Page 67 of Deathless
My family waited somewhere in these tunnels. I had responsibilities, and I couldn't hide in here forever.
I sat up slowly. Jasper trailed his hand down my back.
"I need to see my family," I said.
"They can wait until you're ready."
I shook my head. "No. I need to do this now, before I lose my nerve."
Jasper stood and offered his hand. I took it and let him haul me to my feet. We cleaned up quickly, got dressed in clean clothes with boots laced tight. My hands shook on the laces, andI had to start over twice. Jasper waited by the door and said nothing about it.
I looked at my reflection in the small mirror someone had hung on the wall. I was exhausted, red-eyed, but still standing.
I turned to Jasper. "Thank you. For getting into the shower with your clothes on like a lunatic. For holding me. For keeping me from drowning in it."
He nodded. "You'd do the same."
"I'd do it worse. I'd be crying in there with you."
The corner of his mouth twitched. "You were."
"Yeah." I grabbed his hand and squeezed once. "Come on."
I turned a corner, and there she was.
My mother stood in the main corridor with Valentina, checking a list of names. She looked up when my boots hit stone and crossed the distance in three steps, grabbed my face with both hands, and checked me for bullet holes.
"Diego, mijo, estás herido?"
"Estoy bien, mamá. Just tired."
She cried and said my name like a prayer. I hugged her back, wrapped my arms around her and held on. Twenty minutes ago I'd been on my knees in the shower falling apart. Now I stood in front of my mother, kept my breathing even, kept my hands steady on her back, and gave her the version of me she needed.
She pulled back and looked at me, then at Jasper standing behind me. Her eyes went sharp. She could smell bullshit from a kilometer away, but whatever she read in my face made her nod and let it go, filing it away to deal with later.
"Come," she said. "You need to eat. Both of you."
She turned and led us deeper into the tunnels, already talking about food, about beds, about who had arrived and who was still coming.
My mother had made enough food to feed an army. She always did.
I woke up becausesomething was wrong.
Jasper's arm lay across my chest, his breathing deep against my back. The tunnels held that dead-hours quiet where even the generator hum dropped out and left nothing but stone and dark. My abuela used to say that the mountain breathed at night. Whatever this was, it came from outside the mountain.
I eased out from under his arm. The man ran on four hours of sleep like it was a lifestyle choice, and I was not about to ruin one of the nights he actually went under. He twitched against the sheet where my body had been, fingers curling around empty space, and something in my chest pulled sideways.
My feet hit cold stone. The floor vibrated, a tremor that climbed through the soles and settled in my teeth. I froze.
The blast hit like thunder. The whole compound shook hard enough to knock dust from the ceiling, and the light bulb swung wildly, throwing shadows across the walls. Jasper already had his hand on the katana before his eyes opened. He found me inthe dim light and went from dead asleep to full tactical between one breath and the next.
"Fuck," I said, grabbing my gun from under the pillow.
"Are we under attack?" He yanked his jeans on.
"Don't know, but that was definitely an explosion."
Alarms screamed from deeper in the tunnels. Jasper had his shirt on and was out the door before I finished lacing my boots. I gave up on the second one and ran after him, gun up, my heart slamming hard enough to crack a rib.
