The question had barely slipped out her lips, when the tunnel answered.
A low vibration shook the walls, the sound rattling Sloane down to her bones.
In the next heartbeat, a distant chittering sound echoed down the enclosed space, bouncing off the walls on either side of her.
Sloane froze up. Her heart thumping wildly.
She didn't need a map to tell her what was coming.
The nauseating sound of scaly, slimy skin dragging against the tunnel walls, was impossible to miss.
The Blood Worm was back in its den!
Did that mean, Armenia had failed to kill it?
Dread curled in the pit of her stomach.
Armenia hadn't even batted an eye when she gave Sloane up as bait. In fact, she'd been grinning in excited anticipation the entire time.
If the beast had overpowered a cunning and ruthless vampire like her, what chance did Sloane stand?
She knew the answer as clearly as she knew she had to get moving, or risk being digested.
Sloane wasted no time.
She shoved the useless guidebook into her satchel, and threw it over her shoulder, hobbling down the tunnel with all the speed her battered body could muster.
Pain shot up her right leg. She had definitely sprained something from the fall earlier, but she couldn't afford to dwell on it, or slow down.
Sloane gritted her teeth, dashing through the dimly lit tunnel.
The putrid stench that clung to the tunnel grew even more potent the farther she went. It overwhelmed Sloane's senses and made it a struggle to breathe.
Sloane drew in a forceful inhale. Her stomach lurched, and it took every ounce of willpower to resist the urge to hurl.
The long, winding route seemed to become even more endless as she ventured deeper.
There was no indication that she would be coming up on an exit anytime soon.
Maybe the exit was on the other side of the beast and she'd ended up betting her entire life on the wrong way?
The possibility didn't surprise Sloane in the slightest.
She'd been set up for death from the moment she was born.
An Alpha's daughter with no wolf? She was lucky to have survive this long.
But did that mean she had to give into her fate and die without even trying?
Sloane wasn't certain for how long she'd been running.
Her breaths came out in short, uneven pants. Her lungs struggling to keep up with the sudden need for large amounts of air.
Her legs were growing numb. But she was pretty certain the beast didn't share in her discomfort.
It wouldn't have dug such a long tunnel, if it didn't have the stamina to chase its prey for as long as its den went on.
Perhaps it would have been kinder to have been digested on the surface like Armenia intended.
At least then, she would die gazing at the sun. Not in a damp, putrid smelling tunnel.
The chittering sound was closer than ever. Sloane dared a glance over her shoulder, just as the beast's protruded face appeared down the tunnel.
Sloane's heart dropped to the pit of her stomach.
She was running now. Down the slippery tunnel, her hands grasping the slick, goo-covered walls in her haste to propel herself forwards.
Would she make it?
She didn't know.
But her chances were terribly slim. She knew that much.
Then, Sloane saw it.
The tunnel finally gave way to two distinct routes.
It wasn't much of a route, but a crawl space.
Small enough that Sloane could just fit through, but not the beast.
Sloane didn't wait. She didn't think. She frantically climbed into the crawl space.
She was barely a fit. And the walls caged her in on all sides, but Sloane crawled on.
The sharp edges of the wall, and the rough, rocky surface below cut through her flimsy dress, and into her flesh.
Tears sprang to her eyes and she whimpered, trembling from head to toe.
The sound of the Blood Worm's crawl was getting closer, and so was the wet, chittering sound.
She didn't dare hope it would pass by without noticing her diversion.
The beast was blind. But it didn't need eyes.
It hunted by the smell of human blood, and Sloane was leaving an abundant trail.
An earsplitting shriek shook the crawl space.
Sloane didn't turn back. She knew she'd been discovered.
The crawlspace trembled, as the beast repeatedly slammed into it.
Debris and rocks rained down all around Sloane, but she kept going.
The twists and turns of the crawl space led farther and farther away from the shrieks of the beast.
Even so, Sloane felt no relief. Her heart still pounded uneasily.
Escaping the beast was one thing, but finding a way out of the unending tunnels and back to Evernight, was another thing entirely.
She had no idea where this crawl space would lead. For all she knew, she could be crawling right into the waiting jaws of a beast.
But she didn't have the luxury to hesitate.
Keep moving.
That was the rule of Evernight.
Sloane wasn't certain for how long she'd been crawling. Her knees and palms had long gone numb, and the crawl space had gotten even tighter, now bruising her back as well.
The chances of finding an exit had equally grown thin. She dreaded coming up on a dead end.
Just then, the ground beneath her loosened, and Sloane shrieked, desperately reaching in an unsuccessful attempt to grab hold of something.
But there was nothing to hold onto. She fell through.
This wasn't the first time she was falling below the surface.
Sloane braced for an impact that never came.
Instead, she plunged straight into a freezing water body that ripped her breath right out of her chest.
The chill hit instantly, seeping deep into her bones. Her limbs flailed as she frantically struggled to get to the surface.
It took every last reserve of strength to wade out of the water to the rocky shore.
"This day can't get any worse, can it?" Sloane muttered, gasping for breath as she took in her surroundings.
She was in some kind of cave. The walls covered in thick layers of moss.
But that wasn't what caught Sloane's attention.
No.
It was the huge silver chains welded into the walls, and most importantly the person in those chains.
Sloane blinked in astonishment, doubting her eyes. But no matter how hard she blinked, it was the exact same sight.
Down here, somewhere beneath the surface of Evernight, in the middle of a Blood Worm's den...
There was a woman chained to the walls!