The dark suited him.

Eli kept a half-step behind Max as they moved deeper into the emergency exit hallway, his boots soundless against the grime-slick floor.
The others made noise—scuffing, breathing, the low static of nerves—but Eli moved like a shadow, stitched into the ribs of the building itself.

Overhead, the exposed pipes rattled faintly.
The fluorescents buzzed and flickered, barely hanging on.

The farther they went, the worse the air got.
Thicker. Colder.
Like the mall itself was rotting from the inside out.

He could feel the tension radiating off Max—sharp, crackling—but she didn’t look back.
She didn’t have to.

Benji stuck close to her side, reliable as gravity.
Heather and the Sunnyvale kids drifted behind, quieter now, adrenaline bleeding out into something heavier.

Eli didn't trust them.
Not fully.

Power in numbers—sure.
But when it went bad (and it would), he wasn’t betting on Sunnyvale loyalty.
He was betting on Max’s stubbornness.
Benji’s fists.
And his own blade, if it came to that.

They reached the grate.

Eli felt the shift before he saw it—the way the air changed, the floor buckling slightly under the weight of something waiting.

Max stopped.

The others pulled up short behind her, jostling quietly for space.
Eli slid to Max’s right shoulder, angled just enough to keep her and Benji in his line of defense.

His flashlight swept low, catching the grate—thick iron, sick with rust, the edges slick with something darker than water.

He watched as Max crouched low, her hands moving over the metal like she was memorizing it by touch.
No hesitation.
No fear she was willing to show.

When she pressed her palm flat against it, Eli caught the way her fingers trembled—just once, just enough.
A fracture too small for anyone else to see.

But he saw it.

> "This is it," Max said, voice rough and sure.

The others inched closer.
Eli stayed exactly where he was—guarding her back without needing to be asked.

Max leaned closer, breath ghosting over the grate.

> "You wanted proof?" she muttered.

Benji answered—low and grim—but Eli barely registered it.

His focus tunneled inward.
He could feel it—the hum of something old and vengeful clawing up from under the concrete, scenting blood, scenting weakness.

When Max let her head drop forward, breathing hard, Eli tensed automatically.

> "We’re not supposed to open this," she whispered.

Alice Mae’s voice cut in, quieter but edged sharp:

> "Some things are buried for a reason."

Eli agreed.
Not that it mattered.

Max laughed—a sound like a blade being dragged across stone—and said:

> "Which means we have to."

Eli shifted his weight, free hand ghosting over the knife tucked inside his jacket.

Max dug her fingers under the edge of the grate and pulled.

And somewhere far below them, the dark moved—
slick and greedy—
like it had been waiting just for them.

Eli didn’t flinch.
He didn’t run.

He just braced himself, already choosing the side he would bleed for when the world cracked open again.

At first, Heather thought it was just the old mall breathing.

The hum of dead air through broken vents.
The creak of pipes settling overhead.
The scuff of their footsteps.

But the deeper they went, the less sense it made.

Whispers crawled along the walls—thin, scratchy, wrong.
Not words she could grab onto.
Just the sense of being called.
Pulled.

Heather kept her mouth shut, jaw tight enough to ache.
One wrong noise from her, and the others would look at her.
Would see how close she was to breaking.

So she kept moving—one foot in front of the other—flashlight aimed low, sweeping over cracked concrete and discarded trash.

Max moved ahead of them, sharp and certain.
Benji stayed glued to her side, steady as bedrock.
Eli flanked Max’s other side, quiet and coiled like he expected a fight.

Heather hovered behind Benji without meaning to, the faint buzz of his body heat grounding her better than her own breathing.

The Sunnyvale kids hung back—Caleb brushing Alice Mae’s jacket, Alice Mae flicking sharp, worried glances up the hall.

Heather didn’t trust them.
Not with this.
Not with what she was hearing.

The voices got louder the farther they went.
Not screaming—no, worse.
Soft.
Familiar.

Her mother’s voice, once.
Then a teacher from Sunnyvale Prep.
Then something else—something guttural and wet, whispering right against her ear.

Heather clenched her jaw harder.

She wasn’t going to be the weak link.
She wasn’t going to be the freak.

Max stopped.

Heather skidded to a halt behind Benji, flashlight catching on the grate embedded in the floor—thick iron, slick with rust, swallowing the light like a wound that never healed.

The whispers cut off all at once—
like a blade shearing through silk.

Heather flinched so hard she almost dropped the flashlight.

She caught it just in time, fingers locking tight around the handle.

