Pember sniffed. “Bloody space invaders.”
Blake touched his thumb to Pember’s chin. “Please don’t do it. I’ll never forgive myself if you get hurt.” He drew Pember under his arm, silence falling between them. They both looked out over the West Newton countryside, across the rolling landscape and patchwork hills.
“She’s one of ours. They won’t do her justice like we will,” Pember said.
Blake sighed, pressing his fingers to his right eye. “You’re going to be the death of me, Pember.”
Pember pressed his lips together, tapping Blake’s chest. “Did you put your monitor on?”
Grimacing, Blake nodded.
“Well, then. I’ll make sure someone’s on standby with the defib.”
He was only half joking.
CHAPTER 28
TUNNEL VISION
Pember
“Ready?”Isla said, tightening the strap around Pember’s headtorch.
He nodded, glancing up at Blake. The alpha’s face was pulled tight, worry lines creasing his brow. Patting the small bag of sample kits on his belt, he said, “I’ll see you on the other side.”
With that, he dangled his feet over the edge of the trapdoor and slowly lowered himself onto the first rung of the ancient iron ladder. It groaned beneath the ball of his foot, but somehow it held. Giving everyone the thumbs up, he slowly descended into the pit below.
Regret spiked through him almost immediately, but he only took a breath and tried to hold his nerve. It got cold quick, and his teeth were already chattering by the time he was two thirds of the way down. The lower he got, the more cramped the chute became, and soon the wall was grazing his back.
Then the dust hit him, making him cough despite his mask as centuries-old wool fibres drifted into his eyes and through the folds of the blue fabric. It was breathtakingly unpleasant, and he had a horrifying thought that it might have the same lastinghealth implications as asbestos. Pinching the bridge of his mask, he shook his head and tried to steady his thoughts.
He could do this. Hecoulddo this.
Suddenly, his boots hit the cold ground and he realised he was at the bottom. More dust swirled around his ankles, the floor coated in a powdery substance.
Wasting no time, he dropped to his haunches and ran a gloved hand around the edge of the opening. It was small—way smaller than it looked from up above—and the tunnel was roughly fifteen feet long. He pointed his headtorch into the narrow tunnel, groaning quietly when he saw the soles of Samantha’s feet. She only had one shoe on.
Letting out a shaky breath, he lowered himself onto his belly.
“I’m going in,” he said, pressing the button on the radio strapped to his chest.
“Received,” came Blake’s voice on the other end. Calm. Steady.
Pember swallowed, then bent his knees and pushed himself forward. The light changed immediately, his body blocking out the small amount of natural sunlight that had reached his side of the shaft. Then, it went quiet. So quiet that he couldn’t even hear the footsteps of the officers above.
Putting one hand in front of the other, he crawled on his belly through the dust and grime. The light from his headlamp cast everything in an eerie blue glow, making him shiver.
Keeping his eyes on Samantha’s feet, he eventually drew level with her ankles. They were crossed, making her leg jut out at an awkward angle. Then her abdomen, partially exposed under her police uniform. No signs of trauma, but flecks of blood were splattered across her white cotton shirt. Crawling up to her arms, he let out a soft gasp.
Reaching for his radio, he said, “Her wrists have been cable tied, and there’s—oh.”
As he lay alongside her body, his warm, hers cold, he saw that there was a black binbag next to her head. And blood. Lots of it.
“She’s face down,” he continued. “And there’s a bag. It looks like it came off her head on the way down. She—” He swallowed. “—she has a head wound. A big one next to her left temple.”
Squeezing an arm between him and Samantha, he used two fingers to brush her hair away. “Throat looks like it’s slit.”
“Received,” Blake replied. Still calm. Still steady. Which was good, because if he started comforting him, whatever mental block his brain had thrown up to stop him panicking would quickly dissolve.
