Montana Falls (Red Diamonds #5)

Chapter Sixteen

W hen I came to, the first thing I noticed was the bone-chilling cold that seemed to seep through my skin. It was the kind of cold that you met when you’d spent a day out in the snow, playing with friends and having fun. The sort of thing that made you numb all over, and the second you found a heat source, your body came alive with pain.

My head throbbed, and as I opened my eyes, the darkness around me felt suffocating, pressing in from all sides. And as panic surged in my chest, my breathing turned shallow and my foggy brain tried to make sense of where I was, I came up short.

That’s how dark it was. That’s how cold it was.

I was nowhere.

I blinked, trying to focus. The air was thick, heavy with the smell of earth and mildew. The floor beneath me was hard and uneven, like concrete that had been left to rot in a damp basement for years. Dirt crumbled under my fingers as I pushed myself up, and I winced as pain shot through my side. Everything hurt, and the more I moved, the more I realized just how battered I was.

Then I wondered where the hell was I and why the hell did I feel like I’d been run over by a truck that then reversed and did the same thing again.

I tried to take a deep breath, but the air was musty and tasted of dampness and decay. My throat tightened, and I coughed, the sound echoing faintly in the confined space. Spluttering away, I squinted into the gloom, forcing myself to focus, to make sense of the shadows and fog and… and the nothingness surrounding me. My pulse was racing, fear pounding in my chest as the realization crept in. This wasn’t just a dark room. This was underground.

A basement. Or worse. A basement like the one I’d already escaped.

The walls around me were made of crumbling stone, dirt packed in between them. It felt like I’d been buried alive. My heart slammed against my ribs, and I pressed my hand to the floor, trying to steady myself from the sheer terror of being a captive for the second time in my life.

And I was seventeen, for god’s sake. Was it going to be a yearly occurrence, or was this it? I was dying here.

As I sat there, my mind racing with a thousand horrible possibilities, I heard a groan nearby. My heart lurched, and I instinctively pressed back against the wall, my body tensing. But then I heard him .

“Widow,” I croaked, my voice barely more than a whisper. My throat was raw, dry, like I hadn’t had water in hours. Days, maybe.

With only the slightest – okay, a lot – of aches and pain, I crawled toward the source of the noise, blinking my eyes hard enough that by the time I found Widow, I could almost see through the thin cracks in the ceiling above me.

He was lying on the ground, his body curled in on itself like he was trying to protect himself from something. His breathing was shallow, his face pale in the dim light filtering from somewhere above us.

“Widow.” I said again, gently poking his arm.

He stirred, groaning again as he rolled onto his back. His hand came up to shield his eyes, even though there wasn’t much light to shield them from. Slowly, he blinked, his gaze unfocused at first, and then he winced in pain. When his eyes finally landed on me, recognition flickered across his face, followed by something like relief.

Then sheer fucking terror.

“Delilah,” he rasped, his voice rough. He coughed, then forced himself up onto his elbows, wincing as he moved. “You’re alive.”

“Seems like it.” I nodded, biting back the panic that threatened to rise in my throat. “Where are we and what happened? Last thing I remember is being outside the car and then…”

Then pain, agony in my side, my stomach, then all of me. I remembered flickering in and out of the pain with nothing to concentrate on but the thought that I was dead.

Widow winced again as he sat up, his body trembling slightly as if every movement hurt. His eyes darted around the small, cramped space, and I could see the same fear in them that was twisting in my own gut.

“I… I don’t know,” he admitted, his voice shaky. “Feels like we’re underground. Some kind of basement or… cellar. It’s all dirt and stone.”

I followed his gaze, scanning the walls. They were rough and crumbling, cold moisture dripping down in slow, irregular patterns. The ceiling wasn’t much better—wooden beams, rotting and sagging under the weight of the earth above us. It felt like at any moment the whole place could collapse, burying us alive. The thought made me shudder, and I hugged my knees to my chest, trying to calm the rising panic.

I’d got out of a place like this once before. I could do it again.

I had to.

“How did we get here?” I asked, my voice cracking, desperate for answers that Widow didn’t seem to have.

He shook his head, rubbing his face with his dirty hand. “I don’t remember all of it,” he muttered, his voice distant, like he was still trying to piece it together himself. “When you got out of the car, someone attacked you. They stabbed you and hurt you, and I tried to help.” He swallowed hard. “Someone took the car and drugged us both, and I blacked out after that.”

I swallowed hard, my heart sinking further into the pit of dread that was growing inside me. I vaguely remembered the chaos too—flashes of blonde hair, dark smiles and lots of shouting. But it was all a blur, jumbled in the fog of fear and pain and sheer nonsense.

