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“Yep, amazing that they thought of it.” I can’t hide the smirk that comes with Fynn’s words as he pulls into the visitor parking lot. True to his word, we’re the only car around. “Follow me,” he announces, leading usthrough the main entrance, into a large courtyard. We continue moving through the courtyard, into the furthest side of the building.
Fynn leads us through the continually darker rooms until reaching a heavy metal door with a chain and lock still in place. “This is where they’d be.”
“That chain and lock haven’t been touched for years. The rust is older than me,” Topher announces. “Is there another way in?”
“Not by land.” Fynn wraps his hands around the rusty lock, breaking it easily.
“I can’t see shit,” Luna says, following me into the room. Vampire vision allows me to see everything. I reach back, latching my fingers around her arm, and pull her with me.
The smell of mold and mildew floods my senses the moment we enter. “It feels like we’re moving underground,” Thorne whispers.
“We are,” Fynn confirms. “This section was originally built to house prisoners. Later it was used as barracks for officers because of the temperature difference, and toward the end of the Civil War, it was used as an escape route for emergencies.” He turns on a flashlight I didn’t realize he was carrying, shining it in front of us.
The faint sound of waves crashing against the shore echoes off the concrete walls. “This goes to the Gulf?” I ask.
“That it does. We’re almost to the cave,” Fynnanswers, shining his light off the walls, which have turned from concrete to brick.
“How is there a cave on the coast of Alabama?” Luna asks. “This land is flatter than my chest.”
“It was man-made,” he answers with a laugh.
The painted brick walls show obvious signs of wear the further we walk. The whitewash that covered them a century ago is worn and chipped away. The brick floor slowly gives way to sand, a telltale sign we’re approaching water.
“You think Patrice is bringing the kids into the fort through this entrance?” Amelia asks as we move single file through the room.
“It’s possible.” Fynn shines his flashlight ahead, giving light to what looks like stone. Man-made material turns into natural limestone and gritty sand the further we move. “Other than the entrance we came through, the only way in is to swim.” Light bounces off a pool of stagnant water in the middle of the dome cave.
“This looks natural and not natural at the same time.” I run my fingers along the walls. “It feels like stone, but it’s too perfect.”
“The stone was quarried near the mountains in North Alabama and brought here to create what is now a cave.” Fynn shines his light above us. “We’re beneath the beach. This area is thirty feet below the surface.”
“How has this stayed hidden for so long?” Micah speaks for thefirst time in a while.
“The people who need to know about it do.” Fynn leads us to the edge of the smooth-surfaced water. “The water down here is nearly toxic to humans. It’s been inside the cave long enough to grow stagnant and dangerous to most, still containing chemicals from the war.”
“There’s no evidence that anyone’s been in this area since the war,” Amelia says as she runs her hands along the walls. “Other than our footprints, the sand is undisturbed. There are no lingering smells, and zero evidence of anyone being here for hundreds of years.”
“Aye,” Thorne agrees. “If immortal children had been in here, this place would be destroyed.”
“Are there any other places here like this? Places that the average person wouldn’t know about?” Topher asks, rubbing sand through his fingers.
“There is another fort twenty miles from here that was used around the same time. As far as I know, there aren’t any hidden areas,” Fynn answers.
“Why does it have to be a fort?” Amelia asks. “Why not a home in a secluded area? Or an abandoned building? To be honest, a fort seems a little too obvious.”
“There aren’t a lot of abandoned homes in this area, too many visitors.”
“The news station said the two missing children were in the ‘The Meeting-Place area.’ What is that?” Luna joins the conversation.
Fynn laughs. “It’s a restaurant-slash-tourist trap, smack dab in the middle of Gulf Shores.”
“Can you take us there?” Amelia asks.
“Sure.” He shrugs. “The police have been all over that place with a fine-tooth comb. I don’t know what you’ll find that they didn’t.”
“Maybe we’ll pick up on clues that humans wouldn’t,” I answer. Our mismatched group of lycan and vampires follows Fynn back through the cave and into the sunlight and courtyard of the fort.
“Are there ghosts here?” Luna asks, changing the subject.