Max crouched low, tracing the grate’s edges with gloved hands like she was waking something up.

The others crowded closer.
Heather hung back, heart jackhammering so hard she thought it might crack her ribs.

Max pressed her palm flat against the metal.

> "This is it," Max said, low and sure.

Benji shifted slightly, body tensing—but not running.

Heather latched onto that, breathing through her teeth, willing herself to mirror him.
Stay.
Stay.

Max leaned closer, breath ghosting against the rust.

> "You wanted proof?" she muttered.

Benji answered rough, but Heather barely heard it.
The silence where the whispers had been was louder now, somehow.
More dangerous.

Max let her head fall forward, breathing like she was already bleeding from a wound none of them could see yet.

> "We’re not supposed to open this," she whispered.

Alice Mae’s voice chimed in—small, scared:

> "Some things are buried for a reason."

Heather swallowed hard.

Benji shifted again, closer this time, a solid presence in the fraying dark.

Then Max laughed—sharp and broken—and said:

> "Which means we have to."

Heather didn’t think.
Didn’t hesitate.

She reached out and grabbed Benji’s hand—fingers threading through his, squeezing hard enough to hurt.

He didn’t pull away.

And for the first time since the hallway swallowed them whole, Heather didn’t feel like she was about to splinter apart.

Not yet.

If he'd had it his way, none of them would’ve been here.

They would've kept their heads down.
Graduated.
Left Shadyside behind like smoke in a rearview mirror.

But Alice Mae had dug her heels in.
And Heather, too.

And Caleb—well.
Once the people you loved picked a fight, you didn’t just stand there.

So here he was.
Trudging through a half-dead mall hallway that stank of rot and regret, sweeping his flashlight over cracked concrete and rusted pipes, pretending he didn’t feel like the walls were closing in.

The air got worse the deeper they went—heavier, colder, laced with something sour that stuck to the back of his throat.

Ahead, Max moved sharp and fast, a girl on a mission.
Benji was a step behind her, locked in tight.
Heather and Alice Mae hovered nearby—too brave for their own damn good.

Eli ghosted Max's side like a stitched-on shadow, all silent calculation.

Caleb didn’t trust him.
Didn’t trust any of the Shadysiders.

But he'd protect them anyway.
Because that’s what you did when things got ugly.

You didn’t pick and choose who you saved.

Max stopped dead.

Caleb caught himself before he barreled into Alice Mae, dropping his free hand to the small of her back without thinking, steadying her.

His flashlight jerked upward—and there it was.

The grate.

Iron-thick, rust-sick, bolted into the floor like someone had tried to pin the devil under their boots.

The hair on the back of Caleb’s neck stood up.

He knew—same way you knew when a storm was about to crack the sky open—that whatever was waiting down there wasn’t sleeping anymore.

Max dropped to a crouch, fingers ghosting the grate’s edges.

The others slowed, clustered close.

Caleb shifted forward instinctively, angling himself between Alice Mae and whatever was coming.

Max pressed her palm flat against the metal.

> "This is it," she said, voice low and carved out of stone.



Caleb’s grip tightened around his flashlight.

He watched her lean in closer, her breath fogging over the rust.

> "You wanted proof?" she muttered.



Benji muttered something back—grim, resigned—but Caleb barely heard it over the static humming in his blood.

Max bowed her head, breathing hard.

> "We’re not supposed to open this," she whispered.



Alice Mae’s voice cut through the cold, soft and scared:

> "Some things are buried for a reason."



Max laughed—a sound that didn’t belong in human mouths anymore—and said:

> "Which means we have to."



Before she even started to move, Caleb was there—kneeling beside her without waiting for permission.

Without waiting at all.

He dropped his flashlight, wedged his gloved hands under the edge of the grate beside hers.

Max blinked at him once—quick, surprised—but she didn’t argue.

Because in a place like this, trust wasn’t something you earned anymore.

It was something you decided.

Caleb set his jaw, muscles locking tight.

"On three," he said, voice steady, even though the ground seemed to hum with every terrible thing waiting below.

Max nodded.

They pulled.

And somewhere deep beneath Shadyside Mall, the world started to wake up.

The grate groaned under their hands, the sound ripping through the silence like a wound tearing open.

Max felt Caleb’s weight braced beside her, felt Eli hovering just a breath away, felt the way the others locked into a tight, silent orbit around her without even meaning to.

She hadn’t asked for this.
Hadn’t asked them to follow her down into the dark.
But they were here anyway.
Choosing it.
Choosing her.

