The gray, cave walls surrounding us grow blurry as blood and adrenaline rush in my veins. I feel light-headed, like I'm in a dream, or rather, a nightmare. This doesn't belong in real life.

The three mobsters stand like action figures poised to take a shot. As if this situation isn't bizarre enough, I recognize two of them — a burly man with buzzed, brown hair, and a woman with her brown hair pulled in a sleek bun. They were both present at the warehouse, outside the Unknown store, and the music gala. The third man is more lanky, sporting a small bun of his own to rival the woman's.

"What do you want?" I try. They probably expect that question, expect us to play this off as being lost in the cave. But they already heard us talk about the map, received our text message, and they'll call our bluff. The key right now is to subvert expectations.

"You know what we want," the burley man growls. "You already messaged us, asking for a trade."

"Which do you want to trade?" I ask. "The Silverenn Songs, or the treasure?"

"So you acknowledge there is one?" the woman says.

"Rumored one, but yes," I say. "That's why we're all here, isn't it? That's why you offered to trade." I glance around the floor. "Incidentally, where are our instruments? A trade usually involves an exchange from both parties."

"In this case," the woman says, "we'll exchange the treasure for your life."

I already guessed about as much. Still, a sinking feeling opens in my gut. We have fifteen minutes before Martin calls the police. How long will it be before this woman reneges and kills us?

"Shall we continue, then?" the woman asks. She motions to the openings on the opposite wall, as if inviting us to explore her house.

I sense Emi by my side. I'm not sure if she's been there this whole time or if she shifted her position. Her fingers press into my palm, a silent warning not to cooperate with them. But she doesn't need to worry because I wouldn't dream of sharing our treasure with them.

"Of course," I say. "Right this way." I start toward one of the tunnels, but the guy with the man-bun stalks across the room in several quick strides. He's more lanky in form, but his mere presence blocks my path.

"I believe your friend has the map," he says, a smirk on his face. "She knows the way."

"I wouldn't play games if I were you," the woman's voice rings out. "Remember who has the upper hand here."

Shoot. Already made a mistake. They know I was going to lead them the wrong way since Emi has the map.

I turn around, wiping any emotion from my face. The burly man stands beside Emi, and the map rests in his large hands. He's less than an inch from my friend, but to my surprise, she doesn't cower or even lean away from him. She stands perfectly still, not a twitch in her muscles. Her hands rest at her sides, gently curled. It takes a moment for me to notice the key cupped in her fingers, follow her line of sight to the burly man's right hand, or more importantly, the metal object in his right hand.

My mind flashes back to that self-defense class we attended in college. The instructor said that if we're ever attacked, have our keys read to stab in three major arteries. I don't remember which arteries those were, but maybe Emi does.

Inhaling, a breath, I look to my side. Man-bun is more than a foot away. But if I'm fast, maybe I can pacify him long enough for Emi to act...

Emi's hand shoots out, jabbing the key into the burly man's upper arm. The motion jars the gun from his grasp. Metal clatters on the ground. Emi ducks down, yelling, "Cerise, the light!"

I cover my flashlight with my palm, plunging the room into darkness just as a gun blasts beside me. I lunge for where the woman had stood but am only met with air. Feet scuffle to the side, which I follow blindly.

A glow reappears, one of the mobsters turning on their own flashlight, and Man-bun's angry face appears. He aims his gun as I dive for his feet.

Another shot rings through the room, and something whizzes through the air, where my face once was. My skull smacks into muscle and bone. Another clatter, and I kick blindly behind me. Metal scrapes across the ground. I direct my phone in the noise's direction to find the gun a few inches away. I scramble on my knees toward it, but weight crashes atop me. The air in my lungs is smacked out, replaced by pain that rattles through my bones.

"Got you," a voice rumbles in my ear. All I can think about is wriggling my hand free, seizing the weapon. I'm so close to it. But Man-bun's hand stretches over me and gets to it first. The cold barrel presses against my temple.

"Any last words?" he asks.

"When I'm cremated, tell them not to use my viola as firewood."

A grin stretches across his face, far too wide and genuine to be comforting. "I'll relay the message."

The gun clicks in my ear, loud against the blood roaring in my veins. I can feel its pounding pulse in my hands, temples, and chest.

Treasure or tragedy — one lies in wait.

Silverenn wasn't kidding. To think I got this close to riches. It's quite literally just around the corner.

This is it, this is the end.

Terror grips me as the realization sinks in. My shoulders shake with energy I've never felt before. I need to fight, to pummel my fists against this man until he releases me, twist from his grasp and dodge the bullet.

"Vito." The female's voice slices my thoughts. "Shine your flashlight over here. We need more light."

"But—"

"Now!"

The gun doesn't waver from my head, but Man-bun grabs my wrist, twisting my phone's flashlight behind us. A cry of pain escapes me, but I quickly bite down any more exclamations. I face the wall, so I can't see what's going on.

Emi. Fear shoots through me as I remember her. If anything happens to her, it'll be all my fault. This was my plan. I got us into this mess. I thought that if we could only have the police catch the mafia after we found the treasure, we might be able to keep the money and prevent these criminals from chasing us the rest of our lives.

