Chapter 14 - THE EXTRACTION

They reached a maintenance alcove as smoke filled the tunnel.

Caleb collapsed.

“It’s coming.”

Mara dropped beside him.

The black vein had reached his jaw.

His right ear twitched.

“Hold still.”

He laughed weakly.

Mara heated the tweezers over the flare’s dying flame.

Caleb grabbed her wrist.

“If I change—”

“You won’t.”

“If I do.”

She looked at him.

He forced the words.

“Don’t let it walk out wearing me.”

Mara’s throat tightened.

“I won’t.”

She inserted the tweezers.

Caleb screamed.

The creature resisted.

Mara pulled.

Nothing.

Behind them, fire roared through the mine.

The walls whispered.

Hurry.

Hurry.

Hurry.

Caleb’s voice suddenly changed.

“Mara, stop.”

Lena.

Mara kept pulling.

“Please.”

Her father’s voice.

Then her mother.

Then Caleb’s own voice.

“You’re killing me.”

Mara almost released the tweezers.

Caleb’s left hand slammed against the floor three times.

Mara pulled harder.

Something tore free.

A long black organism emerged, branching at one end like roots.

Caleb convulsed.

Mara dropped it onto the stone and crushed it with the heated iron.

The tunnel exploded with sound.

Caleb went limp.

“No.”

Mara pressed fingers to his neck.

Pulse.

Weak, but there.

She dragged him upright.

“Wake up.”

He opened his eyes.

Clear.

Human.

“Mara?”

She almost collapsed with relief.

Then a cracking sound rolled through the mine.

The ceiling was failing.

They ran uphill.

Behind them, flames chased through old timbers.

Ahead, daylight appeared.

From a broken mine entrance on the far side of the ridge.

They stumbled into snow.

The storm had returned.

Wind slammed into them.

Mara laughed.

Real wind.

Real sound.

Caleb fell to his knees.

Then they saw the footprints.

Fresh.

Bare human feet leading away from the mine.

One set.

Female.

Mara followed them with her eyes.

May you like

My Son Sat There While His Wife Slapped My 4-Year-Old Granddaughter Hold...

MY SON WATCHED HIS WIFE HIT MY FOUR-YEAR-OLD GRANDDAUGHTER—BUT WHAT LILY WHISPERED NEXT MADE MY BLOOD RUN COLD.My four-year-old gr...

**My Wife Secretly Unplugged the Nursery Camera, Then Approached My 6-Mo...

My Wife Secretly Unplugged the Nursery Camera—Then I Saw Her Standing Over My 6-Month-Old Son With a Red-Hot Iron. But What She Sa...

I Came Home Early and Found My 5-Year-Old Daughter Eating Scraps Beside...

I thought I was coming home to an ordinary dinner.Instead, I found my five-year-old daughter sitting on the kitchen floor beside t...

Toward town.

Lena had escaped before the fire.