Hollowed (37 page)

Fred sighs, but reluctantly gestures for me to lead the way. I guess I
'm
the only one familiar with this part of town. Oliver falls in line with me, too, as I trace our steps back to the cobblestone streets and head a direction we haven
'
t explored yet.

Half a dozen taffy and candy stores and two ice cream parlors later, we pass the old school house and Fred
'
s footsteps slow and then stop. Oliver is a step behind him. Final
ly, I can feel what they feel—
a distant flicker of something vaguely familiar and uncomfortable. Fred
'
s description was apt
. I
t isn
'
t far away, it
'
s dim. Like trying to spot a shadow in a dark room.

Fred turns full circle, searching, and takes off down the street without a word. Oliver and I exchange looks and follow after.

He tears down two streets before he stops again, studying the buildings around us. A bank on one side,
book
store
on the other. A three-tier brick building sits across the street, its lower floor serving as a café while the upper floors are rented out as office space.

Whatever it is I
'
m feeling, it
'
s coming from there. Not inside, but below.

A creaky wrought-iron gate separates us from getting into the outdoor seating area. Oliver makes it in a runn
ing leap and Fred follows suit. They catch the top, vaulting themselves to the other side,
leaving me to stare through the bars after them.

"
Yeah
...
I can
'
t do that.
"

Oliver rolls his eyes.
Fred grins
. He steps up to the fence and slides his arms between the bars, hands clasping as a foothold for me to get up.
"
By all means, allow me to help the lady
.
"

"
Drop me and you
'
ll regret it,
"
I grumble, but place my foot in his hands and hoist myself up. With some effort, I manage to drop down to the other side, complete with the back of my shirt slightly torn. See? I
'
m so awesome at this.

Oliver is already moving around the side of the building, away from the street view and examining the entrances. An employee exit, a few windows
, caked with dirt and dust
. Toward the back, a steep set of stairs leading down. He lingers at the top of them, frowning.

"
Briar, where are the entrances to the tunnels you mentioned?
"

"
Hard to say.
"
I take a few
steps down.
"
A lot of them are sealed off. There
'
s one used for tours a few streets
away
, but I don
'
t know how deep it goes.
"
But with this dusty looking door at the base of the stairs, I
'
m willing to bet it
'
s a good place to look. The tickle of Alex
'
s presence is stronger here. Not
strong,
but stronger.

There isn
'
t room for all three of us at the bottom, so Oliver squeezes past me to test the door. When it doesn
'
t budge, he grips the handle, puts his shoulder to it
,
and shoves. A sharp
crack
echoes off the surrounding buildings and makes me flinch. But I guess it
does
the tri
ck. The door swings open with an achy
creak. Oliver
vanishes
into the darkness.

Already this place is giving me the creeps.
Thinking
back to all the stories of the tunnels being haunted
,
keeping on ground-level s
uddenly s
eems like a much better idea. But as Fred follows after Oliver, I know there isn
'
t a lot of choice. I slip after them, pushing the door shut behind me.

Where we stand looks to be some kind of old boiler room, unused for God knows how long. Strings of cobwebs hang from the corners and off the boiler
. T
he brick walls are cracked and crumbling and the windows have been heavily boarded up.
A place abandoned by time.

While my eyes are adjusting to the dark, the boys venture in further. An archway leads into a narrow hall, just as broken as the boiler room. We trail down it in a single file, keeping close. The mixture of decades-old dust and debris has me holding my breath
.
Fred sneezes.

The hall finally opens up into another, larger room. There are windows, but we have to be underground now because not a single shred of light seeps in between the boards. The room is deep enough that I can
'
t see
where it ends. A few support beams here and there must be newer, holding up whatever building we
'
ve found ourselves beneath.
I can
sense
it
.
We
'
re getting closer.

"
She
'
s here,
"
Fred breathes. He moves around us, stepping just out of reach and swallowed by the darkness.

I want to reach out and grab him but Oliver
takes
my arm, drawing me to him.
"
Stay with me,
"
he instructs, and I don
'
t argue.

W
e inch after Fred. Somewhere up ahead, I can hear his steps, but they echo off the walls and make it impossible to place exactly where he
'
s gone. Alex
'
s presence is stron
ger now. Almost touchable.

"
Alex,
"
Fred calls, farther ahead than I thought he would be.
"
Alex! Where are you?!
"

Nearby in the darkness, something moves. Something
groans
. It isn
'
t even a solid sound so much as a breath.
A death rattle.

Whatever it is brushes
the back of my ankle.

I scream, spin, reaching for Oliver only to find him gone. Reeling, I stumble over whatever-it-is and hit the ground with bits of broken concrete and stone digging into my palms. It touches me again and I scramble back, gasping for air.

