Chapter 134

There’d been a few times in Jo’s life when she would’ve been quite happy with having no sense of time. If she could've sped up some of her classes in school, or slowed down some of her vacations, that would’ve been nice. A longer time on the beach with her parents… that roller coaster she loved so much lasting for an hour instead of a few minutes… sitting atop a mountainside looking out at the valley below next to her dad…. Those were all experiences that she would’ve liked to slow down.
Walking around in this tunnel with a crazy Guardian who was whistling some song she thought had to do with pirates on repeat was not an experience Jo wanted to hold onto for the rest of her life.
“What are you even humming?” Jo finally asked Christian, hoping the annoyance in her voice wasn’t as obvious to him as it was to her.
“You don’t recognize ‘Drunken Sailor’?” Christian asked, swiveling around to look at her for a moment.
“Oh, that’s right.” Jo did recognize it, and she knew what it was now that he’d given her a title. Thank goodness he wasn’t singing it. That would’ve been even more annoying.
She waited a few more minutes before she asked the next obvious question, “And why are you humming it again?”
“Because I can’t sing,” Christian replied without even turning around.
Jo looked at Zane. He just shrugged. That was the most nonsensical answer she’d ever heard, but then, Christian rarely made sense, so there was no point in asking him anything else.
Maybe being in the tunnels had made his warped mind even more screwy. It definitely hadn’t made him any saner.
They continued to walk down one tunnel and then up the next. Jo was certain they’d walked through every single one of the tunnels at least three or four times. If she had any idea where to begin to try and find her mom on her own, she would’ve ditched Major Henry a long time ago and started her own search, likely with Zane alongside her.
But she didn’t know what else to do, and so far, Christian had seen the monsters coming a lot faster than she had. It was almost as if he could smell them or sense them somehow. By the time Jo realized something was coming at them, Christian had already shot it. Even the ones that came from behind them, Christian detected and spun around and shot before they could finish their attack. A few times, he’d almost shot one of them instead of the monster, but so far he hadn’t missed.
“Have you guys found anything yet?” Cassidy asked using the IAC. It wasn’t the first time she’d asked. Jo had assured her that if they found the opening to the other tunnel, she’d let her know, but her aunt must’ve thought she had short-term memory loss or something.
“Nope,” Jo said. “Just tunnels, tunnels, and more tunnels.”
“I’m thinking about going through that opening at the back of the center opening.”
“The one that Christian said leads to hell?” Jo clarified.
“Yeah, that one.”
Jo had to be quiet for a while. That didn’t sound like a good idea to her. “Do Scott and Ryker agree with this idea?”
“I don’t know,” Cassidy admitted. “I haven’t asked them yet.”
“Well… you might want to do that first. I’m guessing they might not like that idea.”
“It beats the hell out of walking around these goddamn tunnels over and over again. We’ve searched every possible one of these bitches, and there’s nothing here.”
“Christian seems to think it will appear at some point. I’m not exactly sure what he thinks will happen, but he doesn’t seem to think it’s something that’s there all of the time.”
“He’s insane, Jo. He’s crazy. He’s always been a nutjob, and the fact that he’s wandering around in here looking for an opening that isn’t there just confirms it.”
Jo wasn’t sure what to say to that. While she didn’t think her aunt was wrong, necessarily, she also remembered that in her dream, the tunnel she was in was different than these tunnels. It was similar but narrower, and the ceiling was much closer to her head. It made her think that Christian’s explanation that the other tunnel was somehow beneath this one could be accurate. “Well, if you go in there, let me know,” Jo said. “I think I’ll stick with Christian a little bit longer.”
“All right. Don’t let his crazy spread to you, though,” her aunt said.
Jo chuckled, but she really didn’t think it was funny. Christian seemed to have the kind of crazy that could infect other people.
She noticed that Zane was hanging back a little bit. While it seemed like a bad idea, considering how many monsters they’d encountered, Jo dropped back, too. If he wanted to talk to her without Christian hearing them, he could use the IAC, so she didn’t understand why he didn’t just do that.
“Is he… okay?”
Jo snickered and shook her head. “Don’t think so.”
“Should we…”
He didn’t get the question completely out before Christian was swiveling on them. “Duck.”
It wasn’t a command. He didn’t shout it. He just casually told them to duck and then fired right above their heads. A moment later, some sort of bird-rat hybrid fell to the ground right behind them.
Jo and Zane turned to look at Christian. “You can dump me if you want to, go on without me. I don’t give a rat’s ass. But it’s a bad idea.” He turned around and started walking again, humming that damn song.
Using the IAC, Jo said, “I think we should stay with him. I’m not sure why, but I think it’s our best shot at finding Mom.”
“Whatever you want to do,” Zane replied. She could tell by his tone that he didn’t think that’s what they should do, but her choices were limited at the moment, and she really didn’t think she could find her mother on her own.
But then… in her dream, she had been alone. Her dad had said that she was the only one who could find her mom. So why was she following Christian instead of following her gut?
Jo stopped in the middle of the tunnel and closed her eyes. She had a feeling Christian would keep on walking, not giving a shit what she was doing, but she also thought that Zane would stop and stick with her, hopefully protecting her from whatever might be nearby that wanted to eat her.
She stood there with her feet on the black soot, listening to the sound of her own steady breathing, feeling the beat of her heart in her chest, and felt.
She felt out into the space around her, out into the universe, reaching, stretching, trying to find any indication that her mother was nearby. She had to be. Her father wouldn’t have told her to come in here to find her if he didn’t think she was in there, and he wouldn’t have said she was the only one who could do it if she was going to fail.
Zane said nothing, but she could feel him next to her. The sound of the hummed pirate song got fainter and fainter until Jo could hardly hear it at all.
And then… in the furthest corner of her mind, or perhaps it was actually in the recess of her IAC, she saw something.
It was a flicker--a tiny pinprick of light.
For the last ten, almost eleven, years… Jo had kept her mother’s IAC feed on--just in case. She’d never switched it off, not even when she’d turned off everyone else’s. For the first time since that day when her mother had disappeared, there was a flicker of a feed.
It wasn’t much, and it wasn’t enough for her to be able to communicate through, but it was there.
Which meant--Cadence Findley McReynolds was alive.