Page 40 of Deathless
A kid cried somewhere back in the line, trying to stay quiet about it and failing hard. My mother's voice came soft in Romani, and the crying cut off. She'd used that same tone on me when I was small and convinced thunder meant the world was ending.
The tunnel got tight and mierda, I had to turn sideways just to fit. Stone scraped my chest, my back, and I had to anglethe flashlight just to squeeze it through. Behind me, someone sucked in a breath like the walls were going to close completely and bury us all.
"Keep moving," I said, trying to sound like I knew what the hell I was doing. "Almost through."
I had no idea if that was true. My tío had walked me through this tunnel exactly once. I'd been twelve with my wrist locked in his hand and a candle that kept threatening to go out. That kind of knowledge lived in your bones, passed down through generations. Except I'd left. I'd spent fifteen years running from this valley, and now I was supposed to remember which fork to take in the pitch black with forty lives depending on it.
Jasper was still up there. So were Rhadamanthys with a knife wound that had to be screaming by now, Danior, Alonzo, and Lorenzo, who'd been stitched together with fishing line and spite two days ago. They faced however many men Achilles had brought down that mountain. The gunfire had stopped maybe five minutes back, and I didn't know if that meant they'd won or if everyone I'd left behind was already bleeding out in my grandmother's courtyard.
Every second I spent down here was one more second Jasper could be dying.
I moved faster.
The walls finally opened up and I could breathe without choking on stone dust. My boots found better traction, and I picked up the pace, flashlight bouncing off wet rock that probably hadn't seen daylight in a hundred years.
The air changed about twenty feet ahead. It smelled different, fresher, like the mountain had finally decided to let us go. The tunnel sloped up, and I took it at a jog. Eight kept pace beside me without making a sound. Real light filtered down from above, not the flashlight dying in my hand but actual dawn, gray and weak but real.
The exit was a crack in the rock face that I could barely squeeze through. I turned sideways and pushed out into the open air.
A gully spread out in front of me, scrub brush and loose rocks under a sky going from black to gray. I turned back to the crack and started helping people through. My mother came first and took my hand without saying anything. Then Valentina, moving slow but steady. The kids came next, blinking like they'd been underground for a week instead of an hour.
I counted as they came through. I hit thirty-six and stopped.
The last person squeezed out, and I counted again to be sure. Everyone who'd gone into that tunnel with me had made it out alive.
Jasper and the others were still back there, still fighting or already dead, and I had no way of knowing which.
I turned to look for the best route down the gully. That's when the men appeared on the ridge above us, a dozen at least, maybe more, rifles already shouldered, spread out along the high ground like they'd been waiting for us to pop out exactly where we did.
Patroklos stood dead center.
I knew him from Jasper's description. He was tall, with a scar running from his mouth down to his jaw, and that sickle on his belt. He raised one hand and held it there, palm out, the universal sign for don't fucking move. His eyes carried about as much life as the rocks behind him.
Behind me someone racked a slide. Metal clicked once, then again. Beni moved up beside me with a pistol already in his hand, held loose against his thigh where Patroklos could see it clear.
"Diego." My mother's voice came quietly behind me. She wasn't asking if we had a problem. She wanted to know what I planned to do about it.
I stepped forward and spread my arms wide. Eight moved with me, and I didn't try to stop her because that ship had sailed about three months ago.
Patroklos lowered his hand and just stood there.
We stood there in the gray dawn, two groups of people who all knew how to kill. Nobody had fired the first shot yet, but that could change fast.
One of the younger guys behind me broke.
The crack of a pistol split the standoff, and Patroklos's men opened up. Rifles barked from the ridge, and dirt kicked up so close I tasted it. I dove left and dragged Eight down with me behind a boulder that wasn't nearly big enough for both of us.
The gully went to hell. Rounds chewed rock above my head and sprayed my face with chips that stung like wasps. One of Patroklos's men pitched forward off the ridge and rolled halfway down before he stopped. My people returned fire from whatever cover they'd found, and I couldn't hear myself think over the noise.
I got my pistol out and blind-fired around the boulder, didn't bother aiming, just trying to keep heads down. Beside me Eight had found a rock and pressed herself flat behind it, completely still. She knew the rules: stay small, stay low, stay alive.
"Carmen!" My mother was somewhere behind cover, and panic shot through me. "Mamá!"
"Here!" Her voice came from behind a scrub brush that wouldn't stop a stiff breeze. She had someone with her, dragging them back toward better cover. Blood soaked the person's shirt from collar to belt.
Another one of Patroklos's men dropped. Beni was a hell of a shot when he wanted to be. But they had the high ground, and we had a gully with rocks the size of dinner plates. This was going to be a massacre if we didn't move.
I looked for an exit and found nothing but open ground in every direction. We were fish in a barrel.
