A Whole New Crowd (A Whole New Crowd 1)

Tray helped him sit down, but Gray cried out, “What are you thinking? Stop doing this, Taryn. Whatever you’re doing, just stop it. We can all hide.”

Tray hesitated. I waved him back over. “Text your brother, to tell him where Gray is.”

“What are you two going to do?” Gray was shouting at me. “You can’t jump into the river, Taryn. There’s a goddamn cliff. It’s higher than what Olympic divers do. You can’t do that. No way.”

Tray had pulled his phone out. He was already texting.

“I know.” A knot worked its way up from my stomach, resting at the top of my throat. “I bet it’s how they’re smuggling whatever they keep in here. They use the tunnel so that means there’s an entrance down there. We can try for it.”

The truck was right there. A few more seconds and they would see us.

“We have to go. Gray, get down.”

Tray reached for me. His hand wrapped around my arm and he pulled me close. A tender look was in his eyes and for an earth-shattering moment, time suspended. Was he going to say it too? Then he murmured, releasing me at the same time, “We have to make sure they see us.”

Oh. It felt like an anchor dropped to my feet. I forced myself to nod. “Yeah. Good plan.”

“We can close the door.” Spotting a piece of metal laying on the ground, he picked it up. “We can use this to wedge it closed. They’ll still get it opened, but it’ll slow them down.”

It would give us another head start.

The truck was closer. I started the countdown in my head. Three seconds. I moved back into the tunnel. I glanced at where we had come from, but there was no sound coming from that way.

Two seconds.

Tray was standing in front of me. He gripped the beam tighter.

I looked for Gray, but he was gone.

One second.

Now.

The truck veered around the last bend. Four guards were standing in the back of the truck. Each had a rifle in their hands and as they saw us, they jumped out of the truck before it stopped. They were sprinting for us. Tray heaved the door shut, then wedged the beam at the bottom of the door. They could still open it, but the beam would hold the door shut for a little longer.

Then he turned, his hand touched my back, and we moved as one. We sprang forward.

We soared down the tunnel. Tray was moving at such a fast pace, I couldn’t keep up. My lungs were straining. My legs stretched to the farthest stride they could go, and I pumped my arms, propelling forward. We had to get there. We had to find Jace’s exit.

As we kept going, they were pounding on the door behind us. Gunshots sounded out, then silence for a second, and a deep thud after that.

“Don’t pay attention to them.” Tray grabbed my wrist. He was pulling me behind him now. “The more you pay attention, the more it’ll slow you down. Keep sprinting, Taryn.”

I felt his strength. I felt his calm. His hand gentled, slid to fit into mine, and he squeezed my hand. We ran side by side and then I stopped hearing the men behind us. We were getting closer to the river. The current was slamming against rocks below, but we could hear it echoing through the tunnel. It was becoming deafening and we wouldn’t have heard the guards anymore anyway.

The tunnel was becoming lighter. We were almost to the end and then the tunnel suddenly straightened and we were there.

The edge was right in front of us. Tray twisted, throwing his body to the side. A scream ripped from me. I was going over. I couldn’t stop myself, but Tray yanked me back. I fell into his body and he wrapped his arms around me, shielding my fall with his body. His shoulder slammed hard against the wall and he grunted from the impact, but we had stopped. We hadn’t hurled off the edge.

“Shit.” His voice was right next to my ear. He tightened his arms around me, holding me for a moment. “That was close.”

The drop to the river was high. The tunnel was cut off. There was no platform. It was a complete drop to the river. Even the embankment was dangerous. Boulders and rock riddled the path to the river. If we jumped, we could hit the rocks. Dead. If we jumped and avoided the rocks, we’d be pulled under from the current. Dead again.

Tray was inspecting it with me. “We’re screwed.” He put it perfectly.

CHAPTER THIRTY

“No, there has to be a door somewhere.” I began pushing on the wall. Maybe it was hidden. Maybe there was a rope they used to lower things down? I scanned the floor, but found nothing. “There has to be.”