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  “Don’t touch me.” It’s said quietly, pitifully, making Reid shudder.

  “Are you hurt?”

  Marcus just groans again, mournful and deep. There’s nothing Reid can do for him at the moment, so he retreats.

  New plan. By hopping and sliding his lower body a little more, he manages to tip his hips sideways just enough to draw his knees to his chest. The effort leaves him panting and his lungs begging for air as his thighs compress his ribcage. There is just enough space for him to swing over onto his back, his shins pressed to the stone above. While it makes it very hard to breathe, Reid feels a little better. It’s foolish of him to even consider he could support the weight if the stone did fall on him, but at least he’s done something.

  The voices overhead seem clearer. He can hear Leila, her panic crystal clear even if her words aren’t. There is more shifting of stone, the growling, scraping noises making Reid’s heart race all over again, especially when the movements above cause more dust to fall.

  “Reid!” Leila’s voice is faint but easy to make out. “Can you hear me?”

  “Here!” He chokes as he tries to draw enough breath to speak past his contorted body. “We’re here!”

  He doesn’t hesitate for a moment to include Marcus in the statement. Enemy or not, they are equals under the rock and will live or die together as far as Reid figures. Better to do it fighting to survive than fighting each other.

  That doesn’t mean he’s willing to be friends. Or forgive Marcus for getting them into this mess in the first place.

  “All your fault.” Marcus chokes and sputters before speaking again. “Stupid idea.”

  He had to go and ruin it, didn’t he? Reid rapidly changes his mind. He will gladly leave the complaining, pathetic, weak and wretched guy behind. Might even loosen a rock over Marcus’s head before anyone notices in time to save him. Reid swings his face to the side to snarl something and catches a glimpse of sneakers over Marcus’s shoulder.

  “There’s someone else down here. Hey. Hey! Can you hear me?” No response. Reid watches for a long moment but the feet don’t even twitch.

  It’s pretty easy to figure out what that means. Still he and Marcus are still alive so Reid won’t let his hope die all together.

  Marcus goes on as if he didn’t hear what Reid said or doesn’t care. “If you hadn’t talked us into coming down here, none of this would have happened.”

  Reid’s anger at the accusation is so intense he flexes his legs, his shoulders sliding back over the rough stone. Something shifts above him. Shocked, the rage draining away with the patter of dust and stone, he freezes.

  Marcus starts to struggle, his visible hand flipping over, palm now pressed to the floor, back straining against the rubble above him. Reid sees his face turn red, the giant vein in the middle of his forehead bulge. There is another shift in the pile. This time large chunks rain down and Reid is sure the rock above him dropped a fraction.

  “Marcus, stop! Stop moving.” But Marcus won’t listen. He is like an animal, desperate for escape, fighting with all his strength even if that fight causes his own death. Reid almost lets him, but there is no way of knowing if Marcus’s battle with the rubble will also kill Reid so he has to try.

  “I said stop it!” Reid reaches, manages to just get a hold on Marcus’s t-shirt collar and tugs, hard.

  Tears pour down the young man’s face. “I can feel it moving. It’s working!” Marcus strains again.

  Reid pulls back his hand with a shout as a large chunk of stone falls, striking Marcus on the face. It rolls to a halt, blocking Reid’s view.

  “Marcus. Marcus! Can you hear me?” Nothing. Silence. But there, faint breathing, choking sighs of air. Finally, a soft moan. Alive, then. Even as the shifting of rock above them goes on and on.

  After a few tries, Reid is able to hook the stone with his fingers. It’s just barely within his reach, his leverage a ghost of touch. With pain staking slowness, he manages to slide it out of the way. And breathes a sigh of relief. Marcus is passed out, but Reid’s searching hand finds a pulse on his neck before collapsing himself. It’s true then. He’s not alone down here just yet.

  The sneakers glare at him like an accusation and Reid has to look away.

  Lying there in the dull light, the dust settled around him, his only companion unconscious and possibly dying for all Reid knows, he struggles yet again with his terror. He has to tell himself over and over that the others are coming for him, they are almost to him. Any second now.

