Diana Urban | Exclusive Excerpt UNDER THE SURFACE

Chapter 9 – Ruby

 

“Let’s stay calm, yes?” Julien sets a hand on my shoulder. He must feel me shaking – my legs are trembling uncontrollably as my heart tries to pulverize my rib cage. “We should rest in that alcove we passed. Get our bearings”

“No,” I cry. “We have to keep going.”

“Actually, he’s right,” Olivia says between ragged breaths, wiping her cheeks with the backs of her hands. “I go hiking with my dad a lot, and he always says if you ever get lost, you should stop in your tracks. If you panic and keep going for the sake of it, you’ll get even more lost.”

“We’ve already reached peak lostness,” I say. “Could we really get more lost?”

“We’ll be fine,” Julien says. “I’m sure your friend is fine, too. We just need to stop and calm down for a moment.”

“Okay,” says Val.

I bite my lip, discordant, desperate to find that crumbly staircase, but I’ve already been outvoted.

A few minutes later, we’re stooping through a low entryway into a small alcove. Barely an inch of it isn’t coated in graffiti, which would be reassuring – at least if people were here, people who left – but something about the art makes my skin crawl. It’s not the hideous rats or the warped faces, or the sinuous whorls shaping a demon’s silhouette, or even the colossal eye on the back wall, dilated and staring – it’s the frenetic energy of the overlapping scrawl that makes the walls seem to pulsate with life, almost like they’re breathing.

And anything alive can decide you’re not welcome.

Julien sets his lamp in the middle of the alcove and sits beside it. Val lets her purse flop next to him while Olivia sinks to the ground beneath the eye and hugs her knees to her chest. I poke Julien’s shoulder and hold out my hand.

“What?” he says.

“Camera?”

He glances down, frowning. It’s been dangling from his neck ever since that cavern of bones. “Sorry. Forgot I had it.” He slips it off and hands it over.

Val tsks. “If you’ve been recording the whole time, we could’ve watched it and found our way back.”

I groan. Julien offers an apologetic shrug, then pulls a flashlight from his backpack and switches it on and off, testing it.

I turn on the camera and hit record, more to soothe myself with the familiar act than anything. “We’re lost in the Paris catacombs,” I narrate, spinning in a slow circle. Olivia offers a half-hearted wave as the camera pans over her. “We’re stopping here to make a game plan –“

“Shouldn’t you conserve the batter?” Julien says as he slides in frame. “If you want to track our route with it later.”

“Oh. True.” I stop recording.

“If your friends found Selena,” Val says to him, “they’ll come looking for us, right?”

A muscle in his jaw twitches.

“I’m sure she told them about us.” Olivia rakes her teeth over her lower lip. “Unless she passed out from blood loss or something.”

“No, that’s not –” He shoved back strands of tousled hair, anxiety marring his features.

I kneel beside him. “Julien, please be straight with us. Do you think your friends found her? Do you think help is coming?”

He lets out a breath. “No.”

“Why not?” I asked through the fear knotting my throat.

“I didn’t hear music,” he says. “Remember? Cataphiles play music when they’re walking around so you know they’re coming.”

“Then why’d you want to leave—”

Val talks over to me. “But when we didn’t show to the party, they must’ve realized something’s wrong. Would they really just go home without looking for us?”

Julien rubs his knuckles along his stubbled jaw. “They probably assumed you changed your mind, and that I didn’t feel like coming back alone.”

“So they don’t even know we’re missing.” Olivia chuckles bitterly.

“Jesus. I do one thing I shouldn’t, and this happens.”

I shiver from head to toe, stuck on one word.

Missing.

This whole situation is so surreal, it feels like I can hit Edit, Undo, on some simulator to find myself back at the hotel with Sean. Val would’ve been better off if I never came after her, if we never took that shortcut, if Selena never fell. She would’ve been best off if she never left the hotel at all. I should’ve shut this down at the Eiffel Tower, right when she first met Julien, instead of avoiding a fight.

“Did you tell anyone where you were going tonight?” I ask Val.

“Just you. Did you tell Sean?”

I shake my head. “He went back to his room before I saw your messages.” Olivia knits her brows. “No one will know to look for us tonight,” I say, my eyes watering, “No one.”

“We’ll find a way out,” Julien says. “I promise.”

“You can’t promise that,” says Olivia. “We’re literally in the world’s biggest maze.”

“Even if we don’t find an exit,” says Val, “I’m sure we’ll run into someone.”

“You’re not grasping the scale of this place.”

“But we’re right in the middle of Paris. Cataphiles come down here all the time, right?” Val gestures around us. “Look at all this graffiti.”

