“On a very, very long road.”
“Yep. Feel free to decide it’s not worth it and . . .” I point at the ladder.
Elijah shifts his weight. “I heard you and Logan up there. Talking about your asshole ex and the bitches at your school—”
“Whoa!” My hands fly up. “Excuse me? That was a private conversation.”
He points at one ear. “Werewolf, remember?”
“Exactly. As werewolves, who realize we hear conversations we shouldn’t, we take steps to avoid it, getting farther away or warning that a conversation can be heard.”
“I . . .” He shoves his hands into his back pockets and rocks on his heels. “I realized what I was hearing, and I kept listening. I wanted to understand—”
“Why I’m making such a big deal about you being an asshole?”
“No, of course not, but what your ex did is going to affect—”
“What he did is something that guys do to girls all the time. We move on. Right now, I’m not at the moving-on stage, but that only means that I was fine with having a fake-boyfriend to keep other guys from pestering me. It has nothing to do with the fact that I’m not ready to forgive you for being an asshole, Elijah. Take the boyfriend part out of this equation. You were just a person who treated me like shit.”
I face him. “So, do me a favor—treat me like I’m my brother. I’m not a girl you made out with. I’m not a girl whose tender feelings you bruised. I’m not a girl who might be hoping you’ll take her back. I’m a fellow werewolf who doesn’t like you very much because he doesn’t trust you. Proceed like that, please. If I were Logan, and you decided to team up with me to explore a secret passage, you’d accept that he’s not pleased with you and put it aside. Can we do that?”
“I still need to talk to you before we go back upstairs.”
I sigh. “And you’re not even listening to me, are you?”
His eyes flash. “I have something important—”
“Fine. We’ll talk. Right now, though . . .” I waggle the light and wave it around the room. “Secrets to explore. Okay?”
His lips press in a firm line. He says nothing, and I take that as agreement, however grudging. I shine the penlight more thoroughly around the room. Or maybe I should say around the “cave”—the walls are dirt with wooden support beams. It looks like a cold-storage pantry, with crude shelves covered in dusty cans and jars.
When I reach for a jar, Elijah lunges, catching my hand. I turn, the jar lifted along with my eyebrows.
“Saving me from the killer pickles?” I ask.
“Are you sure they’re . . .” He trails off as I wipe dirt from the jar and hold it up, showing green spears inside.
“Pickles,” he says.
“I don’t even want to know what you thought it was.”
“Fingers, okay? It looked like a jar of preserved fingers.”
“Chubby, four-inch pickles.” I squint. “Maybe three inches. Huh. Are you sure you didn’t mistake them for—”
“No, I did not.” He plucks the jar from my hand and puts it back on the shelf. Then he takes the light and shines it over the rows.
“Pickled cucumbers,” I say. “Pickled onions. Pickled beets. No pickled body parts. Also cans, cans and more cans. I wouldn’t trust the food safety of the homemade stuff, but if we’re stuck here, the cans should be fine. However, what interests me a lot more is . . .” I repossess the penlight and shine it on a wooden door.
It’s a very rustic door—boards nailed together with a small piece attached for a knob. As Elijah reaches for that, I should warn him against yanking open strange doors in a spellcaster’s house, but he’s determined to play fearless explorer, so I let him at it.
He grabs the makeshift knob, yanks with all his werewolf might . . . and the door smacks him in the face as it swings open, unobstructed.
I walk through the door, penlight high, while he grumbles behind me. The door leads into a passage, similar to the cold cellar—carved-out dirt with wooden supports.
“Looks like a mine shaft,” Elijah says as he comes up behind me.
“Well, I don’t think this is for mining.”
“Because we aren’t within a mile of the mountains.”
“True,” I say, “but also . . .” I run my fingers through the dirt and lift them to my nose. Then I pass them to him.
“Sulfur?” he says. “Isn’t that a sign—?”
He stops, teeth clicking as he cuts himself off.
“Of demons?” I prompt as I resume walking.
A short chuckle. “Yeah, I almost said that. Thankfully, I stopped myself before I looked like an idiot.”
“I’m sure the average supernatural equates sulfur with demons. We watch the same movies as humans. But it’s more often used to protect against demons. I haven’t noticed the smell of it anywhere else, suggesting it’s not naturally occurring here.”
“Our witch smeared it on.” He pauses. “Witch or sorcerer, I should say. Gotta watch that, or I’ll insult Holly. More Hollywood bullshit. Witches evil, sorcerers cool.”
I shrug. “I’m not sure whoever lives here is evil. She’s protecting herself from the demon and the hell hounds. Nothing wrong with that if you’re using recycled bones.”
“Grave-robbing.”
“Better than do-it-yourself. Evil or not, it’s more likely to be a witch than a sorcerer.”
“Defensive magic rather than offensive.”
I grin over my shoulder at him. “Good.”
He gives me a look. “I don’t need the head-pat, Kate. Just because I’m not an expert on supernatural lore doesn’t mean I’m stupid. I’ll compare grade averages with you any day.”
“Ninety-two.”
“Or . . . maybe not.”
I tug a lock of my hair. “This fooled you, didn’t it?”
“I’d never mistake you for a dumb blonde. Also, at the risk of bragging, I’m only lagging a couple of percentage points behind you, and that’s just because I had a shitty year.” He pauses. “Though, considering what your brother said, so did you. So let’s skip the IQ contest and agree that we’ll also skip the pats on my head when I get an answer right.”
“It wasn’t meant to be patronizing, but I will apologize.” I stop, shining the light ahead, and he moves up behind me, close enough for me to feel his breath on the back of my head.
“You heard something?” he asks.
“No, I just realized how far we’ve walked while we were chatting. This isn’t a basement hall. It’s a full-on secret passage.”
“It’s a back door,” he says. “An escape route.”
“Yep. Our way out of the cabin while avoiding the demon and hell hounds. Time to go back and tell Logan.”
I turn and bash into Elijah as he does an excellent impersonation of a blockade. He’s only an inch or so taller than my five-eleven, and his build is more runner than quarterback, lean muscle and low bulk. But he fills the narrow passage, and when I motion him aside, he doesn’t move.
“Should we really go back before we actually find the exit?” he says. “Drag everyone down here to discover it’s just a tunnel? Your brother will blame me, and that Mason asshole will be, well, an asshole. If you want to go back for them, I’m not going to stop you.” He turns sideways, making his point. “But I’m continuing on, and I’d kinda like you here to watch my back.”