Rage of Vendetta (The Vendetta Series #2)

Chapter 22

Author's Note: I've been patiently waiting to share this chapter with you guys! This one and the next were favourites of mine to write, and do tell me what you think when you reach the end. The next update is coming soon, and while you wait, perhaps check out the new book trailer I made for In Vendetta House? (The desperation is real with this writer and occasional graphics dabbler here.) Thank y'all so much for reading! (P.S. Check out the cute one on the side-bar. Usually I won't cast any faces as my characters but I came across him on Tumblr and my first thought was, Is he not so Eric?)

Chapter 22

They say the descent into Hell is easy. 

I don’t agree.

“Ow! Verdak, that’s my face!”

“Sorry, sorry!” Jesse calls down, voice echoing.

I can’t even rub my sore nose, likely imprinted with his shoe, because both my hands are in use. Ladders are honestly the worst. These aren’t even the ones with proper steps: they’re thin, slippery rungs, and since we’re moving so closely to keep in distance of Sasha’s light in the middle, we keep accidentally getting feet in faces.

Earlier, after reaching the bottom of the staircase, I could had sworn we had already reached the core of the earth. Seriously. My legs were starting to cramp.

After what felt like miles of staircase, we appeared to have come to a complete dead end. But that hadn’t made sense; I was still feeling a breeze on my skin if I concentrated.

“Wait,” Courtney had said suddenly. “The ground is kind of loose. Everyone stomp really hard.” 

After exchanging weird, eerie glances (we all had orange faces in Sasha’s firelight), we all stomped a foot. And then we fell down the rabbit hole.

I had landed hard on lumpy metal, completely winded for a good minute. It was black all around us, Sasha’s light having gone out in surprise.

“I think I’ve figured out how they prevent humans from finding them,” Vee gasped. “No sane human would have survived this fall and kept going.”

“Yeah?” Sasha said. “I think all the humans died here. How would they even get back up? We just fell down at least ten feet.”

“Ten feet isn’t that much,” I winced, getting to my feet woozily. 

“Say that to my black and blue back,” Jesse muttered.

Eric snorted. “Try say that ten times really fast.”

At least Eric seemed to be getting back to his usual self.

It was around then that I realized no one else had landed on lumpy metal, and there was a metal ring of some sort under my foot.

I lit my hand up with fire, and the light revealed a tiny, tiny trapdoor. Like, I’m not even kidding, I nearly could not get my butt through. 

Thankfully, as I lowered myself down the vertical ladder first to the others’ persistence (“How do we know it’s not a gas chamber? You need to test it out first since you’re the least likely to die!”), the narrow chute widened slightly, enough that it wouldn’t trigger Sasha’s claustrophobia. 

We are about halfway down now. Well, I’m going to assume halfway since I can feel the air flow altering and we’ve been climbing down for a while. A long while.

“Honestly, how far down is this place?” I grumble. “You’d think they’d need some sort of easily accessible exit. What if a fire or something broke out and they had to evacuate?”