Entering the cave would be a mistake—one I would be complicit in. If any of my friends, or God forbit, my father, were hurt in there, I wouldn't be able to blame it all on Alek. Still, Alek had cautioned me to withhold information from them—about Chip, about my possible weird werewolf status—and that meant they couldn't know fully what they were walking into.

But walk into it they did, Alek and Flora in the lead, with Macy and Dad behind them. That left me to take up the rear, stomach twisting with anxiety as we marched towards our impending doom, brain struggling to determine how to alert Alek to the danger without freaking out our companions.

First, though, he would have to stop talking.

"There is one piece of potential information, a major clue if true, that I haven't mentioned yet." He inched his way sideways through a slender portion of the cave's squeeze. "The owner of the tavern in which he died claimed to have spoken to Buckshot Barney prior to his murder. Although Barney didn't give up the location of the treasure, he did say it wasn't in a cave."

"Wait, what?" Macy tapped him on the shoulder. "But then, why are we in this creepy, nightmare-inducing, spider sanctuary of a cave if it's not where the treasure is?"

I seconded that. This might be a naturally occurring cave, but it felt like it was a tunnel on the verge of collapse. We had to duck our heads to avoid hitting random stalactites, and if the space got any narrower, claustrophobia was going to make me break out into hives. Before I could voice my hesitation, Alek continued with his story.

"That's not all Barney said, you see. He did mention a cave, or rather, that a cave led to where he'd buried it."

"So, you're saying..." Flora shined her flashlight up ahead of the group revealing more of the same gloomy tunnel. "This cave will lead us outside again, instead of further into the bowels of the mountain."

"What a delightful way to put it, Flora," Alek said. "And yes. That's the assumption. If we choose the correct path."

"How will we know what the correct path is?" asked my father.

"This whole path is incorrect." Finally, I'd managed to sputter out what needed to be said. "Alek, you were right to begin with. We should turn around and get out of here."

In this crowded space lit only by the glare of flashlights, it was impossible to read his expression. I shielded my eyes as four people's lights shone on me.

"It's too late to turn back now, Verity," he said, sounding like he was more than a bit tired of putting up with my shit. "The fate of Buckshot Barney's treasure is in our hands."

"It's our fate that I'm worried about."

Dad placed a hand on my shoulder and gave it a squeeze. "It's the tight space she doesn't like, isn't that right, Verity?"

"That's not right."

"No worries," Alek said. "If we keep going, I do believe we'll find ourselves on the other side soon."

I sniffed the air again. Still putrid. Still all kinds of wrong. "I'm serious, Alek!"

They weren't getting the significance of the alarm in my voice. Bile again pressed up into my throat. I plugged my nose with my thumb and index finger. This was a smell I hadn't minded only a month or two ago but now it made me feel like I was walking into my own death. Why hadn't I realized it before?

The group continued. I entertained the idea of drawing back and turning around on my own. But I could hardly abandon them to a fate I was partially responsible for creating. Before long, we reached a fork in the cave.

"Which way?" Flora asked.

"Macy can tell us." Alek motioned to the metal detector she held.

"Right," She scanned the ground in one direction. No beeps. The other direction resulted in a slow beep. "I'm guessing that means we go this way?"

We continued until we'd reached another branch of the cave. Again, the detector led us forward.

Twenty minutes later, a crack of light ahead began to widen. We soon found ourselves once again outside in another gorge like the one we'd come from, only this one was smaller and marked with impassable towers of granite on all sides.

As soon as we'd reached the middle of the enclosure, Macy's detector acted like it had hit the jackpot.

"And now," Alek said, getting out his shovel, "We dig."

I let the others get to work while I fed my growing fears. The rank odor had subsided once we'd come out into the open. Had I gotten this wrong? With my senses out of whack the last few weeks, maybe I'd imagined something that wasn't there. Taking a few steps back towards the cave, I watched my friends dig, knowing it was only a matter of time until the treasure revealed itself. Meanwhile, as I neared the cave, the same smell wafted up. Rotting meat on a compost pile.

My blood pressure spiked. I struggled to take in enough air. Eventually, treasure secured, we'd have to go back in there—there was no other way out.

No one besides me seemed to realize how trapped we'd become.

