Into the Mine

Jake Morrison's POV

Jake looked at the collapsed mine entrance, huge rocks blocking the way in.

"There has to be another way," he said desperately.

Tommy grabbed his arm. "The air vents. My dad used to work in this mine when he was young. He told me about old air shafts that workers used as shortcuts."

"Show me," Jake ordered.

They ran around the mountain to a hidden spot covered in brush. Tommy pulled away the branches, showing a narrow metal shaft going straight down into darkness.

"It's a thirty-foot drop," Tommy warned. "And the ladder might be rusted."

"I don't care." Jake grabbed the ladder and started climbing down before anyone could stop him.

The metal rungs were slick and some were missing altogether. Jake's hands slipped twice, nearly sending him falling into the black pit below.

Finally, his feet touched solid ground.

Jake turned on his phone's flashlight and found himself in a tight tunnel. The air was stale and cold, and somewhere in the distance, he could hear water dripping.

"Emma!" he shouted. "Can you hear me?"

Only echoes answered.

Danny and Tommy climbed down behind him, their own phone lights making dancing shadows on the rocky walls.

"Which way?" Danny asked.

Jake checked Emma's GPS signal on her phone. The dot was still blinking, deeper in the mine system. "This way. Stay close and watch for tripwires."

They moved through the tunnel, stepping carefully over old train tracks and around rotting wooden supports. The mine felt like it could fall at any second.

Then Jake's light found something that made him stop.

A door. Metal and new, totally out of place in the old mine.

"Webb built this," Tommy whispered.

Jake tried the handle. Locked. But the door frame was weak, built into old rock. Jake and Tommy kicked it together until the frame cracked and the door swung open.

Inside was a room that looked like a fancy office, totally underground. Computer monitors lined one wall, showing security camera feeds from all over Millbrook. File boxes stood in the corners. A desk held stacks of money and passports with different names but Webb's picture.

"This is his headquarters," Danny said, looking around in wonder. "He's been running his whole criminal business from under the mountain."

Jake went to the computer and started looking through files. What he found made his blood boil.

Plans going back five years. Webb had been planning this escape for a long time, slowly moving his money and creating fake identities. He'd even planned which officials to frame when everything fell apart.

"Look at this," Tommy said, holding up a folder. "These are backup plans for every possible situation. If the state police came, if the FBI investigated, if someone found the corruption. Webb had a plan for everything."

"Including killing innocent people," Danny added quietly, finding photographs of Sarah Martinez, along with notes about how to frame Tommy for her death.

Jake's hands shook as he read through Webb's cold, measured plans. This wasn't just greed. This was evil.

A noise echoed from deeper in the mine. A scream.

Emma.

Jake ran toward the sound, leaving the office behind. The tunnel branched into three directions, and Jake had to check his phone to see which way the GPS signal led.

Left tunnel. Jake ran faster.

The tunnel opened into a larger chamber with tools and supplies stored everywhere. This must be where Webb kept everything he planned to take with him when he fled.

More screams echoed through the cave. Emma sounded scared.

Jake pushed forward, but something made him pause. The floor ahead looked different somehow. Cleaner. Like someone had swept away the dust lately.

"Guys, wait," Jake whispered.

But it was too late. His foot came down on a thin wire stretched across the cave floor.

Click.

The sound was tiny but Jake's heart stopped when he heard it.

"Don't move," Danny said quickly. "That's a tripwire."

Jake froze with his foot still on the line. If he lifted his weight, whatever was related to it would trigger.

Tommy shined his light on the walls and roof. "There. See those boxes?"

Jake looked up and saw small packages connected to the tunnel supports. Explosives. Dozens of them, all connected with wires going back to the tripwire under Jake's foot.

"If you move, this whole section will collapse," Tommy said.

"Then I won't move," Jake answered. "You two keep going. Find Emma."

"We're not leaving you," Danny argued.

"You have to!" Jake argued. "Emma needs help now. I'll figure something out."

Another scream, closer this time. Then Emma's voice, crying. "Please, don't hurt me!"

Tommy and Danny looked at each other, then at Jake.

"Go," Jake said firmly. "I'll be right behind you."

Tommy nodded reluctantly. "We'll come back for you."

They carefully stepped around Jake and continued down the tube toward Emma's cries.

