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Over the next ten minutes, we searched the area around the house. Every second I kept waiting for my device to buzz or shock me, or even worse, the other housemates to come out to kill us for the search. Any were actual possible outcomes, but my need to know overrode any fear I had.
Drake had moved along the side of the house, working his way toward the front porch, pushing aside plants and shrubs as he went. "Why not search over here? Back there’s too dark. How can you see anything? Come on."
He was right. The fluorescent bulbs were concentrated up front. Toward the rear there were fewer, but rather than slowing my search, I moved faster, ripping aside miniature trees, and pushing over potted shrubs. We were close to something. Something big. My instincts told me a revelation of some sort lay ahead. What it could be, I had no idea, but my heart slammed in my chest as I pushed through the plastic leaves..
The fake plants were even thicker back here, crammed together in such a way that it was almost beyond belief. Difficult to move through, and impossible to see beyond. Why this many? Why? Then I stumbled forward as the wall of plastic, linen, and polyester leaves vanished, leaving me in a large four foot by four foot void. I tripped and fell to my knees. I didn’t even register the pain in my kneecaps from the fall. All I could do was gaze, wide eyed, at the round hatch style door in the ground. Steel, painted dark green to match the plants, with a steering wheel looking device on top. I’d seen this before in movies where people were on submarines. It was a hidden door leading to something underground.
"Drake!"
Chapter 13
DAHLIA
Drake’s footsteps were like thunder as he rushed toward me. The hatch door was the most mesmerizing thing I’d seen in a long time. Like a gateway to another world. It was well hidden, something that wasn’t supposed to be found. My device wasn’t buzzing or shocking me, there was nothing from Sam as punishment. Was he still preoccupied? Maybe he sat watching the others do some god awful shit to each other or someone else inside?
"What is it?" Drake asked. "Why did you—?" His words caught in his throat as he saw what I’d discovered.
"We need to check inside," I said, the words tumbling out before I even realized they’d been spoken.
"Hang on," Drake hissed, kneeling down beside me. "What if it’s a trap? Hell, what if Sam’s down there right now? He could have guns or anything else. Right?"
Reaching forward, I grabbed his shirt, tugging at him desperately. "Drake, he’s not watching right now. For a few minutes at least we are free to look. We need to look. We have to. What if the controls for the electric fence are there? Or there’s some special tool that can take off the cuffs? Jesus Christ, if nothing else, there might be a telephone to call for help."
Drake looked me in the eyes, his gaze dark and forbidding. "Dahlia? Do you really want the police here? Do you want them to see everything? I’ve"—he paused mid-sentence before adding—"we’ve done some awful things here. Terrible things. Both of us. Sure I was a captive, but, if there’s video of what we’ve done, there’s never anything showing a guy with a gun to our head or anything, right? We could go to jail. Forever. All it takes is a few jurors to see what we did and decide we’re monsters."
That was something I hadn’t thought about. The odds were low that we’d be in trouble, but they weren’t zero. But that didn’t mean we couldn’t try to find another way out.
"Okay, fine, but we still need to look." I pointed at the hatch. "I’m going in there with or without you, but I’d prefer it was with you."
Drake sighed and ran a hand across his face, his palm hissing loudly against the stubble on his cheeks. "Okay, fine. Let’s hurry, if we’re doing it. God only knows what Sam’s doing right now."
Excitement coursed through me as Drake reached forward and began to turn the handle of the hatch. He went slow, almost achingly so. It was easy to see why. He was terrified of making noise. He was right, there very well could be someone down there. The last thing we wanted was to announce our presence before we were inside and able to defend ourselves.
Round and round the metal latch spun until it finally stopped moving. Drake lifted the hatch and the door swung open. It was silent, the hinges well greased, and in seconds I stared down the hole. A ladder led down eight feet to a concrete floor. It was all I could see at the moment.
Drake joined me and gazed down the ladder. "I don’t like this," he whispered.
"I don’t see any cameras or anything. I think it’s empty."
"There’s always cameras," Drake hissed. "Hell, there were probably cameras out in the damned forest that we couldn’t see."
The worry on his face was concerning. It was time for me to be the steadying force instead of him. Before I could talk myself out of it, I tucked my machete under my arm and swung my leg over the edge and climbed down.
"Let’s go," I mouthed to him.
Drake winced in irritation, but didn’t reach out to stop me. Instead, he grudgingly followed my lead, descending behind me. At the bottom, I glanced around, taking in my surroundings. A confused frown formed, unbidden, on my face. It was a house. Or at least it had been set up to look like a house. The floor was all concrete but everything else was like a home. The ladder came down right in the middle of what appeared to be the living room. It was bland and lifeless, no personal touches or decor other than the most basic furniture.
Drake finished descending the ladder and took in the bunker. "What the fuck? Is this real life?" His voice was quiet, below a whisper, almost imperceptible.
"I guess so. Let’s look around," I said, mimicking his low whisper.
Drake pulled a folding knife from the pocket of his sweat pants and flipped the blade open. Taking the lead, he walked through the small living room and down a darkened hallway. Keeping my machete up and ready, I followed him. The place was strange, it had the feeling that it had been lived in, but the cold and lifelessness radiated palpably. It reminded me of a movie set or a model home. Together, the two of us swept the rooms. A tiny kitchen that did look like it had been used. The fridge was empty, but the freezer was packed with frozen meals. There were no dirty dishes—the rest of the kitchen was almost preternaturally clean. Whoever was using this was a total neat freak.
One single bathroom was equally clean. The only thing showing it had been used was that the toilet paper roll was half gone.
"What’s left?" I asked.
Drake pointed down the hall at two closed doors. "Those. We haven’t seen a bedroom yet."
