Page 54 of In Too Deep
Meg’s boots found purchase on the wet stone.Her hand reached out.She steadied herself against the cool wall.The rock was solid beneath her palm.Real and present.
She focused on that.The texture of the stone.The sound of water dripping somewhere ahead.The steady beam of her headlamp.
She could do this.
She was doing this.
The passage opened without warning.Suddenly they were in the main chamber.
Meg’s breath caught.
The natural spring bubbled higher than last time, the recent rains causing it to spill across the stone floor.
But it was the left side of the cavern that made her stomach clench and drop.The dark stains on the rocks where Lydia had died.
No.
Not now.
Right now she had to focus on Alex.She had to focus on saving this one.
“The girl said she last saw him in here.”Noah’s voice echoed slightly.“There’s a chance he fell and nobody noticed.Let’s start to the left and work our way around.”
Meg nodded.She forced her feet to move past the stains.
Each step felt like a victory.Small.Hard-won.
Her flashlight swept across the chamber.
She realized with a start that her hands were steady.She was shaking inside, yes, her chest tight and her breath shallow.But her hands were steady.
They’d gone about ten feet along the chamber’s edge when the beam of her flashlight landed on something angular.It was half hidden behind a cluster of rocks.
Not natural.
Man-made.
“Noah, there?—”
“Alex?”
“No, the chest.”
Noah moved to her side in two strides.He crouched down as his headlamp joined hers.
The steel box, worn and scratched by the years, sat wedged between two stones.A small boulder sat on top and seemed to have dented it, but it was intact.The same military-grade construction from fifty years ago that Nimue had found last month.
Meg knelt beside him.Her medical bag slid against her hip.Her fingers found the chest’s latches.She flipped them open.The hinges creaked as she lifted the lid.
And there they were.
Gold bars.Just like in the other one.Dull in the headlamp beams but unmistakably real.
She lifted one.Its weight was heavy in her hand.“I can’t believe we found it.”
Noah’s fingers brushed the bar.His expression was unreadable in the dim light.“Looks like we found chest number two.If we can find one more, maybe this chaos will finally stop.”
He straightened, his hand on her shoulder.“But we’ll have to come back for it later.We need to find Alex first.”
