bay, but I manage, waiting for the perfect moment to jump out. He steps towards the box I threw the book inside, his brows pinched as he goes to lift it. Knowing this is my moment, I push the door open, screaming, “Boo,” in his face.
He screams, dropping the box and falling flat on his arse, trying to backwards crawl away from me in terror.
I roar with laughter, my hands on my bent knees as I take in his petrified expression. Seeing me, he lies back on the floor with a thud, his arm covering his eyes.
“Fucking hell, I think I’ve shit my pants.”
“Your face,” I tell him through laughter.
He lifts his arm away, glaring at me, and before he can open his mouth, his gaze goes over my shoulder, widening in wonder.
“Holy fucking shit. I was right.”
He gets up, standing next to me as we both stare down the stone steps.
“It’s pretty dark down there,” I pointlessly tell him, knowing he can see for himself.
“Bro, I’ve seen the horror movie. Now I’ve found it, I’m not sure if I want to go exploring, if you know what I mean. I’m too fucking handsome to get killed by some whacko with mummy issues. You go down first.”
I turn to him, my eyebrows pinched together. “Are you fucking serious?”
“You found it,” he snaps.
“You wanted to find it,” I snap back, pushing him down the first step. He grabs onto my arm, pulling me with him and down another step. “Let the fuck go.”
“Wyatt, you’re older than me. I’m still young. Girls need me. Just be a big man and go down first.”
“Put your torch on,” I mutter, rolling my eyes.
“You put your torch on,” he snaps, flinching his arm away from the wall as if some ghostly presence brushed against him.
“Fucking hell, are you going to argue about everything?” I ask, pulling my phone out of my back pocket and turning the torch on. I shine it around our surroundings, seeing clipped up string lights going along the bricked wall and down a spiral staircase. “There should be a switch.”
Reid looks at the wall nearest the door, finding something hidden in a hole.
“Got it,” he tells me, just as a buzz fills the air, and one by one, the bulbs begin to flicker to life. Some aren’t working and some continue to flicker, but it’s still brighter than my phone.
We take a step down the spiralled stairs, brushing cobwebs out of the way as we follow the path the lights are taking us, coming to a stop at the bottom, where we find ourselves in a corridor.
Reid comes up behind me, leaning down so his breath blows across my ear. I shove him away.
“What did I tell you? I heard about this place.”
“What did you hear?” I ask, knowing this should be good.
“Not much as it was a while back and I was too busy staring at the chick’s tits. We had to do a project in history on historical buildings or a historical monument that hit the papers in our town. The chick did this place, mentioning hidden tunnels underground.”
“Let me guess, so the owner could murder people?” I interrupt, coming to a stop at a door.
“No, originally it was used as a bunker, but later on, when it was passed down to his son, it was used to home his mistress. You have to give him credit. He hid her good. She even gave birth down here, from what I remember.”
“Tits?” I ask, knowing that’s why he doesn’t remember.
He smirks, nodding. “Yeah.”
He reaches for the door, twisting the handle. It clicks, but when he pushes, nothing happens. He tries harder, and the door creaks seconds before it flies open, slamming against the wall. He loses his footing, nearly falling to his knees.
“Fucking hell,” I mutter, shining my phone around the room.
To the left of the room is a large wooden desk covered in spider webs, dust and who knows what else. It looks like it’s been left there for centuries. It has little shelves and pockets to store stuff inside on the back edge of the desk. On the other side of the room is a bed without a mattress, the springs rusted and broken in places. Candle fixtures and lights line the bricked walls, similar to the ones on the stairs, which must have been added years later.