The Promise (Neighbor from Hell #10)(92)

Always had and always would.

It was creepy, dark, and gave off a sinister vibe no matter what Nathan said. Of course, he’d never been scared of the cellar. Nothing ever scared him. When they used to come here as kids to visit Grandma Powers the little bastard used to hide down there, leaving Sam to Grandma’s cheek pinching, reminiscing, and prune remedies. Hours later he’d come back upstairs smiling, covered in dust and picking spiders off his clothes and god, how she’d envied him.

The one time she’d spent more than five minutes in the basement had been terrifying. Her grandmother had sent her down there for a jar of prunes for a snack when neither of them could find Nathan, who’d smartly ran off when their father had dropped them off earlier that morning. At the time, Sam had dreaded the basement and the prunes in equal measure. It wasn’t until she had the jar of prunes in her hand that her hatred for the basement won out. Her grandmother, eighty at the time, had forgotten that she’d sent eight-year-old Sam downstairs two minutes earlier and shut the basement’s only light off, closed the door, and promptly locked it.

Several things occurred during that memorable ten hours she’d stayed locked in the basement. Her fear of spiders and all things creepy took on a whole new level of terror. She’d also discovered that the old basement was soundproof, given that no one heard her screams. She would have kicked the door at the top of the stairs, but she couldn’t seem to find the narrow passageway that led to the stairwell in the pitch black. It was also when she’d discovered that the basement was haunted, which had only taken five seconds of listening to the eerie growling coming from the wall, that she hadn’t imagined no matter what Nathan says, to help her come to that conclusion. It was also one of the reasons why she avoided going down into the basement.

Of course, her inability to deal with anything stressful was probably her least favorite development from her time spent in the basement, hence the passing out at damn near everything. It was kind of funny how she could handle working a trauma and even help put someone back together, but any hint of embarrassment, confrontation, or stress had her hitting the floor. What made it worse was that everyone knew about her problem. It had made her a target all through school and made her the town joke on more than once occasion. It helped that her brother was the town’s golden boy, but not by much.

No one respected her, especially at work. She’d lost count of how many people she’d trained over the years had been promoted ahead of her. Even though she had the least amount of patient complaints, put in more hours than anyone else in the department, and had more training and experience under her belt than anyone in the emergency department, it didn’t seem to matter to Dr. Adams. When she’d worked up the nerve, and also made sure that she was sitting down just in case, to confront him, he’d pointed out that he was afraid that she’d blackout during an emergency even though it had never happened. Not once in the ten years, she’d worked as a nurse.

She paused in front of the thick oak door, half-hoping to hear Charlie’s scratching demand to be let in so that she wouldn’t have to do this alone. It really was the only thing the dog was good for, she decided. Knowing there was no other choice, Sam took a deep breath, opened the door, and told herself that ghosts weren’t real. Knowing that standing here wasn’t going to help, she reached out and placed her hand against the smooth stonewall as she navigated the steep stone stairs.

Admittedly, the cellar was well put together with its old-fashioned workmanship. It was the one thing that didn’t require Sam to spend her hard-earned money to fix. Whoever built the stone cellar really knew what they were doing. None of the rocks were falling out or even cracking. It remained cool in the summer and winter, and thankfully, had never flooded.

At the bottom of the stairs, she shifted to the side so that she could walk through the small passage that led to the cavernous basement. When she reached the end of the passageway her foot caught on something and she stumbled the rest of the way.

“Damn it!” she muttered, straightening up.

“Who the hell is that?” a man’s voice demanded, making her heart skip a beat as dread filled her.

Sam’s eyes widened when she realized that the normally dark basement was brightly lit by sunlight, flashlights, and her grandfather’s old lanterns. Her eyes shot from a group of six men, a few of them holding sledgehammers, to the wide-open cellar doors that she hadn’t been able to open in years. Her eyes shot to the pile of broken rocks by their feet and then up to the large hole in the wall.

“What the hell do you think you’re doing?” she demanded before common sense kicked in and once it did, she froze on the spot.

Six men had broken into her house and were tearing apart her cellar. Her breath caught when she heard the telltale click of a gun being cocked. Correction six armed men had broken into her basement.

“Drop the flashlight,” a large man with short curly red hair said, aiming a pistol at her.

The flashlight and the box of fuses hit the floor before the last syllable left his mouth. She even put her hands up without being asked to. She wasn’t a wimp, but she also wasn’t stupid. One woman against six armed men in the middle of nowhere wasn’t exactly hope-inducing.

“Grab her,” the man said, gesturing to two large men, who didn’t look particularly happy to see her. She went to take a step back and take her chances when the men grabbed her roughly and dragged her over to the red-headed man.