Max clenched her jaw against the burn rising in her chest.

The metal shifted—gave just enough for cold air to spill up from below, curling around her wrists, dragging the smell of old earth and something fouler with it.
Something that didn’t belong to the living.

She dug her fingers in deeper, muscles trembling from the effort.

“Don’t stop,” she rasped under her breath, more to herself than to anyone else.

The ground vibrated faintly under her knees.

Not an earthquake.
Not a trick of adrenaline.

Something else.

Something waiting.

Max sucked in a breath through her teeth and heaved.
Caleb matched her strain, silent and stubborn.

The grate shifted again, heavier now, like the mall itself was trying to hold it down.
Like it knew what they were about to do.

She glanced once, quick and sharp, at the people around her—Benji’s jaw locked tight, Heather’s white-knuckled grip on his hand, Eli’s flashlight pinned steady on her like he was willing the world not to touch her.

And Caleb—gritting his teeth, braced alongside her without hesitation.

Max smiled—small, cracked, fierce.

“You picked the wrong group to bury,” she muttered, voice shaking with effort and something hotter beneath it.

The final bolt tore free with a screech.

And the grate fell back into the darkness, swallowed whole by the thing waking up underneath them.

The screech of the bolts tearing free set Alice Mae’s teeth on edge.

The grate clanged backward into the dark with a hollow, hungry sound, the kind that didn’t bounce—it just got swallowed.

Max and Caleb leaned over the hole they’d made, shoulders tense, breathing hard.
Everyone else edged closer, the circle tightening without anyone saying a word.
The air spilling up from below was colder now, sharper, carrying the copper stink of old blood and wet stone.

Alice Mae inched forward, angling her flashlight toward the opening.

The beam barely touched the bottom—just enough to catch the edge of a ladder bolted into the wall, rusted and crumbling like everything else in this damn town.

The smell got worse the longer she stood there.

She cleared her throat, voice rough from the dust and nerves scraping her raw.

“You ever think,” she said flatly, “that maybe stuff like this stays buried because it’s smarter than we are?”

No one answered.
Max didn’t even flinch.
Of course she didn’t.

Alice Mae huffed out a breath, a sharp sound too small to be a laugh.

“Awesome,” she muttered, dragging the flashlight back toward her chest. “Just making sure we’re all on the same page before we start crawling into hell.”

Caleb straightened slightly, shooting her a look she didn’t bother returning.
She wasn’t trying to pick a fight.

She was trying to survive it.

Alice Mae shifted her stance, scanning the others out of habit.

Benji was locked in tight to Max’s left, jaw clenched so hard it had to hurt. Heather hovered just behind him, pale but standing steady, fingers still laced with his.
Eli flanked Max like he was wired into her heartbeat—ready to move, ready to fight, ready to bleed if he had to.

And her.

The Sunnyvale girl who should’ve run the second the ground started breathing.

Instead, she was still here.

Still choosing this.

Alice Mae flicked her flashlight once more over the open mouth of the tunnel.

The dark swallowed the light like it didn’t even notice.

She stepped forward before she could talk herself out of it, boots scraping against the battered floor.
Stopped at the edge.
Stared down.

“Whatever’s down there,” she said quietly, glancing at Max without blinking, “it’s not just old air and ghost stories.”

Her fingers twitched on the flashlight handle.

“It’s hungry.”

The words slipped out before she could shove them back down.

Max met her eyes across the circle of flickering lights, something sharp and knowing flashing between them.

Alice Mae squared her shoulders, forcing the rising dread back down her throat.

Fine.

If they were already in this deep, she wasn’t going to be the first to blink.

Not now.
Not ever.

She jerked her chin toward the hole.

“So what’s the move, Captain?” she said, the faintest thread of a smirk ghosting across her mouth.
“Or are we flipping a coin for who goes first?”

The second Alice Mae said it, Benji felt the weight of it land on Max’s shoulders like a brick.

Captain.
Leader.
The one who dragged them here without dragging her feet.

He hated how alone she looked, crouched over the edge of that open pit like it was daring her to jump.

Max didn’t flinch, didn’t crack, but Benji knew her too well to miss the way her fingers tightened slightly around the flashlight.
She was thinking it through already.
Calculating how bad it could go.
Calculating how many of them she could drag back out if it did.

Benji didn’t wait.

He stepped forward, shifting the beam of his flashlight squarely onto the rusted ladder bolted into the tunnel wall.

