Chapter 28

NEIL

"Hero?"

Neil struggled to stand as Penelope disappeared around the corner. He took a shaky step forward and teetered, his hand reaching out for the wall to steady him.

"Penelope," he started, blinking dots from his vision as a headache throbbed behind his eyes. "Penelope, please! What the hell does that even mean? Where are you going?"

She was moving faster than he was, too fast for him to stop her. Penelope's steps were sure, her hands fisted at her sides as she strode down the corridor and past the kitchen, toward the side door.

"Penelope, wait!"

"I have to do this!" she called, not turning back. "Georgina pushed you out of the room, not me. She wanted to tell me about the mausoleum. Me, not you. For the first time in my life, I was chosen over you, and if that's how this story ends, then so be it."

"Mausoleum?" Neil winced, trying to recall the room, the word on Penelope's lips before Georgina had forced him out. "What do you mean? We can do this together. Whatever it is, we can do it together."

"Neil." She sighed. "You're hurt. You need to lie down and wait for me, okay? I have this handled. I can do this, and then I'll be back, and everything will be okay."

"Please, don't do anything rash. Don't do this alone. She can hurt you! You don't have to do anything alone, not anymore."

But Penelope didn't stop. She hurried down the hall, past the kitchen where the others waited, and into the mudroom. She said nothing as she tugged on her boots and buttoned up her coat. Neil paused in the hall outside the kitchen, the hushed whispers from Laszlo and Daniela dying down when they saw him.

They stared blankly up at him, their expressions a mix of fear, confusion, and concern. He swiveled away, taking a step toward the mudroom right as the side door was flung open. The slap of cold air made Neil wrap his arms around himself, and he heard the soft crunch of the snow under her feet, until those disappeared altogether.

"Penelope! Penelope, come back!" But she didn't. "Is no one going after her?" he demanded, pressing a hand to his head. He was seeing stars. Hell, he probably shouldn't have stood at all, but was he supposed to let her roam alone in the snow to where a ghost had told her to go? A ghost who could apparently hurt people?

"Just give her some time," Laszlo said softly. "You, on the other hand, need to sit down. I'm trying to get ahold of Fanny so we can take you to the hospital."

Neither Laszlo nor Daniela seemed alarmed or worried, despite Penelope wandering off into the snow without any real explanation, leaving the door wide open behind her.

Hero.

Goddamn it, why was she running around, spouting nonsense about being a hero when she already was one? What the hell was she going to do, fight a ghost? What did she think going out there alone in the snow would do to turn her into a hero?

"She'll be fine," Daniela echoed with a sigh. "I'm sure Pen knows what she's doing."

Neil had had enough of this bullshit. Grunting, he stalked toward the side door, stumbling against the wall as he tugged on his boots.

"What are you doing?" Laszlo demanded. "You might have a concussion!"

"I'm going to stop Penelope from making some foolish, heroic mistake because no one should be alone right now." Venom leaked into his tone, but Neil couldn't help it. What was wrong with these people? They were supposed to be her friends .

"You shouldn't be standing," Laszlo chided.

"Let them go off and do their thing," Daniela said, leaning against the wall. "If they want to run out into the snow and fuck, who are we to stop them?"

"Do you even hear yourselves?" Neil yelled, turning on them. "She's out there trying to save your goddamn lives, and you're in here telling me to go lie down?" Neil shook his head, wincing at the stabbing pain behind his eyes.

"Saving our lives?" Daniela sputtered. "What are you talking about?"

Neil scowled. Right. Ghosts. Not like they'd believe him, anyways. Shivering, Neil pulled on his scarf and jacket before buttoning it up with trembling fingers.

"Please don't die!" Laszlo called.

Neil clenched his teeth and closed the door behind him. He turned in place, hands balled in his pockets as he searched the snow for her. He squinted, but she was nowhere to be seen. Finally, he glanced down.

Her tracks were still fresh.

He trudged after them, teeth chattering from the cold. The low temperatures did not seem to help the head injury, but he was the only one willing to go after her, and damn it, Penelope, why did she have to go be a hero?

"Penelope!" he called, cupping his hands around his mouth.

His calls were met with silence.

