Chapter 21

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"Keep your eyes open," Keith barked as he planted the heel of his boot into my shin. "If you fall asleep then I will too, and then we're all screwed."

I opened my eyes and struggled to focus on the shaft overhead. A soft light filtered through the cramped hall, highlighting the cloud of dust floating around Keith's head. I'd been fighting off sleep for hours, jerking awake each time my eyes drifted closed.

"I wasn't sleeping," I muttered, biting back a string of profanities. He was right. A few seconds more, and I would have been gone, lost to what brief reprieve my dreams could afford.

"Yeah right." Keith chuckled, taking a swig of water from a canning jar. "I guess moaning 'Meredith, Meredith' is part of your master plan to take these guys down now, huh?"

I shot a glare in his direction, more annoyed with myself than him. Having been on edge for what seemed like an eternity, my body had learned to adapt. I could survive for days on a little more than a few hours of sleep, but lately it seemed as though my body was fighting back, demanding I sleep even when I didn't want to. This time I'd actually dozed off, my mouth giving Keith a fleeting, unwelcomed glimpse into my subconscious.

More than once I'd clutched at the emptiness around me, thinking Meredith's sleeping body was there. A fistful of dirt and an empty wrapper was all it took to bring me back to my reality...back to the dank, frigid tunnel we were camped out in.

"You hear anything while I was out?" I asked, already knowing the answer. A round of gunfire would've surely woken me up, sent Evan and Meredith barreling our way.

"Nah. They aren't coming," Keith said as he stood up and stretched. "And I'll tell you something else, Jake, I'll be damned if I'm going to sit here and wait."

I straightened up and brushed off the dust that had settled into the creases of my jeans. "You think she's right? You think they aren't coming back anytime soon?"

"Who the hell knows," he said, and I chuckled. Far be it from Keith to admit that maybe, just maybe, Meredith was telling the truth. "It's getting cold down here, and my ass went numb about two hours ago."

I groaned, easing my neck from side to side to work out the kinks. He was lucky it was only his ass that was numb; my entire body burned with pins and needles. "How long do you think we've been down here? Ten, twelve hours?"

"More than that I bet. Evan and I were down here for a good five hours while you and that girl..."

A quick glare shut him up, but not without a laugh. "She's off limits," I said. "We can talk about anything else you want. Home, the team, who's the better player, but Meredith is off limits. Got it?"

He nodded, but I was pretty sure it was more an acknowledgment than an agreement. Everything was fair game when you were holed up sixty-feet underground with nothing but each other for support and protection. To be honest, I wouldn't want it any other way.

"I figure you've been down here for a good ten hours," Keith continued "Add the time Evan clocked and I'm thinking twenty hours at least." I started to do the calculations in my head - nearly a day, maybe more.

"Shit!" Half frozen and loaded down with almost every weapon we owned, we'd wasted an entire day sitting down here.

Keith grumbled and started pacing the edges of the tunnel. "Help me look for stuff to pile up." He gestured at a pile of scrap metal, twisted and bent with years of rust flaking from its edges. "I've been sitting here trying to figure out a way to seal off the damn shaft. Can't do it, not from the inside anyway."

I looked up, my eyes scanning the ceiling, my eyes tracing the outline of the shaft looking for a way to barricade it shut. Like Keith, I came up empty.

"I say we cover this area with the sharpest shit we can find," Keith said as he started tossing soup can lids onto the heap of jump he piled under the grate.

"Now you don't want to hang them, you want to impale them?" I asked, smashing an old jar against the wall to add to his ever growing pile.

Keith's lips curled upwards as he lifted an enormous, jagged piece of metal and set it upright below the shaft. "Yup. Even if they break through the shaft, the first guy down is gonna get a hell of a surprise when he lands."

I couldn't help but laugh at Keith's sadistic plan. I would have made fun of him, called him a lunatic had I not contemplated the same stupid plan just yesterday.

A slight clink in the tunnel behind me brought Keith to my side, both of us reaching for the closest sharp object we could find. Keith came up with his knife. All I had to show for my quick reflexes was an empty can and a piece of broken glass. Lot of good they would do me.

I held my breath as the tunnel brightened slowly and Evan came into view. Meredith was two steps behind him. She was bundled head to toe in quilts, her expression unreadable as she cautiously navigated the mess of crap we'd piled up. Throwing my useless weapon back into the pile, I breathed a sigh of relief and gave her body a quick scan to ensure she was okay.

My eyes traveled to her feet, covered with nothing more than a pair of my worn socks. Against the damp concrete, they'd be no protection from the cold. I smiled, impressed she'd made it this far without turning back for more layers. "You sleep okay?" I asked.

"Yup," she mumbled and looked around, shaking her head as she took in our cramped, sharply fortified area.

"Jesus Christ, it's cold down here." Evan lifted his lantern to examine the silent shaft. "And rather than risk impaling your own stupid asses, why didn't you just tie the shaft shut?"

"It opens from the inside," Keith explained. "One of us would have to go out there and climb through the vents to seal it off. You volunteering?"

"Idiots," he grumbled. "Here hold this." He gave his lantern to Meredith and undid the buckle of his belt, stripping it from its loops. "Keith, give me your belt."

"What the hell for?" Keith asked, simultaneously yanking it free from his pants.

Evan didn't bother to answer him, just carefully assembled a stack of crates to the right side of the vent and climbed up. It took him three tries to slide the leather through the narrow slits in the grate, the stiff leather finally bending into position on the third try. There was a defunct water pipe running parallel to the shaft, and he looped the belt around that, pulled the buckle tight before shifting to the left side.

I looked at the noose Keith still had in his hand, then back up to the leather belts now holding the steel grate closed. That leather was ten times stronger than any rope and harder to cut though. Evan had been right; those stupid belts of his would in fact save my life one day.

"It's not fool proof, but it will buy us some time while they try to cut through the leather. Hopefully by then, one of us will have woken up."

"Not bad, boy scout," Keith said, patting Evan on the back. "Now we can all get some sleep before we head out."

"Head out where?" Meredith whispered, and I kicked myself for not telling Keith to keep his mouth shut. We hadn't talked about it, but I knew the instant I saw his "impaling pile" what he was thinking. Shit, my ass was as numb as his, and I was just as tired of waiting.

"I'm sick of waiting for these bastards," Keith said, grimacing as he lifted the duffel bag up onto his shoulder. "And she's right; they're not going to show their faces here anytime soon."

"It's only been a day," Evan countered, "I say we hold off for at least a week. We've got plenty of supplies left. It's not like we need to go topside anytime soon."

Keith shook his head, pushing past Evan as he made his way back down the hall. "Nope. You're more than welcome to stay behind, but I'm gonna pay em' a visit."

Meredith's body tensed, her arms wrapping tightly around her stomach as she tried to hold herself together. I knew she wasn't going to like what was coming, what I was going to agree to, but she'd said it herself: they weren't coming back. "I'm with Keith. If they won't come to us, then I say we go find them."

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