Chapter 28

CHAPTER 28

P aige's stomach twisted into a knot as she clapped a hand over her mouth to stop the frightened scream from escaping from her.

Dewey continued his frantic shouting. "Help! Help! We're falling!"

Paige wrinkled her nose as she continued her downward trek. "Wait, we're not falling."

"Ugh, Paige…we're moving downward…at a decent clip, we're falling."

Paige shook her head, glancing down at her legs. They weren't falling, they were sliding. "No, we're not…we're…sliding downward."

"Huh?" he shouted.

"Sliding. We're sliding. Like on a big sliding board."

"Who put a sliding board in the temple?"

Paige shrugged seconds before they spilled onto the floor. "I don't know, but I'm glad they did. That would have been a big fall. I wouldn't have survived it."

"How are we going to get out of here?" Dewey asked .

"Seriously? You can fly. You could fly out of here. The better question is how am I going to get out of here."

"Shh," Dewey hissed.

"You shush," Paige answered as she rose and brushed herself off again. "I'm being serious."

"Shh," Dewey said again.

"Dewey, stop shushing me. I can talk whenever I want. I'm–"

Dewey fluttered to her and clapped a hand over her mouth, his eyes wide. "I said shut up." His eyes slid sideways before he returned his gaze to her. "Someone's here."

"What?" she whispered. "Who? My mom?"

"Unless your mom lit a bunch of torches, no."

Paige clicked off the flashlight and let her eyes adjust to the light from the flickering flames as it bounced off the stone walls. "Maybe she did."

"Are you insane or just stupid?"

"Hey!" she breathed. "Neither."

She shifted her gaze toward the glowing torches, her heart thudding against her ribs. The compass had led them here. Was it leading them to her mother or straight into a trap?

"Come on, let's check it out," Paige whispered.

"No way. We need to wait for Drucinda."

"I'm not waiting. My mother could be down here. Someone could be holding her captive. We have to find out."

"Are you sure you can't wait? What if someone else is down here with her? We need Drucinda to kick their butts."

Paige took a few tentative steps toward the torch-lit tunnel. "We'll have to make do. We can't rely on Drucinda all the time."

"We can if we try hard enough," Dewey shot back.

"Dewey!" Paige cried. "During my first week at the library, we fought off werewolves. Don't you have any faith in our skills?"

"No," he answered. "I'm pretty certain we got lucky with those werewolves. In fact, I know we did. We're two bumbling fools, Paige. Let's face it. We're going to get ourselves killed one day."

"No, we are not. We are not…fools. Maybe we're bumbling…but we're…bumbling smart people." Paige inched closer across the stones toward the tunnel, craning her neck to peer into it.

"Bumbling smart people? Is that even a thing?"

"Yes?" she said, her voice forming it as a question rather than a firm answer. "Look, here's the thing. We've been through a lot together. And while we may not have the smooth, confident approach Drucinda has, we figure it out and get through it."

"I'm starting to wonder if we've just gotten lucky. I mean, in thinking back on it…we've had some lucky breaks. And on top of that, we're now dealing with a group who has kidnapped your mother, framed Drucinda for her death, and kept her captive for over thirty years. Paige, this is bad news."

Her footsteps faltered as she reached the tunnel. He had a point. How had these people managed to keep her mother trapped for so long? She was an experienced librarian. And she'd ended up kidnapped and held for over thirty years. Were they that powerful?

"Paige, let's just wait–"

"No!" She squeezed her fingers into fists, determination swelling through her as she fought to steady her nerves.

"It does us no good if we get kidnapped, too!" Dewey argued.

"We won't. Look, we've fought werewolves, we've beaten vampires. And if we have to bumble our way through beating whatever has my mom, then we will. I'm not waiting. Either you're with me or you're not."

The little dragon fluttered off her shoulder. "Sorry, Paige. I think this is a stupid move."

"Fine. I'll do it myself, then." She tightened her fists and pounded her way toward the tunnel. If no one helped her, then so be it. But she'd waited too long already to search for her mother. She wasn't going to wait a second longer.

Her lower lip trembled, but she firmed her jaw in a desperate attempt to stop it.

She slipped into the tunnel, scanning it as she inched forward. She glanced down at the flashlight still clutched in her hand, flipping it around. If she had to, she could use it as a weapon.

She hadn't brought anything else along with her. Maybe Dewey was right. Maybe they were too stupid for this sort of thing.

She swallowed hard and tried to steady her breathing. She would prove them all wrong.

A fluttering noise sounded behind her, and she twisted to eye the tunnel she'd already passed through. Was someone following her?

She spotted nothing and convinced herself that she was hearing things. She ducked as she passed the first torch, pressing herself against the wall as though it would protect her in some way.

The fluttering sounded again. She twisted, getting an eyeful of nothing but the torch. By the time she side-stepped to see more, a blur closed in on her.

Blindly, she swung the flashlight at it in an attempt to protect herself.

"Watch it!" a snarky voice said.

Paige's eyes went wide as she finally identified the source of the fluttering. Dewey hovered in the air in front of her .

"You nearly hit me with that flashlight, Paige," he said, his paws on his hips.

"Sorry, I thought you were a bad guy."

He offered her an unimpressed stare. "Are you serious?"

"Yes," she answered. "You said you weren't coming. So, anyone following me had to be a bad guy."

"Or your mom. Are you going to attack your mom?"

"No," she answered as he settled on her shoulders. "What are you doing here, anyway?"

"Helping you. I firmly disagree with this decision, but I can't let you go alone."

"I was fine," she snapped at him, creeping further down the tunnel.

"Suuuure, you were."

"I was."