Trembling from the frigid temperatures, he wrapped his arms around his middle and trudged on, his feet dragging as the ache of his fall set in. Nothing was broken, and no serious damage was done, but he felt on the verge of collapse as he struggled through the snow. The trees were frozen solid, and icicles hung off the castle like translucent daggers.

Neil paused, spotting something in the distance. A building, perhaps, though difficult to see from here. He picked up the pace, slogging through the knee-deep snow. His hands had gone numb with the cold; his face was no better off from the exposure. He dug his hands into his coat, trying to bring back some feeling into his fingers.

He came to a stop before a rectangular stone building. From the outer design, it was a church. A simple one, likely built on the castle's property for the tenants to attend. The heavy wooden door had been closed, and he pried it open, grunting with the effort, his unfeeling fingers fumbling.

It swung open, and with a sigh, he stepped inside, blowing warm air into his hands. He glanced around as he rubbed his hands together, eyes skimming stone and candles and wooden pews. It was practically empty, and given the disarray, it'd been unused for several decades. It was built of the same stone as the other buildings on the castle grounds, and Neil could see its age in the grime and the single large tomb in the center of the stone floor that read "Ewan Walsh, Third Duke of Walsh Castle."

Walsh. Walsh. And then he remembered.

"Georgina," he said softly. He crossed to it and knelt, running his fingers over the letters. Her father. It had to be. If Archibald Skinner had been buried as the fourth duke, then that was the only way.

"Penelope?" He stood and brushed his hands against his pants. While it was warmer inside the church, it was still freezing. Clenching his teeth to keep from chattering, he walked down the center of the aisle, his boots making a soft clack against the floor as he searched for any sign of Penelope.

The pews were empty, and the wood was broken through and splintered on most of them. The candles hadn't been lit in some time, the wax spilling over the candelabras. Cobwebs covered much of the furniture and corners of the room, and the stillness was deafening.

"Somehow, this is creepier than the west wing." He stopped at the front of the room. A tattered old chair was discarded to the left, a dust-covered rug across the floor under his feet. If Penelope wasn't here, where on earth could she have gone?

As he made to leave, the floor squeaked beneath him. Chewing on his lip, he stepped off the rug. There was a set of fingerprints along the edge, as if someone had been there not too long ago. He ran a finger over them before carefully peeling the rug back.

Neil wasn't certain what he'd expected to lie hidden underneath, but a trapdoor was not one of them. It wasn't large, but it was big enough to fit a person. A terrifying thought.

"Don't do this," he said, hands on his hips. It was a terrible idea. Who climbs down into random trapdoors? Who does that?

"Apparently, I do," he said before flinging back the lid.

It was dark, pitch-black with no end in sight. Pulling his phone from his pocket, he turned on the flashlight and shone the light down. Ignoring the urge to run back to the safety of the castle, he sat on the edge of the hole, then dropped in.

He swayed, catching himself on the walls.

"The walls." He shone the light around him. Stone walls built of the same materials as the castle and the church surrounded him. He had to bend down slightly; the tunnel was built for someone shorter.

A quaint Penelope size. The thought made Neil smile.

Phone raised up to light his way and a hand pressed to the wall to keep his balance, Neil strode on, head ducked.

"A goddamn hero," he muttered, eyes flicking around the darkness.

Why did people feel the need to run off and be heroes? It never did anyone any good.

He heard nothing but his own breath, the brush-brush of his jacket as he leaned against the wall for support. His head pounded, still, and his eyes struggled to focus on the dim light ahead.

And then he heard it: the soft swish-swish of someone walking near him, almost close enough to touch. Neil's imagination went wild. What was it? A cloak brushing the walls, or long skirts trailing in the dirt? Whatever it was, there was someone not far behind him.

Neil froze, phone gripped tight in his hand. He could turn around and shine the light on the thing following him in the darkness. Or he could pretend. He could hurry on as fast as his weary limbs and pounding head would let him and simply ignore the sound. It was a test of his patience, his will.

But Neil was stubborn, and though the curiosity wanted to win, he clamped it down and started humming, the wavering tone enough to cover the sound of the thing following him. Because Penelope was somewhere down here, and he'd be damned if he abandoned her.