“It’s been painted over decades. Centuries, even. We have no clue how far we walked.”

“It couldn’t have been that far.”

Olivia raises her voice. “You can’t rationalize your way out of this –”

“Girls.” Julien raises his hands. “Let’s stay calm, yes? That’s why we stopped. Let’s all just breathe a minute.”

Olivia buries her head in her arms. I try to focus on taking deep calming breaths, but another part of my biology distracts me.

“Julien?” I ask.

He finishes a great yawn. “Yes?”

“Are there any rules about, er, using the bathroom down here?”

“Où sont les toilettes?” Val chuckles.

Olivia snaps her head up. “Nothing about this is funny.”

“Why are you being such a Debbie Downer?”

“Why are you being such a…a… Positive Pickle?” says Olivia.

How she can say that with a straight face is beyond me, but she does, then bursts into tears.

Guilt sours my stomach. It’s my fault she’s in this mess. I never should’ve pulled her into that elevator.

Julien rubs his eyes. “Toilet. Let’s see. The dead end to the right will be as good a spot as any, I think.”

Val digs through her purse, then pinches a pack of tissues and shakes it like a sugar packet.

I sigh. “Good idea.”

Val passes a tissue to each of us, and Olivia starts wiping her cheeks.

“That’s not what it’s—” Val starts.

“I know what it’s for,” says Olivia, though she switches to using her sleeve instead. “Sorry”

It’s okay,” Val whispers, her eyes glassy, too, looking as remorseful as I feel.

Julien passes me a flashlight. “Ladies first.”

I take it and head out alone.

Squatting in some dark, dank tunnel with my bare butt exposed was the last thing I expected to happen on my trip to Paris.

But here I am.

Squatting.

In the dark.

Butt exposed.

By the time I return to the alcove, Val’s sitting cross-legged next to Olivia, tracing circles onto her back. It reminds me of that time I dashed into a restroom at school last May to sob my eyes out after Selena iced me out in the cafeteria. As I gripped the edge of the porcelain sink, tears dripping into it, someone touched my shoulder making me gasp and my gaze leap to the mirror. It was Val. The new girl. I’d only spoken to her once before, after she discovered Ruby’s Hidden Gems and asked to come to Boston next time I filmed. I never followed through, ever the introvert, but here she was anyway, drawing soothing circles onto my back.

“Was it a boy?” she’d asked. “A bad TikTok dance? Someone pee in your cereal?”

“Eugh.” A raw laugh escaped my throat. “No.”

“Well, spill. I won’t judge.”

Selena sure did. “my best friend hates me,” I said through my tears.

“Why?”

Because I betrayed her. Tyler had sworn he wouldn’t tell a soul what happened, but I should’ve known he was as trustworthy as the dust mites on his bookshelves. I blubbered the truth to Val, the whole truth, words spilling from my lips after squirreling them in my overstuffed cheeks for days. When I finished, she’d said, “There’s nothing a heartfelt, handwritten apology note can’t fix.” I was surprised I hadn’t thought of it myself. Selena and I used to pass notes in class all the time, folding them into little origami envelopes and slipping them into each other’s bags when our teacher wasn’t looking.

So that’s what I did. Filled three pages, front and back. Folded it like we used to.

But when I texted Selena to ask if she read it, she replied: Don’t worry, I got your message loud and clear. You can fuck all the way off now.

Now she must hate me more than ever. I just hope she's okay.

Val crosses the dimly lit alcove, and I hand her the flashlight.

“Watch out for the wet spot.”

“Ew.” She takes it and speeds out. When I sit beside Olivia, I can sense how hard she’s shaking.

“Do you have anything to start a fire?” I ask Julien.

“No. Either of you have a lighter?”

We shake our heads.

“Ah, well. Let’s see what we do have.” He unloads his backpack, pulling out a baguette, Tupperware filled with cheese, and a bottle of wine. “Good thing I didn’t unpack at the party.”

I frown. “How long exactly do you think we’ll be down here?”

“Not long.” Julien pats his stomach. “I’m just always hungry.”

“I’ve got more.” Olivia crawls over to dump her Monoprix bag, adding two bottles of water, a pack of pretzels, and a box of individually wrapped madeleines – mini cake loaves stuffed with chocolate cream. I fish the lone packet of almonds from my purse and toss it onto the bounty.

Val returns and sees the pile. “We’re not making camp here, are we?”

Julien exhales like a horse. “Maybe we should try to sleep.”

“You’ve gotta be kidding me,” I say. In just a few hours, our class will realize we’re gone. Mr. LeBrecque. Sean. Dad. “Shiiiiiiiit.”

