Kara shot the Saviour who held her mother.
The crowd of Saviours jerked their heads around, trying to find the source of the new blasts.
Breathing hard, I took out the grenades.
The pins—don’t forget the pins.
One chance. One chance to get this right.
Wait, wait, wait.
I threw each of them.
One to the left. One to the right.
Blood hammered in my head.
Everything was happening at once.
The Saviours scattering in chaotic patterns.
Wilson Carlisle lying bleeding on the ground.
Constance’s expression turning to open-eyed shock as she saw her daughter’s face.
Kara handing her mother and Jennifer a gun each.
Jennifer was the quickest to understand, not needing any explanation before raising the gun and firing off rounds.
“Run! Run!” My voice sounding far away to my ears.
Kara tugging her dazed mother along while turning back and shooting.
I tossed the next two grenades.
“You and Constance first.” Jennifer shot near where I threw the grenades.
It was enough. Just enough. The Saviours were running for cover.
Constance and I raced out ahead of Jennifer and Kara.
Any minute now, all our ammo would be gone, and hundreds of Saviours would be chasing us down through this monstrous place. And they had rooms full of guns.
Some of them were advancing again.
“Kara!” Constance screamed. Running back, she thrust her daughter behind her, shooting at the Saviours.
“Out!” Jennifer yelled. “Out now! All of us!”
We fled behind the door and slammed it shut.
Kara shot at the keypad lock. “They can’t get through it now.”
Constance grasped Kara’s face between her hands. “Are you okay? Are you hurt?”
“I’m okay.” Kara stared back with the same large blue eyes as her mother, suddenly seeming as young and fragile as the seventeen-year-old that she was.
Jennifer spoke in sharp, ragged breaths, her fist clenched on the gun. “What’s happening? Why did Sethi—？”
I shook my head. “We need to run. This whole place is going to blow!”
Constance gasped, looking to her daughter for an explanation. Jennifer stared back at me as if gathering herself for a moment.
“We’ve got ten minutes,” I roared. “Go!”
Rain slashed down in the garden as we charged out—wet, leafy branches whipping our faces.
We entered what Kara had called the cloister and then rushed inside.
A voice rang out from the hazy darkness at the other end of the hall. Three Saviours charged towards us.
Before I had a chance to react, Jennifer and Kara shot them dead.
“They all know now. They’ve all been told.” Kara gestured frantically in the direction of the cellar. “We have to get out of here. More of them will be coming.”
The cellar was eerily empty as we raced down the spiral stairs.
Everyone gone.
Just broken chains.
Dark blood on the walls.
The dead hanging in the torture room.
Endless years of bodies caught in a rusting cage in the cenote.
I heard Constance and Jennifer’s gasps and cries of shock.
Kara slipped across the room and entered a code on the keypad.
I inhaled a short breath of rancid air, turning quickly to face Constance and Jennifer. “Here’s the plan. Sethi’s attempting to swim through the cenote and out to sea. There’s a lever down there that drops a contact mine into the cenote. He’s got a twelve-minute leeway. If it works, the cenote’s going to blow. We need to get out. Sethi will meet us at the beach.” Even as I spoke the plan, it sounded impossible.
Jennifer’s eyes were huge as she nodded, but she didn’t speak.
She knew as I did this plan had the smallest chance of working.
Were Evie and the others still alive out there?
Evie, if I don’t survive this, I need you to survive it. Get to the boats and leave this island.
Kara’s code set off a click within the door. She pushed it open.
We slammed the door shut behind us as we sprinted through the tunnel.
Breaths like charging bulls.
I forced my mind to shut down.
There was only the tunnel and darkness and getting through to the end.
79. Evie
WE HUDDLED INSIDE THE CHAPEL LIKE the damned seeking refuge. The light of the approaching dawn seeped into the sky in tones of the darkest grey. Each thrash of the ocean far below set my bones on edge as I waited for the explosion.
Louelle hadn’t made it home. We’d found her in the tunnel on our way out. Her family would never know the Louelle she wanted them to know.