The stone walls were slick with grime under his fingers, and he tried not to think about what he was touching, about what crawled beneath his fingernails. He attempted desperately to focus on how, somewhere beyond the excruciatingly narrow tunnel, Penelope was being a goddamn hero.

Neil's voice grew hoarse, the hummed tunes repeating until it was too much. He rocked back and forth on his legs, shuffling through the dirt until his feet were aching and the heat of the confined tunnel trailed sweaty fingers down his back. He unbuttoned his coat and wiped at his forehead, his mop of curls absorbing the sweat.

His arm ached from holding his phone up to illuminate, and his hand shook from the effort. Neil didn't know how long he had been down there—fifteen minutes, an hour, perhaps. It was warm and dark and creepy, and in the end, all that mattered was finding Penelope.

He clicked on his phone screen warily, the red battery blinking back at him. Fifteen percent, his phone was down to 15 percent battery.

Neil tilted his head back, that swish-swish of the thing in the dark still close. When he stopped, it stopped. When he moved, it moved. Shivering, he picked up the pace, biting the inside of his cheek to suppress the ache traveling down his body.

"Penelope?" he called out.

He'd hoped to avoid drawing the attention of anything creepy, but with it trailing him, well, there was no point in staying quiet.

"Penelope!"

His voice rang off the stone, disappearing in the distance, dampened by the dirt. Neil's heart was hammering, the worry sinking further. Where the hell had she gone? Out of the castle, down into the tunnel, and nothing . No sign of her to be found.

Neil wanted to turn back, but there was a something following him, and he didn't want to know what it was. If he'd learned anything on the retreat, it was better to leave some things a mystery.

He swiped up on his phone. Eight percent.

"Oh god," he whispered, panic rising in his voice.

He needed out, back to daylight. But there was Penelope to think about, all alone down here. He could turn around; run the way he'd come—

But 8 percent. He only had 8 percent battery left.

He stared down at the screen. Make it 6 percent.

"Penelope!"

The swish-swish of the thing behind him was closer. Maybe it was a rat. Maybe it was nothing but the air being sucked out through the narrow entrance he'd left open through the church.

Or maybe it was the woman in white—Georgina Walsh.

He shuddered and checked his phone again. Two percent.

"Penelope," he called out, his voice more of a whimper.

God, she was always going to be the hero. Neil was such a coward compared to Penelope. She didn't need to prove herself, he did. Neil was the one who fucked up. Neil was the one who took up the space someone with Penelope's skill deserved. He was the one who had been too afraid to face his past mistakes. In the last four months, he'd been crushed by doubt, and now that Penelope had made him face it and dig out a little corner of his heart for herself, she had to run off into danger.

His phone slipped from his grasp, landing with the light shining up, setting a large, cavernous room aglow.

"Fuck," he cursed, pressing a hand to the back of his head as he tripped toward it, missing a step leading from the tunnel into the large space, and landing in the dirt with a thud . He groaned, scraping against the dirt to sit up. Blinking, he glanced around, taking in the open slots in the walls, and the…

"Oh, fuck no."

A tomb. He was in a fucking tomb.

He scrambled to stand, nearly slipping again. A tomb. A tomb. He shouldn't have come out here, should have returned to the castle to start a search party for her with the others, but nooooo . No, he had to run off like Indiana Jones and get himself in this mess.

He crossed to his phone, tilting the cracked screen toward him in the dark.

One percent.

His battery had one percent left, and he was in a tomb. Underground.

Probably surrounded by the dead.

Because that's what tombs were, everlasting homes for the dead. He'd never wished to enter one, never wished to stay in a haunted castle, and still, he found himself belowground in a massive hollowed tomb surrounded by skeletons.

What had he done to deserve such an end?

Neil searched frantically for an exit. His phone would shut off at any moment, and he needed to get out . Out before the thing that followed him made its appearance. Out before he found something worse down there among the dirt and decay.

And then he saw it: a set of stairs leading off to the left.

He ran for them, dirt flying behind him as he raced against the dying battery. Right as he reached the stone steps, the flashlight on his phone flicked out, and he was plunged into darkness.

"Shit," he cursed as he clambered for the steps just as a hand clamped down on his shoulder.