“Yeah, but what if he’s hurt somewhere? We can’t just not look for him,” Andy said.
Abigail looked worried. “I don’t want anybody to get hurt, either. Not even Bartlemore. But I don’t think that Rusty will want us to go back and look for him. He could be anywhere! The fact that we’ve made it this far without dying is a big enough deal. Why would he risk our lives for someone he can’t stand?”
Andy stood and brushed off his trousers.
“Where are you going?” Abigail asked.
Andy gave her a level stare. “To tell Rusty everything.”
“He’s a what?” roared Rusty.
“A government agent working with my grandfather. He said that you were a spy working for the Collective,” Andy said sheepishly.
“And you believed him?” Rusty said. “Tell me that you didn’t.”
“Well…I…” Andy said. He fidgeted nervously. Now that he’d brought it out into the open, the charge that Rusty was a spy seemed ridiculous. The way Rusty looked at him with his big orange handlebar mustache twitching, Andy couldn’t tell if he was about to laugh or rage at him.
It seemed like Rusty didn’t know, either, and he started making a strangled choking sound that was somewhere between a guffaw and a shout.
“I’ve known your grandfather for years, boy, remember that. I swore an oath, and if you knew me half as well as he does, you would know that Rusty Bucketts is always true to his word. Bartlemore…that lowlife, sneaky, lying son of a…”
Betty shot Rusty a warning glance, and the big man stopped talking. Instead, his face red and flushed, Rusty took a moment to gather himself and gave Andy a serious stare.
“That two-bit excuse for an actor is no government agent, and—” he began.
“But he showed me his badge and ID,” interrupted Andy.
Rusty held up his big hand to stop Andy short. “Faking a badge and ID is easy enough to do, boy. Why, if you could see the phonies I’ve dealt with over the years, your hair would curl—”
But Rusty was suddenly interrupted by a long, keening wail. It was very loud and seemed to emanate from the darkness ahead of them. It sounded to Andy like a woman’s voice, or some kind of tortured cat, and it made all the hairs on his arms stand on end.
“What was that?” Abigail asked.
“Shhh!” Betty and Dotty said in unison. In one fluid motion, the sisters grabbed fistfuls of throwing stars from the silken pouches at their waists.
The scorching red had drained from Rusty’s face at the sound. It seemed as if the sound had affected him much the same way it had Andy. The big pilot reached into his rucksack and pulled out his slingshot. “Stand back Andy, Abigail,” he hissed. “Betty and Dotty, you ladies are with me.”
“Roger,” Dotty said. Betty nodded in curt agreement with her sister.
A second wail, this one decidedly closer, echoed through the tunnel. Andy wheeled around to look behind him.
“It sounded like it came from over there,” he said, pointing to the tunnel they’d come from.
“Time to move. Go, GO!” Rusty said.
The group rushed back down the passageway. As they all lurched forward, Andy suddenly had a thought.
“Wait, who’s checking for—”
He’d been about to say the word traps, but just as it was about to leave his lips, another pair of screams, these ones all too human, sounded directly in front of him. Andy had barely enough time to see the heads of Betty and Dotty disappearing into a hidden pit when, without thinking, he leapt forward and grabbed the first thing his hand touched.
It turned out to be the scabbard of the katana Betty wore on her back. Before he knew it, Andy was sliding forward on his stomach, unable to bear the weight of two adults as they fell.
“Help!” he screamed. He was sliding headfirst after the twins when he felt Rusty’s meaty grip on his heel.
“Got you!” Rusty shouted.
Andy gazed below and saw the panicked faces of Betty and Dotty staring up at him. His hand was wrapped around the cord that held the scabbard to the twins’ backs, but the strain was too much. He could feel his grip slipping!
“I…I can’t hold…”
And then, like a living nightmare, it happened. The cord snapped, and for a fleeting moment all he saw were the wide, horrified eyes of the sisters as they fell.
As with Cedric, it was over in a second. Andy stared down into the darkness with a feeling like descending an elevator shaft. He’d failed! Betty and Dotty were gone and it was his fault, because he hadn’t been able to save them.
The world spun around him, everything shrinking to the size of a pinpoint. The words My fault, all my fault repeated over and over in his head.
He was dimly aware of more shrieking wails around him. As he lost consciousness, the ghostly cries mingled with the screams of Betty and Dotty as they fell down into the bottomless pit.
Then everything went black.
Andy regained consciousness some time later. He didn’t know how much time had passed, but he sensed one thing: he was completely alone. And, worse still, he was in total darkness.
“Hello?” he said softly. “Abigail? Anybody?”
There was no answer. Then the memory of what had happened to Betty and Dotty came back to him, and he felt a jolt of fear. Andy felt around in the dark for the edge of the pit into which they had fallen. Sure enough, his fingers brushed up against the drop-off.
They left me here, Andy thought. Then, with growing alarm, They either left me or something got them. Maybe whatever was making those shrieks!
Andy trembled uncontrollably as the thought took hold. What if they were all dead and he alone had survived? How could he possibly get out? Would he be stuck in the maze forever, and die either from starvation or by falling down into one of those hidden pits?
Sitting up, Andy slowly edged his way