  And then, the inevitable, but the worst thing that could happen to him.

  A soft rain of rocks fall, glass shatters and sparks hiss as the light goes out.

  A horrible, aching shriek rises in his throat, squeezing his chest and lungs, driving a primal spike of terror through his head, pinning him to the floor for a long moment of loss. The dark and the closeness and the rocks are sliding in to crush him slowly, to choke out the last of his air.

  There is barely any oxygen left, the last of it panting in and out of his desperate lungs. His head swims, pulse overloading in answer. Reid scrabbles at the dirt beside him, fighting for purchase, his knees driving against the rock above him. He has to get out, has to, can’t take this any longer, please, please, please!

  White stars flash in the dark, sparkling across his vision. His limbs fall suddenly heavy. He can’t push any more, can’t fight. His hands twitch and go still. Reid feels stickiness under his fingertips and a sharp pain in his lower back but everything is wavery and fading, going hazy around the edges. Even the sparkles have gone dim.

  Out of air. Out of time. Game over. He manages one soft giggle as his mind finally lets go. He notices the shifting rock sounds have stopped, the voices silenced. They’ve left him behind, then. Fair enough. He will drift here until unconsciousness takes him, too.

  Not a bad death, in the end. At least the hunters won’t get to—

  don’t let them eat me

  eat him.

  Reid’s eyelashes flutter as something passes over them. He feels a soft touch on his face, like butterfly wings. And when he breathes his last breath, his lungs fill with cool, fresh air.

  His eyes open. Leila wavers above him, her voice muted, coming in and out as his oxygen deprived brain returns to function.

  “Reid,” she says.

  “Hi, Leila.” He is smiling, though his face doesn’t seem to work perfectly just yet so it’s rather lopsided.

  Something wet falls on his cheek and he sees now she is crying and laughing all at the same time.

  “You didn’t quit.” He sighs, closing his eyes.

  “Never,” she whispers, her words reaching him as he passes out. “I’ll never leave you behind again.”

  ***

  Chapter Seven

  Reid wakes to whispering voices and shadows hovering over him, passing in front of his closed lids. Someone holds his right hand gently, fingers stroking the skin. His mind tells him it’s Leila. He takes another moment of personal quiet before opening his eyes.

  It takes a little effort. The dust has bonded them together, gumming his lashes and making him blink over and over before he can see. It still feels scratchy, like there is more of the stuff left in his eyes, but he can see and is alive and Reid is very, very grateful.

  Milo’s is the first face Reid focuses on. The boy is hard to miss, hovering right above Reid, tear tracks running through the powdered rock on his face. His giant brown eyes notice Reid is awake and widen even further. The boy cries out, a low and pathetic sound, and collapses almost on top of his friend, hugging him awkwardly, choking sobs low but vibrating through Reid’s chest.

  Reid tries to speak but can’t. His throat is clogged with chalk. It’s an effort to clear it, especially from a prone position, but he manages. “It’s okay.” Reid gets those two words out after working up just enough spit to swallow and clear his vocal cords. “I’m fine.” A miracle. More words. He’s pretty sure he’ll be okay after all.

  M
ilo squeezes Reid harder before sitting up. Both skinny hands rise, push the tears away with aggressiveness that smears large tracks in the dust, making a mess of Milo’s already dirty face. “We thought you were dead.” The hitch in his voice makes Reid smile.

  He’s amazed at himself, that he can smile. That he wants to. But he is alive and that is more than he was expecting. And maybe deserved. “Thanks for not giving up.”

  Milo’s grin is lopsided and weak but for the first time since Drew died they are friends again.

  Reid slowly pulls himself into a sitting position, coughing several times as the strain makes his lungs rebel. When he is finally upright, he looks around. “What happened?”

  “You passed out,” Leila says. “Marcus was unconscious when we pulled you out but he’s fine. Just a knock on the head.”