Val plops down next to him. “We’ll have a better shot of running into someone in the morning,” she says. Olivia purses her lips.

“It’s more that I can’t keep my eyes open.” Julien rubs them. “It’s what, almost four in the morning?” He checks his watch. “Yep.”

I mash my palms into my forehead. “My dad’s gonna flip.”

“Same,” says Olivia.

“At least your parents will give a damn,” says Val.

“Yours will, too,” I say.

She snorts. “Nah. They’ll be too busy filming their bogus house-hunting show to notice anything’s wrong.” Fair. Whenever I go to her place, they ignore us, glued to their editing bay or granite samples or whatever. Unlike Dad, who barrages my friends with bad puns and better meals he’s testing for his restaurant. He might be overbearing sometimes, but at least he cares.

“How is it bogus?” Olivia asks.

“People fake considering multiple homes. They already know which one they’re buying. The real estate industry funds the network, it’s a total scam.” Val sighs. “Anyway, at least people will know to look for us in a few hours when we don’t get on the bus to the Louvre.”

My throat constricts. “But they won’t know to look for us here.”

Val tugs Julien’s’ sleeve. His eyelids have been drooping like he’s about to doze off. “Won’t your friends realize what happened when you’re gone tomorrow?”

He blinks. “Ah…the people I come down here with, I don’t talk to them every day.”

“What about your family?” I ask. “Or your school friends?” Val mentioned he was a sophomore at university.

“My sisters will be the first to realize I’m gone.” He slumps his shoulders, dropping his chin to his chest. “But they won’t know where I went. They don’t know I come down here at all.”

“So we’re truly on our own.” Dread pools in my gut as I stare at the pile of food. Selena’s out there somewhere with nothing but a lamp. I didn’t even think to drop supplies down that well to her. I assumed we’d quickly reunite.

Julien lowers himself to his back.

I groan. “I’ll never be able to fall asleep down here.” Even at home, I can’t fall asleep without a blanket. If my feet are exposed, I envision a shadowy hand stretching up from under my bed to snatch them.

“Same,” says Olivia. At least her pink puffer coat is almost as big as a sleeping bag.

“here, this might help.” Julien grabs the wine bottle with a grunt then pulls a switchblade from his backpack’s outer compartment, flicks it open, sets the bottle down, and jiggles the blade straight down into the cork.

“You’re gonna cork it,” says Val.

“Your confidence is inspiring.” Julien starts twisting. A sliver of beige peeks out.

Val smiles wryly, then eyes the supplies. “At least we won’t starve to death.”

“We’d thirst to death first,” Olivia says matter-of-factly.

“La vache! Nobody’s thirsting to death.” Julien pops the cork as though to prove his point, then passes me the bottle.

Booze always makes Dad mopey and lethargic, and the one time I drank – well, I don’t like to think about it. So I never have more than a few sips of the foul, cheap beer Val hands me at the parties she drags me to. But I take a swig, desperate to settle my nerves.

It’s not bad. Deep red, laced with fruit and smoke, almost like I can smell the barrel where it fermented, and it warms my throat as I swallow. I’m surprised I like it.

Between the four of us, we drain the bottle quickly, each having a little more than a glass’ worth. Once it’s empty, Val puts her glasses in her purse and rubs her arms. “Should we spoon? You know, for warmth?” She casts Julien a come-hither look under her dark eyelashes, patting the ground between us.

“It’s not that cold,” I protest, averse to making a Julien sandwich. Julien nestles behind Val, making her the little spoon, and they can go ahead and enjoy that, thank you very much. I curl into the fetal position a few feet away, facing Val and resting my cheek in my palm.

My hip bone digs painfully into cold limestone no matter how I shift to find a fleshier spot, and I think of the lavender, polka-dotted sleeping bag I brought to the Harbor Islands last summer when I complained to Val I could feel pebbles and lumps of grass beneath me. I’d give anything for that sleeping bag now.

“Ready?” Julien hovers a finger over the lam’s off switch.

“Do we have to turn that off?” Val asks.

“We shouldn’t waste power.”

Unease prickles my skin. “How long do those last, exactly?”

Julien wrinkles his nose. “Something like sixty hours? Seventy? On low, though.” He flips the switch a notch, making the alcove twice as dim and ten times as creepy. “Don’t worry, we don’t need them that long. Plus, I have three flashlights with fresh batteries.”

“So can’t we keep it on low?” Val asks.

“I’d rather play it safe. Imagine trying to walk around” – he switches it all the way off – “in this.”

