Chapter 12 - Light Through the Seams
Darkness had teeth. Jax dragged himself forward through the suffocating dampness of the drift tunnel, his elbows shredded by sharp flint. The lighter flame flickered dangerously low, starving for oxygen. The air was thin, tasting of iron, mold, and ancient stagnation.
Every few feet, Jax had to stop, resting his forehead against the damp stone floor to keep from blacking out from the throbbing pain in his leg. His fractured tibia grated against muscle with every movement.
""Come on, you old bastard,"" Jax muttered to himself, his voice a ragged croak. ""One more yard.""
Up ahead, the tunnel branched. To the left, the passage sloped downward into stagnant water that smelled of rot. To the right, a faint draft brushed against his sweat-soaked brow. A draft meant an outlet.
He turned right, squeezing his broad shoulders through a narrow gap where timber braces had buckled under centuries of pressure. The wood groaned above him, shedding showers of fine sand onto his neck. If the mountain settled even an inch, he would be crushed like an insect.
Suddenly, his lighter sputtered and died.
Total, pitch-black silence swallowed him. Jax stopped, his chest heaving. In the absolute dark, his mind began to play tricks. He thought he heard Elena's voice whispering from the shadows of the rock. He thought he felt her hand on his shoulder, urging him to get up, telling him that Toby was waiting.
""Elena..."" he whispered, a tear finally cutting a clean line through the soot on his cheek. ""I’m sorry. I was coward enough to run, but I'm too stubborn to die.""
He reached out blindly into the void. His fingers touched something that wasn't cold stone. It was dry wood. An old ladder, bolted to the vertical rock face of an emergency escape flue.
Jax grabbed the bottom rung and hauled his weight upward. Agony lanced through his leg, blinding white light exploding behind his eyes, but he refused to let go. He climbed with one leg and two bleeding hands, rung by rung, pulling himself up through the throat of the mountain.
Above him, a tiny pinprick of twilight broke the darkness.
He pushed against a rotting wooden grate at the top of the flue. It gave way with a splintering crash. Jax spilled out onto the gravel of the mountainside, rolling onto his back, gasping in great lungfuls of cold, clean evening air.
He lay there beneath the emerging stars, exhausted, broken, and free.
Then, a small shadow fell across his face.
May you like
Jax blinked away the grime, his vision focusing. Standing over him, his canvas jacket covered in dust, his hands scraped raw, was Toby. The boy was breathing hard, clutching the yellow letter in one hand and an old iron crowbar in the other.
""Told Aunt Sarah you weren't dead,"" Toby said softly, his voice cracking with pure relief.
