Free Unstoppable by Laura Griffin Page A

summoned every ounce of strength to turn onto her side and push herself up on an elbow. “Here,” she wheezed.
    He was beside her in a heartbeat. His hands were all over her—her arms, her legs, her face.
    “Are you okay? Did you break anything?”
    “I hit my . . . solar plexus . . . knocked the wind out.” She was getting her breath back but she still couldn’t see, and she clung to Gage’s arms. A flashlight blinked on.
    “Is anything broken?” He shined the light in her face and she squinted. “You fell about ten feet.”
    “I’m fine.” She experimented, moving her legs, her arms. “My coccyx hurts a little, but—”
    “Your what?”
    “My tailbone. I’m fine otherwise.”
    The light blinked off, and his quiet laughter surrounded her. At some point he’d put his arms around her, and she leaned into him now, absorbing his heat as she tried to catch her breath.
    “Guess you’re all right if you still know your anatomy.” He eased her away. “Can you stand up, you think?”
    He helped her to her feet. She felt unsteady so she held onto his arm.
    She glanced around. The air felt cool and damp, but she still couldn’t see anything. “What is this hole?”
    “Not a hole. A tunnel.”
    She blinked into the darkness and turned around. There seemed to be more light behind her, a very faint glow.
    “A tunnel,” she repeated. “You mean like a mine shaft? I saw an opening. It’s probably a mercury mine.”
    “It’s not. Maybe it was at one time but that’s not what it is now. It’s a border tunnel.” The light flashed on again, and he directed it over the walls around them.
    “Oh, my gosh,” she murmured.
    The passageway was wide and tall. They both could have stretched their arms out and not touched the sides. And unlike the mine shaft near the dig site, these walls were made of cinder blocks.
    “They have these between San Diego and Tijuana,” Gage said. “But I’ve never heard of any in the middle of nowhere like this. And I’ve never heard of any this big.”
    He switched off the light and began guiding her toward the dimly lit end, which must be the way out. She’d thought it was dark outside, but this was an entirely different level of blackness.
    “This is huge,” she said. “Big enough to drive a truck through.”
    “From the smell of it someone has.”
    She sniffed the air and realized how else this place was different from the mine shaft. Instead of guano, she smelled gasoline fumes.
    Gage halted.
    “What?”
    “Someone’s coming.”
    She heard it then, the faint rumble of a truck. It was coming from the direction of the glow. From outside.
    “Where do we go?” she yelped.
    “Don’t panic.” And then he was towing her into the blackness, deeper into the tunnel.
    She resisted. “But we don’t know what’s in there.”
    He pulled her against the wall and moved faster. “I’m feeling for a door. A turn. Anything where we can duck out of sight.”
    The rumble grew louder until it was nearly a roar. They were running now, and her foot caught on something as she struggled to keep up.
    “Come on. ”
    “I’m coming.” Her heart galloped. Her legs burned. She moved as fast as she could but the noise was closing in. He hooked an arm around her waist and practically lifted her off her feet as they surged forward. The noise was like a freight train bearing down on them.
    “Gage!”
    Lights illuminated the far side of the tunnel as the truck rounded a bend. In an instant, they’d be lit up by headlights and mowed down. Suddenly her arm jerked sideways and she was smashed against a wall, Gage’s body pressed against her.
    “Don’t move,” he yelled into her ear.
    He’d found some kind of nook, and she was flattened against the back of it as the engine noise reverberated all around, making even the walls shake. Kelsey held her breath as the tunnel brightened and the noise became deafening.
    And then it receded. Just like that, it was fading away, along with the