Jake stood frozen, his foot pushed on the tripwire, trying to think. How did people disarm bombs in movies? Cut the red wire? But there were dozens of lines, all different colors.

He looked at his phone. Forty-two minutes until the big explosion.

And now Jake had his own bomb to think about.

He tried to see where the tripwire joined. If he could follow it to the detonator, maybe he could unplug it safely.

Jake carefully shifted his weight, trying to see how sensitive the wire was.

A tiny click answered him.

Not good.

Then Jake heard something that made him forget about the bomb completely.

Gunshots. Two of them, echoing from where Tommy and Danny had gone.

"No!" Jake screamed.

More shots rang out. Then silence.

Jake stood frozen on the tripwire, unable to help his friends, unable to save his sister.

Then a new sound reached his ears. Beeping.

Slow at first, then faster.

Jake looked at the bomb packages on the walls and saw small red lights that hadn't been there before.

The tripwire hadn't just triggered this tunnel's bomb. It had started a countdown on all of them.

The beeping got faster and faster.

Jake had maybe ten seconds before the bombs blew.

Not enough time to run. Not enough time to do anything except know he was about to die alone in the dark.

Five seconds.

Four seconds.

Jake closed his eyes and thought about his father, who'd died a hero tonight.

Three seconds.

Maybe Jake could die a hero too.

Two seconds.

Jake lifted his foot off the tripwire and dove forward, running toward where his sister was yelling.

One second.

The world behind Jake burst in fire and noise and falling rocks.

The blast threw him forward through the darkness, and Jake's head hit stone.

Everything went black.

When Jake's eyes opened—seconds or minutes later, he couldn't tell—he was buried under rubble with his phone's cracked screen barely giving any light.

He tried to move but his legs were pinned under rocks.

Then he heard a voice nearby in the darkness. Not Emma's voice. Not Tommy's or Danny's.

Someone else.

"Well, well," Judge Brennan said from somewhere close. "Look who came to the party. I was hoping you'd survive that blast, Jake. After all, I need you aware for what comes next."

A flashlight beam hit Jake's face, stunning him.

"You see," Brennan continued, his voice cold and pleased, "I've been thinking about your father. How he picked saving strangers over family loyalty. How brave. How stupid."

Jake blinked against the light, trying to see Brennan's face.

"Now you get to make the same choice," Brennan said. "Except mine has a twist."

The judge moved the flashlight, and Jake saw what made his heart stop totally.

Emma was tied to a chair twenty feet away, tape over her mouth, tears running down her face.

But she wasn't alone.

Tommy and Danny lay on the ground beside her, both bleeding from gunshot wounds.

And standing behind Emma with a gun to her head was someone Jake recognized but couldn't believe was there.

His nephew, Sheriff Dale Morrison.

"Hello, Jake," Dale said with a strange smile. "Surprise. I'm not actually under arrest. I'm working with Judge Brennan now. Webb's group needed new leadership after he died, and we're it."

Jake tried to understand what he was seeing. Dale wasn't a prisoner. He'd been helping Brennan this whole time.

"Here's your choice, cousin," Dale continued. "We're walking out of here with Emma as our hostage. She'll promise our safe passage out of town. And you're going to help us escape, or I'll shoot her right in front of you."

"But first," Brennan added, bringing up a small device, "we need Webb's fingerprint to shut down the main explosion timer. We found his body in the next room. He died from his crash injuries about twenty minutes ago. But here's the problem—the fingerprint reader needs a living finger. Dead tissue won't work."

Jake's mind couldn't make sense of what Brennan was saying.

"Luckily," Brennan smiled, "we have an answer. We found something in Webb's files. A medical bypass code that can substitute for the fingerprint. But it needs specific knowledge that only one person in this mine possesses."

The judge's smile got wider and more terrible.

"Your sister Emma knows the code. Webb told her before he died, thinking she might help him in exchange for her freedom. But Emma's unwilling to tell us. Very brave, very stupid."

Brennan pulled out a knife.

"So here's what's happening, Jake. You're going to convince Emma to give us that code. And if she doesn't tell us in the next thirty seconds, I'm going to start cutting off her fingers one by one until she talks."

Emma's eyes went wide with fear above the tape.

Jake felt his world falling worse than any mine explosion.

"Thirty seconds, Jake," Brennan said, pushing the knife toward Emma's hand. "Clock's ticking."