Was I cursed? Surely I had to be cursed to have been kidnapped twice. There had to be a god up in the sky, going out of his way to be a dick to me. It was the only thing I could think of.

For a long moment, we sat there in silence, the oppressive weight of the darkness pressing down on us. The only sound was our shallow breathing, and the faint drip of water somewhere in the corner of the room. It was like time had stopped and the world had forgotten about us.

Widow broke the silence first, his voice low but with a forced confidence that didn’t match the fear in his eyes.

“Don’t worry. Sapphire and the others… they’ll find us. They’ll come and we’ll be okay.” He swallowed hard. “Before I passed out, I got a text off to the guys; they know we’re in trouble, too.”

I glanced over at him, trying to trust his words, but the doubt gnawed at me. “We don’t even know where we are or who took us.” I asked. “They might not know either.”

Widow met my gaze, and for a second, his mask of forced bravery slipped. “Don’t worry, Lilah. They will find us,” He whispered. “They won’t leave us here. Trust me.”

But there was a tremor in his voice, a slight shake in his hands, and I could tell he didn’t fully believe what he was saying. I wanted to believe it too—I needed to believe it. But the longer we sat there, the more the fear sank in, wrapping around my chest like a vice.

“What if they can’t find us? What if we die here and nobody even finds out bodies?” I asked, my voice trembling.

The thought was too real, too terrifying to push aside. What if we were too deep underground? What if whoever took us knew how to cover their tracks? What if John had planned this all along and he was running things?

I’d end up hurting far worse than I ever had before.

I wouldn’t survive.

Widow looked away, his jaw clenching as he rested his head against the damp wall. “They’ll find us,” he repeated, but his voice had lost that shaky confidence. He sounded as if he were trying to convince himself more than me so I kept my worries to myself.

If Widow’s confidence was shaken, then things were truly bad.

The silence returned, heavy and thick, and I pulled my knees tighter to my chest, fighting the overwhelming sense of helplessness. My head still throbbed, and every inch of my body ached from whatever had knocked me out and dragged us here. I felt weak, vulnerable in a way I hadn’t since the night my father had sold me off, and it scared me.

I wanted to believe Widow, I really did. I wanted to believe that the guys were out there, searching for us. That Sapphire was going to come in, guns blazing, and save the day. But what if they weren’t? What if we were already forgotten, buried alive in this horrible place with no way out?

What if they never found us, just like I’d said?

My breathing hitched, and I squeezed my eyes shut, trying to push the panic away. Widow was right. They had to find us. They always found a way, no matter how bad things got. They wouldn’t just leave us here to die.

I wasn’t going to die.

As the minutes stretched into what felt like hours, I couldn’t help but feel the walls closing in. The cold seeped deeper into my skin, and the oppressive weight of the earth above felt like it was suffocating me. I wasn’t sure how much longer I could take it.

Widow shifted beside me, his hand brushing against mine, and I flinched, startled by the sudden contact.

“We’re not gonna die here,” he muttered, almost like he was talking to himself now.

Once more I wanted to believe him, but in that moment, the darkness felt like it was winning. I hugged myself tighter, staring into the void of the room, waiting for something—anything—to happen.

Widow moved again and placed his hand against my cheek, thumb stroking softly. My stupid stomach had stupid butterflies floating around in it, but I set them all on fire and carried on pretending that I was fine.

Then I realized how broken I was in the head to get butterflies about such a stupid little thing, when I was literally in a murder basement, about to die.

No wonder my father thought I was a waste of life.

“Everything is gonna be okay, Lilah.” Widow whispered. “I promise you’ll get out of here. I’ll make sure of it.”

“Tanner said the same thing.” My lips parted, breath coming fast. “Now look at him.”

“He’s alive, and so are you. It might not be all sunshine and daisies, but you got out.” Widow moved close enough I could almost taste him. “And if it comes down to it, I’d take a bullet for you the same way he did. So take some deep breaths, and relax. You need to be strong so we can figure out what we need to do next.”

“Okay.” I swallowed down my nerves. “I’ll be brave… I trust you.”

He placed the softest of kisses against my cheek, just shy of my lips, then pulled back so he could smile. “Good girl. Now tell me all about your band again? I need some good conversation to help me think about our escape.”

We may have been locked away together, unaware of our location or if we would be tortured or dead within the hour. But none of that seemed to bother me. Or at least, it wasn’t at the front of my mind as I rattled on about my band members, friends and all other music nonsense like he’d asked.

The truth was, it was hard to think about the fear because I felt safe. With Widow.

He would protect me.

I just hoped it didn’t cost him the same way it had with Tanner the last time I’d been in a situation like this.