The Mine

Chapter 7: The Hatch

The others circled around him and can't believe their eyes as they look upon the rusted metal door.

"Give me the key."

Miles quickly turned to face Rebecca, before making a swiping movement for the metal object hanging around the girls neck. Narrowly avoiding Mile's hand, she stumbled back.

"What the hell do you think you're doing?"

Rebecca was quick to retaliate, knowing that she held all the cards in this situation, or so she thought.

"Look open you're eyes girl, you're working for me there's three of us and one of you. You're out numbered, so hand over the key. NOW!"

"She's not out numbered."

Miles was advancing toward Rebecca again, more menacingly now but when Kevin stepped in, it brought Miles to a halt. The leader of the questionable treasure hunters turned to look back at the intern that had just stepped over the line.

"What?!"

His eyes were filled with rage as it took him a second to realize what Kevin was doing. Miles's raspy growl left his body as he starred into the barrel of Kevin's pistol.

"It's her key, she can open the goddamn hatch, now back off."

"Alright little boy have it your way, just watch your back."

Kevin's attempt at intimidating his boss was less then dismal, as it made Miles laugh and sarcastically raise his hands in the air pretending to surrender. Rebecca on the other hand moved around Miles's now trying to stay out of his arms length while Kevin kept his gun trained on him.

Getting to what was a somewhat of a safer place, Rebecca knelt down beside Jared doing her best to keep some distance between either of the brothers. Pulling the key out of her pocket, she put it into the embedded lock on the metal door and twisted it.

The key struggled to turn as it ground away against the rust but eventually stopped after a full one eighty making an old yet satisfying click, and unlocked the hatch. Jared reached for the little handle and struggled to lift up the metal door. While he did that Rebecca tried to pull out the key however when she pulled on it the sound of metal breaking resonated from the key and only half of it returned to her.

"Well at least we got one use out of it. Here you can have this now."

Without warning Rebecca tossed what remained of the key to Miles before pushing past Jared and climbed onto the ladder to begin the descent into the mine shaft. The key tapped Miles on the head before falling in front of him, causing him to get a hand underneath to catch it. He looked at what remained and then threw it on the ground.

"Let's go Jared, and you too traitor, you can get the door behind us."

Kevin holstered the gun and headed down into the hatch behind Jared, he grabbed onto the rusted door handle and closed it behind him as his head cleared the surface. The hatch closed with a thud and the brothers each reached into their pockets and pulled out tiny lighters with their names on them. Watching this Rebecca raised her eye brows before she knelt down in the darkness and reached into her bag.

"Is that seriously all you brought for light," Rebecca laughed before pulling out a heavy duty lantern that lit up the entire cave putting the boys lighters to shame. "And you guys are seriously treasure hunters eh, I can see why you haven't found anything lately."

As she showed off the flashlight, Kevin walked up beside her as she began to shine the light through the caverns shafts. However feeling as if he had failed again, Miles gritted his teeth and made a low audible growl.

"I'm gonna kill that stupid girl, she's making us look like idiots."

"Look she's clearly prepared we can use that to our advantage, let's just find that treasure and then we'll figure out how to get rid or her, when the time comes."

Jared stepped in, he had seen his brother act like this before and it usually led to him doing something stupid as he tried to console him.

"Fine but if she embarrasses us one more time I'm not sure I'll be able to hold myself back."

"You need to look at the bigger picture here brother, we need to separate the two of them."

"You're right, besides it wont be hard to find another intern...again"

Miles's hand went into a tight fist at his side, as Jared expressed his plan and pointed at the two kids before quietly laughing with a menacing undertone. With his brother now seeming more level headed the two of them start heading down the mine shaft behind Rebecca and Kevin. Walking down the ancient tunnels, Kevin visibly became more anxious as his head whipped around looking at all the rotting wood and support beams around them.

"You nervous bud?"

Rebecca said looking at Kevin as he had become increasingly more fidgety. He gulped from his nervousness as he tried to collect himself and answer Rebecca.

"Yep, just never really been in a mine shaft before, so this is the closest I've ever been to being a treasure hunter."

"Are you serious? How many expeditions have you actually been on with these guys?"

"Just one prior to this one, and as you probably guessed we didn't really find anything."

"Ha I knew this was foreign territory to them. Also before I forget thanks for sticking up for me back on the surface there. Miles certainly has an attitude doesn't he?"

"No worries we have to stick together so these guys can't get the upper hand and take advantage of us."

Kevin finished his sentence as the tunnel finally ended and opened up into a massive room with an extremely deep ravine running right through the centre of the room.