Free Jonas (Darkness #7) by K.F. Breene Page B

much at all.
    “I go where Nathanial goes,” she explained in a hush. “He visits this place once every couple years to check in with… whoever. People spying at the Council, mostly. I often acquire a captive, and spend the rest of my time wandering down here. Solitude is better than sneers or belittling. Hence my knowledge of the tunnels.”
    “I take it you found one of the maps.”
    “Yup. It was in the library. I took that, and a map of the surroundings. I have an American passport, so the idea was to eventually get free and disappear.”
    “How’d you get—“ Jonas cut off as Emmy stopped in a drafty, dark void. She reached back blindly, groping for him. He took her cold hand and immediately threaded his fingers into hers. Electricity surged up through his arm and coursed through his body. An erection sprang to life, begging him to pull her onto his body. Instead, he took a deep breath and finished his sentence. “—a passport.”
    “I’m not afraid of your contact. I figured I’d be scared of all males for… a great long time. It’s nice to know I’m not as screwed up as I thought I was.”
    “That makes one of us.”
    Emmy huffed and started walking at a right diagonal. “Can you see better than me?”
    “Rough outlines.”
    “Okay. Well, there is a tiny hole up here that leads into a different tunnel. I think someone must’ve gotten lost up here once upon a time and blasted their way through. It wasn’t on the map.”
    “Secret tunnel?” Jonas saw a rough wall reaching to either side of them. The very faint light from a bulb distantly behind them lighted on the pockmarked and jagged stone that should’ve met at a corner. The hole was somewhat oblong and made a divot in the ceiling. “Never mind.”
    “My dad was American and a doctor. He made up a birth certificate and got me a passport. It’s outdated, but… I’m a citizen.”
    “What happened to him? Your dad?” They inched along five feet of pitch black. Jonas was as blind as Emmy was until they stepped around a corner and another distant light softly glowed down the corridor.
    “Disappeared. He was here most of the time I was—he lived in the area, I think. He wasn’t a prisoner, or anything. I think he loved my mother. But soon after he gave me the passport he… stopped coming here. My mom was transferred out. I haven’t seen her since, either. Nathanial cut me off.”
    “What’s the story with that guy? Why the obsession with you?”
    Jonas could feel her hand trembling in his, but she kept silent. If she knew, she wasn’t willing to share. He could respect that, but he couldn’t stop a kernel of rage burning at what this monster had done to her life.
    “Okay, just here.” They walked into a little alcove, followed a circular corridor away to the left, and found a shadowed door. If she hadn’t led Jonas directly to it, he wouldn’t have seen it. Not with the way it seemed to crouch in the shadows within the wall. A squeal of metal saw the heavy door swinging into a dark space. Standing at the doorway, there was no way to see how big the room was, its shape, or how deep it went. Given the nature of the corridor, though, chances were the room was round.
    Emmy took two steps in, stopped, and sidestepped to the right. “Close the door behind you, then do as I just did. We’ll be blind, so you’ll need to walk around my traps.”
    “What kind of traps?” Jonas asked as he pulled the door shut behind them. The click of the latch sounded unnaturally loud. Like he’d just shut them into a tomb.
    “Just furniture positioned in the way. Enough to slow someone down so I could go at them with my whips.”
    “But… you’d be trapped in here. What would be the point? Magic could take you out.”
    “There’s a tiny door in the back. If we get a chance to run, we won’t be going the way we came. Nathanial will follow me with whatever tracking thing he has. That’ll take him in a straight line. He can’t get here in a