[SAMANTHA’s Point of View]
“DOMINIC!!!”
I heard him yell and grunt in pain as we fell into a spiral rabbit hole down the cave. The sharp stones protruding from the ground caused stinging and piercing pain, making me wince. My face and hair were filled with dust. And I knew I would be covered with bruises in just a few minutes.
But I was more concerned about where this rabbit hole would lead me and Dominic!
The tunnel seemed endless for over a minute as we fell and slid down the unknown part of the cave. Dominic was fast. He landed strongly on his feet and caught me gently in his arms. We were both wide-eyed when our eyes locked. Both of us were so baffled at what happened as we panted—both filled with cuts and bruises—but grateful that we were safe and alive.
“F*ck...” Dominic panted as he stared into my eyes with a wide grin, laughing softly at me like he couldn’t believe we made it out of that place. “We’re alive!”
I stared at him with a smile, panting, and then planted a soft kiss on his lips as I cupped his face. “Yes. We did it, love. We’re alive!”
“F*ck!” Dominic kept on cussing as he put me gently down on my feet and studied the place we were in. I followed his stare and was surprised when we both saw a small community with houses made of wood and animal skins. They looked more like tents than houses.
He then looked at me as he pulled me closer to him. “I have a terrible feeling about this,” he hissed in his rough voice, glaring and studying the place.
We were in an enormous chamber inside the cave—about a thousand feet high and four thousand feet wide. I had never seen such a thing before! The ceiling was so high and dark I thought it was the sky at first, and then I realized we hadn’t found the exit yet. We were still inside, but in a more vast and dark cavern.
“Where are we?” I asked as I brushed off the dirt from my arms and hair.
I was baffled and flinched when I saw people starting to come out of the strange tents. Their skin looked like the men who attacked us in the cave, but their eyes weren’t crimson, bloodshot, and bulging. They had regular dark brown eyes as they stared at us with curiosity and fear.
Men as huge as the ones we fought in the cave stepped forward, all their eyes on Dominic. One of them, a bald one with a long, white beard, spoke in his deep, rough voice as he paced in front of us with threatening, deadly eyes. “Trespassers!”
Dominic sensed the danger first. “RUN!” He yelled at me and grabbed my hand as we sprinted toward the forest.
I had never seen Dominic so agitated in my entire life that I had known him. If he looked like this, it meant there was no way we would get out of this place alive if those men caught us!
“Dominic! We have to get out of here!” I screamed at him as we headed deeper into the forest. He knew. He knew there was no way we could hide from them. There was no way we could escape those beasts. They live in that cave. They knew every inch of this place. We’re so screwed!
[There is still a way,] he whispered in my head as he pulled me to him after we halted and hid behind the giant trunk of an oak tree.
[What do you mean? There is no way out of this place!] I was panicking as I stared into his eyes, looking so terrified. [We’re trapped! You are right! I wasn’t thinking straight when I went into this—]
[Hey, Hey...] He cupped my face so I would focus on him. [There is another way, love. Just calm down and listen to me.]
Dominic explained everything to me about his plan, and I was skeptical about it at first, knowing we didn’t know anything about the place. But what other choice do we have? Besides, his plan might work. We could get out of this place if I had faith in my husband’s plans.
We both heard their heavy footsteps coming towards us.
“Now!”
Dominic was fast. He ran first to lure the enemies away from me so I could find a way out of the d*mned cave. I wasn’t sure how long Dominic could hold the enemies back, but I had to be quick to find any tunnels or doorways that would lead us out so we could go back to Silver Crescent.
My hands were shaking. My head was dizzy and I wasn’t sure where I should look first. All in my head was my husband doing his best to distract the enemies away from me, risking his life so I could find us a way to get out of here. But where? Where was the door? A passageway? Why did the Moon Goddess lead me here if there was nothing here but danger? Was I just hallucinating when I saw those glowing butterflies? Was I deceived by the dark spirits so they could kill me here?
But then I remembered something weird about these people. Something I believe I had seen before...
Those marks on their body. That symbol. I thought at first I was just hallucinating, but when I finally realized I wasn’t, that’s when I believed something wasn’t right was happening in the territory of Silver Crescent.
The mark. I had seen it before. Not just on the people here, but on some people I saw who were serving Dominic in the pack house as soldiers and members of his council.
I stopped running as my brows deepened into a furrow. My eyes went blurry as I touched my forehead, trying to remember clearly those memories that suddenly popped into my mind. It was as if something or someone was trying to put these images in my head, but I wasn’t sure where they came from. Then I recognized the faces of those people in my memory, and most of them were men and women in my husband’s council. The mark—they were tattooed in places that I didn’t notice I had seen on them before. Or maybe I did, but I wasn’t paying too much attention to them, thinking they were just random symbols that didn’t mean anything.
But I was wrong. Everything in this place meant something, and those marks were the marks of the people living in this hidden place. Those people whom my husband trusted with his pack, they all came here!
The enemies didn’t just infiltrate Silver Crescent! They were destroying it from the inside out!
I looked around to find my husband, but he wasn’t anywhere near me. Perhaps he was somewhere on the opposite side of the cave? Should I tell him what I had found out? Should I tell him that, after all this time, he was being pulled by a string like a puppet by the people who served as his councilmen? The individuals who had been striving to gain control over the Silver Crescent?
There was a sickening feeling in my stomach that was telling me that perhaps those were the same people who killed Lena, Dominic’s mother.
How could I tell my husband without him losing his sanity?