The darkness is oppressively black. I wiggle my fingers in front of my face, but my eyes might as well be closed. Even with my blackout shades back home, the street lamps’ light peeks around the edges and a tiny light in my headphones charger glows on my desk. But this darkness is stifling, the kind that creeps up your nose and down your throat and burrows in your bones, that siphons all hope you’ll ever see light again. The silence filling my ears like wads of cotton doesn’t help. I stare at the ceiling – at least, where I know the ceiling is – trying not to think about what could be lurking up there in the dark.

Not that I believe in that sort of thing. Selena does, though, which is odd for such a science nerd. Once we used a Ouija board during a sleepover, and she asked it if Tyler would ever kiss her. I surreptitiously nudged the planchette toward yes, and she couldn’t fall asleep after until I put the board out on the back porch, no matter how much I assured her I’d moved it, that ghosts weren’t real, that none would even hurt her. Only the living can crush your soul.

Now in this suffocating darkness, as the cool, damp air sends shivers down my spine, it seems all too plausible that some ghoul with rotted flesh dangling from its decrepit bones could be hovering overhead, inches from my face, glowering at me through gaping sockets.

The mental image jolts my heart. I need to see right now.

I pull out my phone and brighten the screen.

Nothing’s up there. Nothing but air and stone. I let out a rattled breath.

“You okay?” Val whispers.

“Yeah.”

But I keep the screen brightened.

Sometimes when I can’t sleep, I yank my phone from my nightstand and watch one of the videos my mother recorded while she was pregnant, all bubbly and excited and extremely unaware of her fate. She had Dad’s sense of humor, babbling jokes to her belly (AKA me) and sharing silly stories about her day. They must’ve been the most obnoxiously adorable couple on the planet. It’s no wonder he never remarried – she didn’t have the kind of shoes other people could fill.

I don’t know why I watch her videos so often. They only make me sad.

I can’t watch one now, anyway, so I stare at the screen’s background, which I changed earlier to a photo of me and Sean at the Eiffel Tower shortly before our almost-kiss. That was close. Too close. I swore off loving anyone ages ago, after seeing firsthand how my mother’s death destroyed Dad. I can’t let anyone wreck me like that.

But I can’t deny how seeing Sean’s face on my phone brings me such comfort. Just from his photo alone, I can feel the reliable zip of excitement I get while filming together, the consistent thrill of amusement from his deadpan humor, the perpetual flutters in my belly from his presence. I soak in his image, remembering his warmth as he put his arm around me, how I savored his closeness, so close I could feel how sculpted his abs were beneath his coat, how I smiled so wide knowing we’d have an entire week in Paris together –

“Is that Sean?” Olivia whispers behind me. She can see my screen.

“Yeah.”

“Huh.”

I frown and twist to see her. She’s propped on an elbow, pouting.

“What is it?” I ask.

“Are you two together?”

My heart does a little somersault. I bite my lip, and even though it’s way too dark for her to see I’m blushing, I can’t help feeling self-conscious.

Before I can even answer, she says, “You said they were friends.”

She’s looking over me. At Val.

“They are,” says Val. I can only barely make out her silhouette, but she sounds defensive.

“Did I miss something?” I ask.

Olivia turns back over and curls into the fetal position.

“Forget it, Rube,” says Val. “You should shut off your phone. You know, to save the battery.”

“Right.”

I imprint Sean’s steel-gray eyes and those dimples creasing his sculpted cheeks to memory one last time, then power off my phone, plunging us into darkness once more.

 

UNDER THE SURFACE

G.P. Putnam’s Sons

An imprint of Penguin Random House LLC, New York

Copyright © 2024 by Diana Urban

UNDER THE SURFACE by Diana Urban

Ruby is terrified to cave to her feelings for Sean and risk him crushing her heart.

Sean is pumped to spend a week with Ruby in Paris on their senior class trip, and he’ll wait however long until she’s ready to take things further.

But when Ruby’s best friend sneaks out the first night to meet a  mysterious French boy, Ruby goes after her with two classmates, but caves to another temptation: attending mystery boy’s exclusive party in the Paris catacombs, the intricate web of tunnels beneath the city, home to six million long-dead Parisians. Only they never reach the party.

Underground, as something sinister chases them, they get lost in the endless maze of bones, uncovering dark secrets about the catacombs…..and each other. And if they can’t find a way out, they’ll die in the dark beneath the City of Light.

Aboveground, Sean races to find the girl he loves as a media frenzy over the four missing teens begins.

From award-winning author and rising YA star Diana Urban comes a twisty tale of four teens lost in the dark beneath the City of Light and the race to find them.

 

Young Adult | Fantasy | Paranormal [G.P. Putnam's Sons Books for Young Readers, On Sale: August 13, 2024, Hardcover / e-Book, ISBN: 9780593625088 / eISBN: 9780593625095]