The metal was rotted through in places, the rungs warped and slick with who-knew-what.
It didn’t matter.

Benji adjusted his grip on the flashlight, letting it slide into the crook of his arm.

“I’ll go,” he said, voice steady, leaving no room for argument.

Max’s head snapped up, mouth parting like she was about to tell him no.

Benji beat her there with a look—a tilt of his head, the kind of look that said Don’t waste time. You know how this goes.

Heather squeezed his hand tighter—still holding on from before, knuckles whitening—and he could feel the tremor she wasn’t letting reach her face.

Benji turned his hand in hers, squeezing back once, solid.

Then he let go.

He didn’t look at her when he did.
Couldn’t.

Not when she already looked like the world was trying to pull her apart at the seams.

He crouched low beside Max instead, flashlight jammed awkwardly under his arm as he tested the first rung with his weight.

It groaned but held.

Good enough.

He looked sideways at Max once, catching her in his periphery—the way her jaw was set, the way her body was leaning forward like she wanted to grab him and anchor him back.

Benji smiled, rough and brief.

“Someone’s gotta,” he muttered under his breath, just loud enough for her to hear.

Max didn’t answer.
Didn’t stop him either.

Benji gritted his teeth, gripped the edge of the ladder tight, and swung himself over the lip of the tunnel.

The cold swallowed him whole.

The second Benji disappeared over the edge, Heather moved like she was going to follow.

Eli caught the twitch in her body first—the quick intake of breath, the half-step forward—and so did Caleb.
He snagged her by the elbow before she could pitch herself in, murmuring something low and steady that Eli didn’t bother listening to.

His focus shifted automatically—
to Max.

She was leaning forward, muscles coiled like she was two seconds from jumping after Benji herself.
Her flashlight trembled once in her hand, barely noticeable.

But Eli noticed.

He moved before anyone could stop him.
Silent. Certain.

Stepped up to the lip of the tunnel like he belonged there.

Max’s head whipped toward him, but Eli just tipped his chin once—calm, deliberate.

I’ve got him.
Stay up here.
Lead.

The words passed between them without sound.

Max’s jaw locked, frustration flashing behind her eyes.
But she didn’t argue.
Didn’t reach for him.

Eli adjusted his grip on his flashlight, jamming it tight under his arm, hands free to climb.
He tested the first rung of the ladder with the toe of his boot—felt it groan, felt it hold.

Good enough.

He glanced once down into the dark.

No sound from Benji yet.

No screaming.

No snapping bones.

Eli swung over the edge, boots hitting the ladder rungs with barely a scrape.

The cold coming up from below hit harder this time—wet, earthy, metallic.
Like old blood and older water.

The rusted rungs bit into his gloves as he moved down, quick but careful.

Benji’s flashlight bobbed somewhere below him, a faint, ghostly flicker in the dark.

Eli didn’t look up again.
Didn’t hesitate.

He just kept climbing down into the belly of the dead mall, into whatever had been waiting under Shadyside for too damn long.

And in the brief, breathless moment before the dark swallowed him whole, he thought—
If something’s down there…
It’s not gonna get them without going through me first.

The second Benji swung himself over the edge, Heather’s heart tried to tear its way out of her chest.

The cold, the dark, the endless stink of rust and rot—it didn’t matter.

She didn’t think.
Didn’t weigh consequences.
Didn’t care that the ladder looked like it would snap under the wrong breath.

She just moved—a half-step, ready to launch herself after him.

But before she could even shift her weight, a hand closed around her arm.

Caleb.

He didn’t yank her.
Didn’t bark at her.
Just anchored her there, firm and steady, like he knew if he let go, she’d crack straight down the middle.

Heather twisted, fire sparking low and ugly in her chest.

"Let go," she snapped, voice rough, breaking on the edges.

Caleb didn’t.

He just shook his head once, small and sure.

Heather tried to pull her arm free, tried to shake off the panic clawing up her throat.

Benji was down there.
Benji, with his stupid, steady hands and his too-good heart and the smile he thought could outrun curses.

And she wasn't ready.
Not to lose him.
Not to watch him disappear into the dark while she stood there and did nothing.

"Goddammit, Caleb," she hissed, under her breath but vicious, the words shaking. "He’s down there."

Caleb just held on, not tight, but enough.

Heather’s chest heaved.

She could feel the others watching—Alice Mae tensing behind her, Max locked at the edge of the grate like she was two seconds from throwing herself in after them.

Eli moved past without a word, slipping over the edge like smoke.

Heather barely registered him.