But I was wrong. I was foolish, and now we're both paying the price.

"She's... gone!" the burly man calls out between heavy breaths.

"You go find her, I'll watch this one," Man-bun says. Or Vito, since that's what the woman called him.

Feet scramble across rock behind me. Tension stiffens every muscle in my body. I don't know who I'm more scared for, myself or Emi.

"No need," a new voice growls. It's so familiar, that my head whips to the side on instinct. Pain shoots through my neck, but I manage to glimpse a man with a gray beard standing by Emi. The gun digs into my skin, but I barely notice. I barely register the rough hand that shoves my raised head to the ground. Because I recognize the man who points a gun at Emi's head.

"Good work, Ivan," Vito says.

"The man from the shop," I state. The shop that set all this into motion.

"So we meet again, valued customer," his hoarse voice gurgles.

"Are you responsible for all this?" I ask. "Tracking us down, the threats, everything, all because I bought some stupid sheet music?"

"I suppose you don't need a word of advice seeing as you probably won't live long enough to act upon it. But still, it's best to pay with cash unless you trust the vendor. It was too easy to track down your identity and address from your credit card, and from there, figure out who your friend is and what car you ride around in. Even better was when you used the credit card at the hotel and stores. That gave us an updated location to follow whenever you swiped that shiny piece of plastic."

Heat creeps onto my face, and I'm lucky I'm facing the ground so no one can see. Still, in my peripheral vision, I catch Emi's glare on me from across the cave. It's too late to admit she was right. It was too late the moment we walked into that store.

My assailant yanks me upward, though he pins my arms behind my back. Stars speckle the dark until my vision settles on the map, now in the female mobster's clutches. It's inches from Emi, but so is the gun trained on her. Emi can only stare at the paper longingly.

"Salis, go secure their car," Ivan, the old man, says. The burly man lumbers away, clutching his upper arm. His flashlight illuminates a dark spot on his shirt's sleeve. His thumping steps retreat into the darkness, and soon, only my phone's flashlight and the female mobster's shine in the rocky room.

Ivan flicks his gun in our direction. One slow step at a time, he and Emi approach us. The woman follows with her eyes glued to the map.

What happens next happens so fast, I barely catch it. Ivan whacks the woman behind her neck with the back of his pistol while sending a kick to Vito's stomach. The hands clasping my wrists drop, and Ivan kicks Vito's jaw, sending him to the floor to join the crumpled woman. I stare at Ivan in shock as he snatches the map and flashlight from the woman's limp hands.

"T-thank you," Emi says. She's faster to process the occurrence than I am, or perhaps she's quicker to say her pleases and thank yous.

"The pleasure was mine," Ivan growls. "But I'm going to need you to keep your hands up." Ivan faces us once more, gun trained in our direction. That's a command I can process instantly. My hands fly up in the air.

"I-I don't understand," Emi stammers. My phone illuminates her shaking shoulders. Nerves are getting to her. I'll be in the same boat once my brain catches up to reality.

"That's the trouble with family business," the man says. "It's hard to exclude relatives, especially when one notes two females poking around the old museum. If I had it my way, I would've trailed you both from afar, letting you solve the clues until the very end. But Isabelle and Salis thought it'd be better to eliminate you from the treasure hunt before things went too far."

One word sticks in my mind. "The old museum? Are you talking about the train station?"

"That's the one." Ivan nods.

"That's your family business?"

"It's one of our drop-off depots, as well as the junk shop before Isabelle and Salis thought we'd been discovered. Really, mobsters take 'sharing is caring' to the next level."

"Noted." Now it makes sense why I was so creeped out by the guy from the museum. He's one of them.

"The others chewed me out when they checked into the sale's record." His voice jumps an octave. "'How could you have been so careless as to leave the scores lying around to be purchased?'" A grin crosses his face. I shift on my feet.

"Why did you leave them out?" I ask.

"I always knew we could never figure out Silverenn's clues on our own. We're not musicians. My bumbling relatives couldn't even find the first clue within the train station. They even made copies of the scores and tried to enlist help from some music professors, but they were useless. They're even more useless now..."

Emi's eyes widen.

"Regardless of their lives' statuses now, they showed us that even an experienced hunter might not succeed in figuring out the clues. We had to wait for someone with ingenuity, someone quick-witted, and someone with more questionable morals that would do a job for us and keep quiet about it. I left the music out as bait, but never stumbled upon that special musician and treasure hunter who I thought would do my bidding.

"And then when you two came in and threatened to call the police, I figured it was better to sell it to you and keep tabs on your location. I doubted you'd be bright enough to figure out that it was actually clues leading to a treasure." His brow furrows. "But, I guess you proved me wrong."

"Reddit for the win," I say in response.

"Huh." There's a short pause. "Well, since you got this far, might as well reward you."

"Yes, please," I say with forced enthusiasm. I'm not entirely sure if his definition of reward is the same as mine.

"Good. You'll get to see Silverenn's treasure before you die."

Not the answer I hoped for, but every second alive is another opportunity to escape.

"Come with me. Now." He waves his gun toward the other end of the room, and we slowly start down a dark passageway, treading deeper into the heart of the cave.