"For the umpteenth time, I don't know. Are you deafandstupid?"
A boom shivers through the tunnel. Bits of the ceiling tumble to the floor.
The woman who won't tell me the truth snaps her spine straight and peers up at the ceiling, eyes wide. "The ceiling might collapse any second."
"It will hold."
"How do you know? Are you an expert on tunnel construction?" When I don't respond, she huffs. "No, I didn't think so."
Naturally, she's being sarcastic. That makes me want to shag her even more. My cock doesn't care about the apocalypse raging above our heads.
If I want answers from her, I need to take a different approach. "You mentioned Sefton's note urged you to wait in the library until he came for you."
"Yes."
"But you didn't do that."
"I was hypnotized, like everyone else. Duh."
"Hypnotized?" I tilt my head to the side as I study her expression and body language, but I can't find any clues that suggest she's lying. "You weren't mesmerized when I found you. No one was. You were all screaming and running from the beasts."
"Yeah. But before that, the music put us in some kind of trance. We couldn't stop ourselves from going outside and congregating on and around the viaduct."
"That was the bridge across the river."
"Yes." She shuts her eyes, her lips trembling. "The music was almost worse than the monsters that came when the song ended."
"I didn't hear music," I tell her. "It must've happened before I arrived. But I have no doubts it wasn't a normal melody, but something borne of the Echo. That's why I need to find Sefton."
She opens her mouth as if she means to speak, but instead shuts it. Allison scrutinizes me for a long moment, her gaze traveling over me in what seems like an appraisal, though I have no idea what she's attempting to figure out by analyzing me from head to toe. "You know Sefton, don't you? That's why you keep calling him by his first name instead of saying Dr. Stainthorpe like everyone else does. He only asked me to call him Sefton a few days ago."
"Who or what I know is not your concern."
"It damn well is my concern. You're holding me hostage and threatening to dismember me."
"Only your fingers." I squeeze words out through my clenched teeth in a deliberate attempt to cow her. I know she fears me, but she has enough backbone to defy me in spite of that. My only option is to terrify her. "If you keep testing me, I might change my mind. You have many more appendages I can hack to bits."
"Go on and do it. I don't care anymore. The world is ending, and if I have to get hacked up by a beast, it might as well be you."
"The world is not ending. It is transforming."
She stops blinking, her gaze nailed to mine. "What do you mean it's transforming?"
"You'll see. Right now, I need to know where—"
"Gah!" she shouts so loudly that it reverberates through the tunnel. "For the last time, I have no fucking idea where Sefton Stainthorpe is."
Strangely, I believe her. "All right. That means we must wait until the first wave has passed through this part of the city, then we can check the library. Maybe Sefton is waiting there for you."
"Great. A field trip into hell."
I move to the opposite side of the tunnel, directly across from Allison, and sit down on the terracotta floor. All we can do now is wait. The strikes of lightning and fireballs have been lessening in frequency, but even after the skyborne chaos ends, we will need to contend with the monsters that have been dumped here. And we're running out of air in this tunnel, which means we can't wait much longer.
"Are you going to drag me through the city again?" Allison asks.
She can't walk with her feet shackled. But I can't trust her not to try to run away. I'll need to bind her to me somehow, maybe by strapping one of her wrists to one of mine. I have a little time to consider the options. Only when the first wave has passed will I attempt to reopen the tunnel.
Assuming we have enough air to last that long.