The darkness still called to him. But instead of deep and harsh, the voice was soft and feminine.
“Tate, please wake up.”
Something in his conscious stirred.
“Christ. That dead guy’s foot knocked him out cold.”
A man’s voice now.
“Don’t surprise me. Dude’s been dead a few days and is hard as a rock.”
“You think he needs a doctor?”
Tate recognized that sweet sound. Despite all she’d put him through, that voice represented safety. Home.
“Lily.” He forced his heavy eyelids open. Glowing yellow surrounded him–blessed light. And staring down at him, her heart-shaped face surrounded by her brown curls, was his sister.
“Thank God.” She wiped her eyes. “You scared the shit out of me.”
“Told you not to come this way.” It was Tony who spoke. He knelt at Tate’s feet, holding a large camping light. “You found something worse than thugs.”
Tate looked around and realized he was no longer in the narrow drain jammed up against a rotting dead body. Tony and Lily had moved him back into the wider area of the tunnels. He could hear the water trickling nearby and wanted to weep.
“Can you sit up?” Lily asked.
With her help, he slowly pushed himself off the hard floor. His head swam.
“You might have a concussion,” she said.
“I doubt it,” Tony said.
“You’re the one who said the foot was hard as a rock,” Lily said.
“Yeah, well, that might be an exaggeration.” Tony held up his index finger. “How many you see?”
“Just one.” Embarrassment had begun to creep forward. Tate wasn’t sure if he’d been knocked out by the dead man or simply passed out from fear. He looked at his twin, and she nodded as if reading his thoughts. She knew about the darkness.
“You came looking for me,” she said. “Here, of all places.”
“Couldn’t let you live like this, Lil.” His head hurt when he spoke. “We’ll get you back into treatment, get you some help.”
“I’m not using, Tate.”
“Lily, I know what happened at your apartment. You had the meth in your drawer.”
“Yeah. It was my friend’s.” She shrugged at the clichéd excuse. “Honest. Guy I’ve been seeing. I caught him with it. And he’d promised. I was so pissed.” Lily looked away, her profile illuminated by the glorious camp light.
Tate searched her skin for the sores she always got with meth. It looked good–her scars from past use were healed. Her eyes weren’t sunken in and haunted, either.
“You’re telling the truth.”
“I took the shit,” Lily said. “Figured I’d use it so he couldn’t. Make him feel as bad as I did.”
“But you didn’t.”
She closed her eyes. “No. Didn’t get the chance. Roommate found it and kicked me out.”
“Would you have used?” Tate asked.
“I don’t know.” Lily looked at him with clear eyes. “But I didn’t, and I haven’t. Just been surviving in here with another couple of friends who are trying to get on their feet just like me.”
A mixture of shame and relief flooded Tate. He reached for his sister. “I shouldn’t have doubted you.”
“You didn’t give up,” Lily said. “You never have, and that’s all I can ask.”
She held out her hand. “Let’s get you out of here. To a doctor.”
“Probably don’t have no concussion.” Tony spoke again. “But sometimes symptoms can develop hours later. You ought to go to the ER if you got insurance.”
“How do you know so much?” Lily demanded.
“Cause I’m a damned paramedic, that’s how.” Tony glared at her. “Spent five years with the North Vegas fire department before drugs got the better of me.”
“I didn’t know that,” Lily said.
“Not something I like to brag about.”
Tate looked at Tony with appreciation and a new understanding. Life wasn’t as black and white as he’d once thought.
“How’d you find me?”
“Tony,” his sister said. “He didn’t like you coming this way. He tracked me down, and we hauled ass this way. You’re lucky a dead body’s all you found.”
Tate glanced over his shoulder at the narrow path of darkness where he knew the corpse still waited. “We can’t leave him there.”
“No,” Lily said.
Tony stood up and offered Tate his hand. “Come on. We’ll get you out of here, and then you can notify the authorities. People won’t like cops in here, but getting the dude out is the right thing to do.”
Tate stood on shaky legs. He draped his arm around Lily’s shoulders. “Guess you rescued me this time.”
She squeezed his waist. “Call it even?”
“Yeah, we’re even.”
With Lily at his side, Tate followed Tony through the storm drains until they reached the entrance near the “Welcome to Las Vegas” sign. Night had fallen, and as he and Lily walked to Tate’s car, he glanced back at the tunnel entrance one last time.
The gates to Tate’s own personal hell.
“Do me a favor.” Tate handed Lily his car keys. “Stay out of the drains. They’re no place for anyone.”
“Some people don’t have any choice. Tunnels are their last chance.” She started the car, and Tate sighed in pleasure at the gust of processed air.
“You have a choice.” He thought of the dead man left to die alone, rotting in the dark. “You’re staying with me.”
“Tate, you don’t have to–”
“Yes, I do. You’re my sister. And I’m selfish.”
Lily’s eyebrows knit together as she turned south onto Las Vegas Boulevard and merged into traffic. “Selfish?”
“Yeah. You stay with me, I don’t have to worry about going back into those stinking drains.”
Tate settled back into the seat. Ahead, the Strip’s neon lights lit up the night sky, and the world-famous sign every tourist wanted his picture taken under beckoned.
“Welcome to Las Vegas.”
The End
An exclusive excerpt from Into The Dark, available in ebook from MuseItUp Publishing and print on November 30th.