All she could see was the dark swallowing Benji whole.

All she could hear was the blood pounding in her ears.

Caleb’s hand squeezed her arm once—brief, solid.

> "You’re not gonna help him by falling apart," he said, voice low, calm in the storm she couldn’t quiet.

Heather squeezed her eyes shut for half a second, forcing air into her lungs.

She hated him for being right.
Hated herself more for needing to be held still.

But she stayed.

She stayed.

Because that’s what you did when you were scared.
You stayed anyway.

When she opened her eyes again, she wrenched her arm free—sharply, but not enough to throw Caleb off balance.

She scrubbed a hand over her mouth, rough.

Then she muttered, bitter and low:

"Next time, I'm punching him in the face before he can play hero."

And she meant it.
God, she meant it.

Her hand curled into a fist at her side, the only thing keeping her upright.

Heather stared down into the dark, where Benji had disappeared.

And waited for her chance to follow.

The dark yawned open at his feet.

Benji was already gone.
Eli too—silent as a knife between ribs.

And Caleb—
every part of him screamed to follow.

But he didn’t move.

Not because he wasn’t scared.

Because he was.

Because he was scared enough for all of them.

Heather stood at the edge of the grate, shaking but holding, jaw locked tight against the terror clawing up her throat.
Alice Mae hovered close, eyes sharp, shoulders squared like she could punch her way through whatever came next.
And Max—Max looked like she was two seconds from hurling herself into the abyss out of sheer defiance.

Caleb gritted his teeth so hard it ached.

He wanted to go.

God, he wanted to.

Wanted to charge down that rusted ladder, shoulder to shoulder with Benji, back to back with Eli, fists ready.

But he couldn’t.

Because someone had to stay topside.
Someone had to make damn sure that if the dark came pouring out of that hole, it didn’t take the whole damn town with it.

And it wasn’t gonna be Heather.
It wasn’t gonna be Alice Mae.
And it sure as hell wasn’t gonna be Max.

It was gonna be him.

Caleb adjusted his stance, flashlight gripped tighter in his fist, the other hand hovering near the crowbar slung through his belt loop.
A stupid weapon for a stupid plan.

Didn’t matter.

He threw a glance sideways at the girls—at the only family he had left standing.

> "Nobody goes in alone," he said, voice rough, steadying.



Heather jerked her chin in a silent agreement, breathing hard but staying put.
Alice Mae’s mouth twitched like she wanted to argue, but didn’t.
Max—
Max’s fingers flexed around her flashlight, a muscle ticking in her jaw, but she nodded once, curt.

Caleb let out a breath he didn’t realize he was holding.

He dropped into a crouch beside the grate, flashlight sweeping slow, steady arcs across the mouth of the tunnel.

Waiting.

Guarding.

If anything tried to crawl out of that dark, it was going to meet him first.

The dark swallowed the sound of their boots faster than it swallowed the light.

Max shifted her weight forward, the balls of her feet burning with the need to move.
To follow.
To do something.

But Caleb’s voice echoed against the inside of her skull, steady and immovable.

“Nobody goes in alone.”

Max tightened her fingers around the flashlight until the plastic creaked in protest.

She flicked a glance sideways—Heather breathing like she was running a race she hadn’t signed up for, Alice Mae coiled tight, every inch of her ready to spring.

And Caleb, crouched by the lip of the tunnel like a sentry out of some story no one survived.

Max swallowed against the burning knot lodged behind her ribs.

The cold bleeding up from the open hole felt sharper now.
Like it knew she was hesitating.
Like it could smell the crack forming under her skin.

She shifted the flashlight down into the pit again, beam cutting across the broken ladder, the darkness pressing back harder now.

Her voice, when it came, was rough and dry and too loud against the waiting quiet.

“We don’t leave them,” Max said, not looking away from the hole.

The words weren’t a question.
They weren’t a reminder.

They were a promise.

She bent her knees slightly, grounding herself—not to jump, not yet—but to be ready.
For whatever came clawing back out of the dark.
Or for the moment when standing still stopped being an option.

Max let out a breath, slow and measured, even though everything inside her was burning fast and bright.

“We hold the line,” she muttered, mostly to herself, mostly to the dark. “Or we bury it.”

Her flashlight beam trembled once—and then steadied.

Max didn’t move again.

Not yet.

But when the time came?

She’d be the first one in.

No hesitation.
No fear she was willing to show.

Not for them.
Not for Shadyside.
Not for the thing waiting with its mouth wide open below their feet.