Free The Travelers: Book One by Sennah Tate Page B

you followed him this far, but are you really about to go down into some creepy basement with a man you don’t know? Who even has a basement in Florida? She asked herself. Another voice chimed in, but he did save me, that has to count for something right?
    Yeah, sure. But something isn’t the same as walking into the murder-basement.
    Don’t be ridiculous, he’s not going to murder me. He went through too much trouble to save me to turn around and murder me…
    Don’t say I didn’t warn you…
    Gemma rolled her eyes at the warring voices in her head. She was just over-analyzing things. Carson had yet to set off any alarm bells with her and Gemma typically had pretty good luck listening to her instincts with people.
    Murder-basement, here I come.
    As Carson’s head disappeared below ground level, Gemma took a deep breath to steady her nerves before following him. Basements weren’t common with the water table being so high. She wasn’t used to the dank mustiness that assaulted her senses and made her want to turn heel and run. The open plank stairs creaked underfoot as she descended and she didn’t even want to think about all of the creepy crawly things that would scatter if she turned a light on.
    She reached the bottom of the dark stairs and collided with Carson.
    “Careful,” he warned, steadying her before turning back to the door in front of them.
    He found the breaker box next to the door and opened it, his fingers fumbling in the darkness. The metal hinge opened with a squeak and a faint light illuminated the numberpad.
    Gemma couldn’t follow him as his fingers deftly typed in a code, but she knew he must have entered the right numbers because the door answered by snapping its lock open.
    Her anxiety only intensified now; murder-basement was bad enough in and of itself; murder-basement with a keypad lock meant she would be trapped.
    Still, she forced herself to take a deep breath to soothe her ragged nerves.
    The heavy metal door swung open and Gemma audibly gasped. She had imagined plenty of things in the few seconds before the door opened, but none of them quite like this.
    The space was large, open and brightly lit. A good portion of the room was dedicated to a full bar, stocked to the tee. Another section was a lounge area, complete with comfy-looking couches and too-big TVs. To the far right there was a conference table and a hub of computers hooked up to what appeared to be a surveillance system.
    Gemma never would have imagined from the ramshackle facade that this building contained this sleek, modern, high-tech space. It definitely wasn’t a murder basement, but she wasn’t sure what it was, exactly.
    Once her eyes stopped roving constantly around the room, she noticed that there were other people scattered about.
    One man —with sandy blond hair and an effortless smile — turned his attention toward the two of them.
    “Warning! Female in the clubhouse! I repeat, this is not a drill. There is a human female on the premises,” he waggled his eyebrows in their direction. Gemma stifled a giggle, but Carson was having none of it; he side-stepped to block anyone’s view of Gemma. She was his and he wasn’t going to let anyone else look at her if he could help it.
    “Back off, Trick,” he grumbled, his voice nearly a growl.
    His tone took the other man off-guard for a moment, but Trick recovered quickly and his smile was back in place. He shrugged and turned his attention back to the TV.
    “Oh, how about that play, Dez? He’s gotta be crazy to not kick a field goal here,” Trick enthused, elbowing the brawny man next to him.
    The man — Desmond — munched absently on a bowl of cheesy puffs, his fingers orange from his snack binge. He grunted in response.
    “Nah, they have a minute-thirty left and a time out. Field goal would only tie it. You gotta go for the win,” he replied, his mouth full of masticated junk food.
    “You’re disgusting,” another man — this one tall and slender