"Holy shit, it's here!" Flora called out as she ditched her shovel and begun digging through soil with her bare hands. "Verity, come see!" She looked up at me and her face froze, just as the cool edge of a steel knife pressed into my neck.

Flora rushed to her feet and soon, everyone else realized something was wrong. One by one, they turned so they could see me. The pain in my father's eyes stung almost as much as the thought of the blade cutting into me.

I already knew who wielded the knife. His once sweet smell had become bitter, a toxin to my system. But he wasn't alone. Even without being able to see behind me, I could sense at least five others, all with that underlying hint of the wild that I'd now come to understand made them other than human.

Werewolves.

A whole pack of them. But they stood on two human feet. Why, I wondered, had they not transformed?

"It's harder in the fucking day. Do you not know anything?" Chip's voice rang out with a malice I'd not expected.

"Stop reading my thoughts, pervert!" In my head, I aimed another thought at him: "I don't need to wait for the moon to shine to bring my wolf out to play. Want to see her?"

"In front of them?" He thought spoke. "Really?"

Grabbing me around my waist, he pulled me tight against him.

The move didn't go unnoticed by my own pack.

"Let her go!" Flora yelled.

Alek didn't speak, letting the look of utter contempt on his face say everything for him. He motioned for the others to stay back, while he moved to put himself between them and the werewolves.

"You have all the proof you need. Why are you doing this?" Chip asked. I assumed he was talking to me, but it was Alek who responded.

"You can't take her." He took out his gun and aimed it. "This time I won't shoot in the air."

The pack stirred around us. How much more provocation did they need before they attacked my friends?

"You won't shoot me. Not with your freak girl standing in front of me."

"I'm a pretty good shot. And she's a woman, not a girl."

Despite the danger of the moment, I managed to feel offended. "He called me a freak too! Why didn't you correct that?"

"That's what you are," Chip growled. "Until we figure out the truth, at least."

"What is going on?" Macy asked. My father whispered something to her, and her eyes seemed to double in size. "No way!"

"I'm taking her, whether they want me to or not." Chip said. "Whatever she is, she'll figure it out with me easier than she will with you. She belongs with us."

"I fucking do not!"

Stomping on his foot as hard as I could, Chip winced and let up enough for me to twist to the side a few inches. The pang of his knife nicking my skin made me yelp. Still partially in his grip, I twisted again, trying to put as much space between my neck and his knife.

My eardrums threatened to burst as a shot rang out, bypassing Chip and grazing one of the female members of his entourage.

Chaos. Werewolves in their human costumes howling. Humans in their newly purchased outdoor gear screaming.

Alek fired another round.

Chip yelped, shifted, and his bare forearm in view.

I did what I had to: I sunk my teeth into it.

Another shot, another eardrum on the verge of rupturing. Chip tore his arm away from my bite, as he cried out in pain. Blood spurted onto my face, into my eyes. My vision blurred and I dropped to the floor, clamping my hands over my ears as a storm of crimson rained down on me. The pain in my head grew and for a moment, I was senseless to everything else.

When I came to, Alek was shaking me as Flora wiped blood from my face.

"Did I hit you?" he said, his words frantic and rushed and barely discernable from my damaged ears and scrambled brain.

"You don't even know?"

"There's blood everywhere!"

"You shouldn't be allowed to carry a gun. You're a lousy shot." I kept my hands over my ears as I attempted to sit upright. "Despite that, no, you missed me. You got Chip, though. Is he dead? Are they all dead?"

Alek shook his head. "They're gone, Verity. And I'm going to make sure they never come for you again."

___

Author's Note: Has Alek done enough to redeem himself? Or, is he doing what he needs to do to make Verity believe he's sincere?

Also, would you crawl through a narrow cave if you knew there was a treasure waiting on the other side... even if there might be spiders?

I would love to invite you to join the Stormy Nights Reading Challenge. THE TRUE ONE is a participating story! There are so many more amazing books to discover. For more information, go to the reading list on my profile, which includes the #wpsn22 Challenge Book. This is a challenge, not for writers, but for readers. You as a reader can will prizes, so check it out! And thank you to monrosey shehopes and LLSanders for hosting!