  Reid remembers the silent sneakers. “There was someone else under there,” he whispers, understanding already there’s no hope. He doesn’t have to look at Leila to know he’s right, but he does anyway. He gets to his feet with her help, Milo eagerly supporting his other side. He slowly tests his body to be sure he really is fine. He is dizzy just for a second before his head clears. Eyes turn toward him, a wave of relief reaching out to hug him almost like Milo had done as each of the kids smiles at him, their filthy faces shining with happiness.

  That his continued existence is enough to make them happy actually cheers Reid up a little.

  He makes his way forward, fingers brushing over a head of hair here, a turned up cheek there. They touch him back, whispering to him words they don’t need to say. They are glad he is all right.

  Reid continues forward, feet dragging more and more as he goes, not wanting to look in the hole, to see who they lost, but knows he must. He has to bear witness to the kid who died, the one fallen with him and Marcus but who will run no further.

  No matter what happens from here on in, Reid knows it's something he will do for each and every kid in the pack who doesn’t make it. He can only hope someone will remain behind to do it for him.

  The kids managed to uncover the lost boy’s body, all bent and bloodied. They’ve laid him out on a slab of rock, straightened his limbs as best they could. Reid’s heart clenches at the sigh of the mangled corpse, the crushed chest and protruding arm bones, the pool of blood next to the missing face. It doesn’t disgust him, though. He’s grown so accustomed to the sight of death Reid can see past the blood and exposed tissue and into the reality that this was a child.

  “He died quickly, at least.” It’s little comfort, but Leila is doing her best so Reid just nods. She’s right, anyway. He just wishes he could remember the boy’s name. Someone should. It’s important, isn’t it? He’d want someone to remember his in that last moment of acknowledgement. As proof he ever existed, even to one other person.

  “Owen,” Leila whispers as if reading his mind. It’s enough to connect the sneakers to the boy.

  Owen. Reid will never forget.

  “Are we just going to sit here?” His anger rolls over in his gut at the sound of that voice. Marcus forces his way toward the gaping hole in the rocks although Reid notices he refuses to look at the dead kid lying there. “The hunters could be here any minute.”

  Reid doesn’t say anything, just glares. Marcus tries to glare back but he has no spine, as far as Reid can figure, and soon backs off. Reid turns back to Leila with a soft sigh, trying to dispel some of his furious energy without taking it out on Marcus.

  “Anyone else hurt?”

  She points a little further up the tunnel and Reid goes to see.

  Three kids huddle under a light bulb, staring eyes terrified. One has a bandage around his forehead. The second has his arm in a sling made from the hem of his T-shirt. He looks so lost Reid wants to comfort him. The third is skinny little Megan.

  “I’m okay,” she whispers in her tiny voice. “Honest.” Her hand is wrapped in the remains of someone’s shirttail. “Just a scratch.”

  “A rock crushed it,” Leila says softly. “Eric here has a broken arm and I think Brandon has a concussion.”

  Reid is nodding, knowing it could have been so much worse. It’s not until then he thinks of what happened, that slow motion moment still frozen in his mind and he spins on her, panic coming back.

  “Cole?” He remembers throwing the boy, but was he in time?

  “I’m here.” Leila didn’t have to answer. Cole appears at her side, though he refuses to look up, just shuffles his sneakers against the tunnel floor, hands stuffed in his back pockets.

  Reid squeezes the boy’s shoulders. Cole looks up, startled and guilty and contrite all at once.

  “I’m glad you’re okay,” Reid says.

  Tears well in Cole’s blue eyes, brim over. “Thanks,” he whispers.

  “Reid, Leila!” Milo pops up from the rock pile, his fuzzy hair full of dust. “You need to see this.”

  Reid gets back there first despite his reluctance to return to his tomb, but makes room so Leila and Cole can both have a look. Alex stares up at Reid from where he huddles in the hole. His hands are shaking but he doesn’t move, just points and hugs himself.

