“Yeah, don’t you?”

“I don’t even have my blade. Didn’t think about it. It’s not like we’re out running the woods.”

“After everything we’ve been through, you aren’t armed…at all? Hell, Renee, I know we are almost out of bullets but when I said save what you had, I didn’t mean it literally,” he spoke, pushing past Fala to get closer to me.

“Look, I changed and never thought to pick one of them back up, not being here,” I tried to explain.

“That was a stupid move and you know it,” he scolded, handing me his curved blade.

“I didn’t bring mine either,” Tammy sheepishly added.

“I’m the youngest here, and the only one that thought to bring my weapons.” He shook his head, leaning back on the web covered stone.

“I have mine.” Tanda looked around me, and then ducked back to her hiding spot.

“Well, which one do you want? My gun or my long blade? Both are good weapons.”

“I’m not very good with a gun, so I better take the blade,” Tammy replied, glancing at me with widening her eyes, then looking back at Derek with her hand out.

“I guess you want my gun?” he asked jokingly looking up at Fala.

“I have my own weapons, you may keep your little gun,” he smiled, one side going up, the other staying in place due to the puffiness of the remaining inflammation on his left cheek.

“Just so you know, wolf-man,” Derek moved back down in front of him. “My gun may be small but it has a big bang and it’s very accurate because of my skill.”

I heard Tammy trying to hold her snicker in, actually blowing out her nose by doing so. She turned her head around, holding both hands up with one finger on each extended, making a small distance between the two, then mouthed the word ‘small’ as her face contorted and at first I thought she was going to cry.

“Are you okay? I don’t understand,” I whispered, putting my hand gently on her shoulder. She burst out with, what I truly couldn’t tell, was bent over crying her eyes out, or seriously laughing.

“What happened?” Derek spun around, literally having to push Fala back because he too was turning to see what had happened.

“I don’t know. She tried to show me something that just made her start doing this,” I explained with my hand now on her bent over back.

“I’m fine,” she finally said, sucking in a deep breath of air. “It’s nothing. I was going to tell Renee something and, and, got choked,” she lied, standing, wiping her face with both hands.

Tanda looked up at me and shrugged, and I returned it having no clue as to what the poor thing had just been through. She walked along in front me as we went down what was becoming some fairly creepy stairs, smiling back shaking her head. Derek held up his hand for us to stop, as we came to the bottom of the extremely long descent. He held his torch—the only one we had—out in front of him, catching more webs on fire then lighting the room beyond. The webs burned so far up, then dropped in stringy ash, covering the room where they fell.

“I hate spiders,” I said loud enough for everyone to hear, not even meaning to say anything at all.

“Renee,” Derek hissed, jumping around with huge eyes.

“Sorry,” I mouthed.

I was suddenly wishing we had gone up the staircase to look around rather than standing where I was noticing the finer coating of webs on the stone wall right beside me. They were ten times thicker than what Derek had leaned into at the top. ‘Now that gave me shivers and a massive want to run’ I was going to ask Tammy if she had seen anything like this before, but when I tapped her shoulder she started swatting at it furiously, telling me all that I needed to know. Tanda already gave me her answer, with her head buried into my back. Fala seemed to not be bothered in the least.

We all watched as Derek took the first few steps out and my mind began rolling with imaginative thoughts of huge spiders dropping down and scooping him up. Of course, nothing like that happened; he just kept burning the webs away until he stood in a small, black, stone room. “Come on down, I think it’s fine,” Derek spoke softly as he started touching the dark smooth stones that were much smaller than the ones the home was made from, and rounded on the ends. Once we were all down, Derek asked Fala how he had found the door that led down, since it looked just like the rest of the stairwell. He replied that he’d reached up to hold himself up to pull something from the heel of his foot.

“I’ve told you to wear shoes,” Tammy shook her head.

“I don’t like the shoes, but either way, that’s when the stone slid in and the door opened,” he explained as our eyes moved to his bare feet.

“That’s it then, there has to be another hidden area, no way someone would go to that much trouble just to have the stairs lead down to one little room,” Derek surmised, as he began pushing on the stones.

“Where did you learn to think like this?” I asked Derek, stepping in beside him, while pulling my sleeves down over my hands and began pushing the stones as well.

“It’s just webs,” he smiled.

“I know that. I just don’t want to get my hands all nasty,” I smirked. “Well, answer my question, who taught you to think this way?”

“Talk about changing the subject. It’s just common sense, and I pay attention to Jacob and Cates,” he smiled back over at me right as the wall gave way.

I screamed out, grabbing Derek’s shoulder, because the door didn’t just slide to one side; it split in two with the top half going back and up and the bottom half going back and down, with us hanging on to where the stone wall broke free at the top. We both lifted into the air like rag dolls, and the first thought that went through my head was the giant spiders, and I went wild. I let go and started slapping and kicked out, falling in the process, then went for the blade that Derek let me use. “Renee, what are you doing?” Tammy called out.

I screamed the words, “Kill it!” and the next thing I saw was Derek coming up off of the ground and felt something touch my arm. I rolled over ready to strike out with my blade and saw Fala lowering Derek to his feet. My head dropped back to the floor and my heart thumped hard in my chest.

“I was only trying to help,” Fala frowned down at me.

“I had no idea what had us,” I replied, taking his offered hand. “I done thought some spider came down and grabbed us.”

“You really are afraid of those things aren’t ya?” Derek asked as his grin grew.

“Just shut up. I’ve hated those things my whole life,” I cringed. “They just make my skin crawl.” I shook all over and started dusting myself off, more so to make sure there weren’t any little creepy crawlers hanging on.

“Surely you know there is no such thing as a spider big enough to pick up something our size, right?” Derek’s smile got wider as we both stepped out and over by Tanda.

“Yeah, well didn’t know about no shadow walkers, or werewolves either, but they’re damn sure real, aren’t they? No offence, sweetie, just making a point,” I said, touching Fala’s hand.

“If you two are finished, I think you should take a look at this,” Tammy said, as she and Tanda, peered into the room beyond the one we were standing in.

The three of us joined them and found the room to be much more inviting than the first. It wasn’t completely covered in the heavy webs, but they were draped over the furniture that filled the strange looking study of sorts. “What do you think it is?” Tammy asked, looking at me.

“I’m a country girl. I couldn’t begin to tell ya why someone would make a room like this down…well, in a place like this.”

Derek and Fala, both put a foot on the part of wall that had laid down, pushing on it to make sure it was solid, and wasn’t going to keep going to somewhere else unthinkable. They crossed the four-foot stone path first, and then we three girls followed one by one with them taking us by the hand, pulling us across with speed. We didn’t get five steps into the room when the wall began lifting itself off of the floor as the top came down to join it. Fala grabbed the bottom portion and pulled down with all of his might, as Derek swung his self over, yelling hurry to the rest of us.