Mercy lifted the shotgun to his waist, the barrel aimed at Larry’s stomach. “What did you do?” he asked, a ferocious darkness coming into his voice, hardening it.
Larry wasn’t Larry in his eyes anymore, Ava knew. No longer the family friend, the trusted neighbor, the confidante. Now he was just someone who’d betrayed them.
Tears welled in Larry’s eyes, bright like crystal in the morning light. “They have Evie,” he whispered. “I had no choice, Felix. Believe me. You’d do the same if it was your wife.”
Then a man stepped into view, sliding from his vantage point at the corner of the cottage, stepping in close behind Larry and towering over him. He was a huge man, with massive chest and shoulders, no neck, shiny shaved head. He curled one massive arm around Larry’s throat, in a loose chokehold, and aimed the .45 he held to Larry’s temple.
His voice thick and toneless, like the rest of him. “We don’t care about the girl. Come with us, Lécuyer, and she can walk away.”
Ava shuddered hard. No one ever meant that, when they said it.
She saw Mercy’s mouth curl up in an ironic half-smile. “Are you the Grim Reaper?” he asked.
The big man frowned in confusion.
Mercy shoved her to the side the same moment he pulled the trigger.
The blast was deafening.
As Ava landed on her hands and knees on the boards, she felt the slivers of splintered doorframe pelt her back and arms. She heard the thump of heavy bodies on the porch floor outside.
As the gunshot was still echoing, a hand curled tight around her forearm and lifted her. Mercy got her on her feet and half-shoved, half-carried her through the cottage, toward the back door.
“We gotta move,” he said. “Still got your gun?”
“Yeah,” she said, breathlessly, as she stole one fast glance behind them as they whirled out the back door.
The buckshot had torn through Larry and the man standing behind them. The porch was a pulpy red mess.
Outside, Mercy scanned for more men, and then wasted no time heaving up the door to the tunnel. He gave her arm a rough yank, urging her to the hidden stairs. “Go.”
Too shocked to do anything but comply, she scrabbled down the stone steps, gasping as she entered the utter blackness of the tunnel below.
She turned, and saw Mercy come down behind her, pull the door shut behind him, sealing off every last scrap of light.
She could see nothing. Her eyes might as well have been closed.
She heard a metallic scraping, fumbling sound above her, at the door.
“Merc–”
“Ava, go!” he snarled. “I gotta lock this door. Go! Get to the church. I’ll catch up. Don’t wait for me.” He grunted as he struggled with the door in the dark. “Get in the boat. Get it started.”
She didn’t move. She wasn’t leaving him. If he even suggested it –
“Now!”
Breath lodged high in her throat, she whirled and went, hands skimming along the damp stone of the walls, steps echoing dully in the low hallway. She couldn’t hear if he was following her yet over the pounding of her heart. She couldn’t remember how long the tunnel was, but it seemed she fumbled forward for hours, the panic winding tighter and tighter.
What if Larry had told these men about the tunnel? What if there was an ambush waiting for her at the other end behind the pulpit?
Something bit into her shin and she fell forward, catching herself with her hands against the ascending staircase. She’d reached the end.
Patting her way upward, her hands slipped through moss and unidentified sliminess, until she found the door overhead. She braced her feet on the steps and heaved upward with all her might. The door lifted about an inch, then slammed back down, sending her to her knees again.
“Damn it,” she hissed, making another attempt.
She strained and strained…