There
'
s a small square light in the
pitch blackness
,
and Oliver calling my name. His phone. Not much of a flashlight but it works well enough for him to run to me, nearly tripping over the same body I just did.

He shines
it
in my direction to make sure I
'
m okay, then follows my gaze to the lump on the floor. Even with the light, it takes me a minute to realize
what
it is.
Alex.

Or what
'
s left of her.

Alex's
throat is wide open
. T
he skin has peeled and withered away from the wound. It's hard to make out, but I think her stomach
is sharing
a similar fate. Rotted, from the outside, in. From the clean cuts of a knife.

The same knife Noah used to kill Artie.

I roll away, stomach churning in a silent threat to make me sick if I don't get some distance between us. Oliver mutters a curse and kneels beside her and somewhere in the distance, the pounding of Fred's footsteps grows nearer.

"Alex!" He drops down on her other side, reaching for her but hesitating, like he's worried whatever killed her is somehow contagious. "
W
ho did this to you?"

I crawl to my feet and force myself to look at her straight-on again. Whatever light was in her eyes seconds ago? It's gone now. But her glassy gaze is still on me, seeing nothing and everything all at once.

For several minutes, none of us says a word. Oliver checks for a pulse
. W
hen he doesn't find one, he leans back and watches Fred, who remains bowed over her. I wonder if he's upset. If maybe Alex was someone important to him. I didn't get that impression from our last conversation, but what the hell do I know? Unable to think of anything to say, I rest a hand on his shoulder.

"These wounds," he mutters. "They look like the ones Artie had
."

Oliver inclines his head. "From a blade." His eyes lock with mine. "A witch's blade."

I swallow hard, tearing my gaze away. Noah wouldn't do this. Someone like Artie who didn't leave him a choice?
Sure.
But Alex—s
he was too prone to running when she knew she was up against something she couldn't beat. "It wasn't him."

"Then who was it, Briar?" Oliver steps around Alex's body, dipping his head to try to peer into my face. Invading my personal space. And right now, that's a no-no. "Do we know any other witches around here?"

"Noah wouldn't
do
this, okay?" I push past him, my shoulder slamming into his with enough force that it pushes him aside but leaves mine throbbing. "I'm sick of everyone jumping to conclusions about everyone else. You blame Noah, Noah blames Ruby, Ruby blames Maverick. It's this big, stupid circle and we're never gonna get anywhere sitting around and bitching about who did what."

"She's right, you know."

Noah's voice surrounds us
from nowhere
, echoing in a way that makes it impossible to tell where it's coming from.

Oliver
twists around with a snarl. With his phone light pointed in the right direction, I can barely make out the outline of Noah's figure across the room. I don't know whether I'm happy to see him, or terrified this is not going to end well.

Sure enough, Fred launches himself across the space between us and him and the force with which he slams Noah into the wall makes the sound
bounce
off every solid surface
. I suck in a breath and hold it.

"What did you do to her?" Fred hisses. His power is nothing like Cole's, but it rolls off of me and makes me shudder. "Is Oliver right? Was that your knife?"

For a brief second, I think I catch Noah watching me, but the lack of lighting makes it hard to tell. "It was my knife. But I didn't do it, so
let
me
go
."

Fred doesn't. "What, did it grow legs and do it by itself?"

Noah's face contorts. "The last time I saw my knife, it was sticking out of Artie's back. So
you
tell
me
what happened."

My mouth falls open. It all happened so fast, I didn't even remember until
now. Artie and Noah fighting—
Joel showing up and the blade being abandoned while Noah, Daniel
,
and I ran through the cemetery to safety. "He's telling the truth. I was there."

"Like you wouldn't lie just to save his ass!" Fred snaps.

"Trust me, you'd know if she were lying. She's terrible at it." A lazy smirk
crosses
Noah
'
s face. Jerk. Maybe I should have let Fred punch him a few times before I said anything.

Oliver sighs. "Put him down. If he didn't do it, he didn't do it. But if it wasn't him, then
it has to be Joel."

Fina
lly, Fred releases his hold
. He twists around to glare at Oliver, but there's no real malice in it. He looks how he's always looked to me: a big, dumb, lost puppy. The people he cared about are either dead or traitors; I can't begin to imagine how he feels.

"Whatever," he growls, stalking back over to Alex. He drops to her side and brushes a hand down her face,
drawing
her eyelids closed. I'm grateful to get her stare off of me. Before he stands up, he pulls
her
cell from her pocket and flips it open.

While he's messing with the phone, I keep staring at
Alex
, realizing that the longer I watch her, the less human her face looks. It isn't her anymore. The body on the floor is
only
a shell.

I'm glad
we were here when she died
. I try to think that in those last few seconds where
her eyes met mine
, maybe she found some kind of
solace
. In the same way I did when I thought I was dying. In the same way I hope Sherry did.