Chapter 17 - Under the House
Marcus carried Elena up two flights while Victoria followed.
"You can't run from this family!" she shouted.
"Watch us," Elena gasped.
They reached the east staircase. Marcus kicked open a narrow door beneath the landing and found a stone stairway dropping underground.
Victoria fired.
The bullet struck the banister inches from Marcus's head.
He stumbled into the passage and slammed the door behind them. Elena found an iron hook on the wall and jammed it through the latch.
Another contraction tore through her.
"Put me down."
"No."
"Marcus, put me down before you drop both of us."
He lowered her carefully.
The tunnel smelled of earth and old water. Their phone lights showed brick walls, rusted pipes, and chalk arrows drawn decades earlier.
C.B. TO CHAPEL.
Celeste had marked the escape route.
Elena touched the faded letters.
"She tried to get out too."
Marcus looked back at the blocked door as Victoria slammed against it.
"Then we finish what she started."
They moved slowly. Elena breathed through contractions the way Mara had taught her, though panic kept breaking the rhythm.
At the tunnel's midpoint, they found a collapsed section.
Marcus swore.
"We can climb it," Elena said.
"You are in labor."
"Thank you for the update."
He laughed once despite everything.
They crawled over broken stone together.
On the far side, Elena heard a faint metallic scrape.
Victoria had found another entrance.
"Faster," Marcus said.
The chapel door appeared twenty yards ahead.
Locked.
Marcus threw his shoulder against it.
Nothing.
Victoria emerged behind them, gun raised.
"Move away from the door."
Marcus turned, putting himself between the gun and Elena.
"You won't shoot me."
Victoria's face was wet with sweat, hair loose, velvet dress torn at the shoulder. At last she looked human.
"Don't test the last thing I still love," she said.
Elena stared at her. "You don't love him. You love owning him."
May you like
Victoria pointed the gun at Elena's belly.
"And you," she said, "are the one thing I was never going to let own him instead.