  Reid ducks his head and peers under the pile. Is that a leg? Another kid lost? At first his heart plummets, his guilt far stronger than Cole’s could ever be. But then he notices something is strange about that leg. The skin is withered, gray.

  “Looks like a mummy,” Cole says.

  He’s right, too. Alex points again. Another body, this time with the head out in the open. Reid flinches from the empty eye sockets but is beginning to understand. This is a girl, he’s pretty sure from the length of her hair. And she too looks shrunken, as though drained of life and left an empty, dried up husk.

  “I don’t think the hunters killed them,” Alex says. “They have all their, um. Parts.”

  They all stare for a long time, as though unable to break free of the sullen sadness the empty shells cause. Reid looks around the pit, his plan to uncover them completely dashed at the sight of the gigantic rocks they would have to move.

  “There must have been a crack in the wall,” Milo says, so quiet and yet filling the empty space with the sound of his mourning. “I’m thinking these two squeezed in to hide and never left.”

  Makes sense. Chances are if these two go this far they’d be half dead already unless they found the water, too. His mind stumbles along with them, clutching each other’s hands, maybe crying softly as they went. Finding the place to hide, huddling together. Going to sleep curled around one another and never waking up.

  Considering the alternative ends this place offers, Reid thinks it would be a good death.

  He shakes himself loose of his imagination. There is nothing he can do for them now, or the dead boy with the silent sneakers. Reid offers Alex his hand and helps him free of the pit. Only then does he shudder, realizing this is the very hole they pulled him out of and wonders how close he lay next to these dead kids, unknowing.

  “So much for us being the first ones to find the mine.” Milo hops up on his own and hugs himself. Reid curses silently. He hasn’t said anything to them about his belief about this place and hoped they wouldn’t make the connections he did about this being only a maze. It appears to be inevitable now.

  For the first time since he met Marcus, Reid is grateful he speaks up and breaks that dangerous train of reasoning with his usual thoughtfulness.

  “At least the hunters didn’t get them.”

  Reid clenches both fists, the pain in both enough to make him weak and get his anger under control before he surges to his feet, not looking at Marcus or anyone but the two mummies in the bottom of the hole.

  “Dead is dead. Isn’t it?” Reid turns away and leaves the rubble behind.

  They gather further up the tunnel, the gentle slope upward offering some hope. He is grateful this is the one surviving and that all the kids chose. They are seventeen now, and three injured enough to slow them down, but they are alive and that is what matters.
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  “They’ll hold us back, you know.” Marcus won’t look at Megan and the two boys. Reid hears sniffling from the hurt kids, knows the three are afraid of being left behind. This time he doesn’t hold back when his temper takes over.

  “Tell you what,” Reid says, letting out all the venom he’s feeling, all the rage and frustration and need to drive Marcus’s face through the back of his head into the words he speaks, “if you don’t like it, you can just leave.”

  Marcus stares at him like he’s crazy. “What are you talking about?”

  “You heard me,” Reid says. “Get lost. Or shut the hell up. Pick one. But you can’t have it both ways.”

  Marcus retreats into his sullen pout and grumbles and grouses to himself but in the end, as Reid knew he would, Marcus stays.

  ***

  Chapter Eight

  Reid hates to admit it to himself but he is relieved when the boy with the broken arm—Eric, he reminds himself—finally stops crying. The noise has been getting on his nerves ever since they started out again, the slow, steady climb almost as exhausting as scaling a mountain in the condition they are in.

  Part of him wonders when he got so heartless while his practical side whispers about sucking it up and privately telling the boy to quit being such a baby. His need to protect them, trained into him it seems, only goes so far but he refuses to let any of that annoyance show. No way is he giving any of these kids a reason to feel any worse than they already do.

  Besides, Reid refuses to give Marcus the satisfaction of knowing they bug the crap out of him.

  It’s not long before they encounter another branch in the tunnel. Reid lets them stop and catch their breath. There’s been no sight or sound from the hunters in quite some time and even though Reid knows that means little by the way of safety he’s happy to allow the kids to rest. Chances are they’ll be running again soon enough.