Dewey heaved a sigh. "Oh, really? So you have no use for me? Is that it?"

"No," she answered. "I'd rather have backup but…"

"But what? I thought we were a team, Paige. I thought you'd be glad I came down here with you."

"I am," she admitted, her footsteps slowing. "We are a team. I would have come down here either way for my mom, but…I'd rather bumble along with you than without you."

Dewey wrapped his paws around her head. "Aw, Paige, that's really sweet. Gee, I hope we don't die down here because I can't wait to keep kicking butt as a librarian team. Especially now that you're a Durand."

"Yeah, do you think that's going to be a problem? Dominic kind of said that he expected me to be loyal to the family. What do you think that means?"

Dewey shrugged. "Darned if I know. But just think of the resources we'll have at our fingertips. We'll probably win best library team every year even if we are stupid and bumbling. "

"Stop saying that. We're not stupid. We're just…physically challenged in terms of fighting and stuff."

"You can say that again," Dewey answered, his voice echoing off the stone as they approached another hall.

"We'll get better. Maybe I'll take some karate classes or something after all of this."

"Or just train with Drucinda. She's pretty good at fighting of all kinds."

Paige peered around the corner into the next hallway. "Drucinda is pretty good at all things."

"She really is. Maybe she'll win best library team. Her and stupid Thorn."

"I thought you and Thorn had come to terms."

"Not really. I still want to beat him. I want to be Best Library Team again. I mean, who would have thought tiny little Dewey would be one-half of the Best Library Team?"

"Me," Paige answered as she stealthily slid down the next hall. "I would have. I knew you were super smart when I met you."

"Actually, you thought I'd eat you when I met you."

"Well, you played that trick on me, and I thought you were a full-sized dragon."

"Even if I was, that doesn't mean I'd eat you. My parents didn't eat you. My brother didn't eat you. My sister didn't–"

"Okay, okay, I get it," she said as she held a hand up. "I didn't know dragons weren't mean at the time. Now, I do."

"You've come a long way, Paige. I mean, you're still not as awesome as Drucinda but–"

"Yeah, yeah, yeah, but she's still not the Best Library Team either." Paige shot him a cocky grin. They attempted a high five but missed, as usual.

"Still can't get that," Dewey said with a shake of his head. "Maybe one day. "

"Maybe," Paige said as they reached another turn in the passage. "This place is like a maze."

"Yeah," Dewey. "At least so far we haven't run into any trouble."

Paige bobbed her head up and down as she reached a T in the corridors and flicked her gaze back and forth. "Which way?"

"Looks like the torches are lit in both directions. Couldn't they have saved on fuel and just lit the way they went?"

"Guess not. So, right or left?" Paige asked.

"Check the compass."

She raised her eyebrows as she grinned at him and nodded. "Right. Good idea."

She pulled the compass from her pocket and held it in her hand. The needle bobbed around wildly. "So much for that. We're back to square one. Right or left."

"Uhhh." Dewey rubbed his chin. "Probably right."

"Probably? Why?"

"Most people are right-handed, and so they tend to pick right for a direction."

Paige nodded and took a step to the right before she slowed. "What if they were left-handed?"

"Hmmm," Dewey murmured. "They may have gone to the left, but no…probably they still went right. We're almost trained to go right by societal norms."

Paige crinkled her nose, but shrugged and continued along the passage. She stopped a few feet down, twisting to glance behind her.

She shook her head and kept moving forward.

"Something wrong, Paige?" Dewey asked.

"I thought I heard something. Must be a draft or something like that."

"I didn't hear anything. And I have superior hearing compared to humans. "

"Yeah, like I said, probably nothing." She continued a few more steps before she froze again. "There it is again. Is your superior hearing picking up on anything?"

"Nope," he answered with a shake of his head.

"That's so strange. I swear I hear something."

"What does it sound like? Like wind whistling? Or maybe air blowing through a space between the stones?"

"No, sounds like a scraping noise."

"Scraping noise? I don't hear any scraping noises."

Paige stood silently for a second, peering down the hall before she heaved a sigh. "I guess I'm hearing things."

"Keep going," Dewey said. "I'll let you know if I hear anything."

"Okay," she said, twisting back toward the front and making her way down the hall. They reached another corner, and she swung a left to head away from where they'd been. "I hope you're keeping track of the direction we came so we can find our way out of here."

"I haven't been keeping track," Dewey said. "Have you?"

"No. Yes. Sort of," she admitted. "It was right, right, right, left."

"No, no," he said with a shake of his head. "It was right, left, right, left."

"No, we've done all rights except this one."

Dewey slid his eyes closed, wagging his head back and forth. "I distinctly remember two lefts."

"You can't. Because there haven't been two lefts." She slowed her steps, her nose crinkling as she glanced at him. "Wait, maybe you're right."

"Pretty certain I am."

"No, okay, there were two lefts, but it wasn't right, left, right, left. It was right, right, left, left."

"Are you sure?"

"Not really, but I feel like your answer is wrong. And you admitted to not paying attention." The scraping noise sounded again, this time closer. "There's that noise again. You can't tell me you don't hear it."

"I heard it this time. It sounds like it's…" As he flicked his eyes forward, his jaw dropped open. "Ahh, Paige?"

Paige drew her chin back at his reaction before she followed the line of his gaze. Her eyes went wide, and she swallowed hard. "How did you not hear that before?"

She stared ahead at the hulking werewolf standing on its hind leg. Its red eyes peered at her as it scraped long, yellowed claws against the stones beneath its feet. Saliva dripped from its fangs.

There was no way they'd outfight this beast. Her search for her mother had just come to an abrupt and deadly end.