“Okay, drop her,” Nico says, pointing to a spot on the floor. I do as I’m told.
Allie’s unusually quiet, to the point where I’m wondering if this is some sort of plan, if she’s got Talia coming or the rest of the cluster standing by in case she couldn’t pull this off on her own. My hope dies the moment her wide blue eyes rise to search mine. Whoever the Doctor is, the threat of him has her totally undone. Who the hell is this guy?
“Search her,” Nico demands. It’s Keeley who jumps into action. She hands Allie’s phone to Nico and then goes on stripping Allie of her weapons. None of the knives are a surprise. I expected more of them.
I should keep my mouth shut. I know I should. But the strange defeat in her, in Allie who never once truly gave up in Jamison’s cellar, has me on edge.
“She should have a little glass vial on her,” I say, holding my fingers a couple inches apart as I suddenly remember its color. “It’s cobalt.”
I emphasize the word, but Allie shoots me a look of rage. She’s too mad to get my message. “What are you doing? Why would you tell them that?”
Come on, I think, desperately. You know me better than this.
“You’re not taking poison,” I tell her as Keeley pats a spot high on Allie’s side.
“Found it!” Keeley announces, and then her fingers crawl inside Allie’s shirt and emerge a moment later holding the vial.
“I hate you for this,” she snarls at me and I force a laugh.
“It’s not my fault you’re an idiot.” I make my voice even and calm. “I won’t let you die. Not when you’re worth more alive.”
I only dare a single moment, but I shift so she can see my subtle wink. She’s studying me now, paying closer attention.
“What did you do with my friend Jamison?” I demand.
A split second of confusion flutters across her expression as she blinks at me. “I don’t know anyone with that name,” she says.
Only now, I can see her playing back the conversation we just had about the vial. Cobalt. I watch her lips as she mouths “dandelion.” This time when she looks at me, there’s hope in her eyes. Right until the moment Keeley’s heel connects with Allie’s cheek.
Without her hands to arrest her fall, Allie tumbles sideways, her head thumping hard against the floor.
“What the hell!” I yell, half in shock, half in outrage as Keeley raises her foot to stomp another blow.
Before she lands a third, Zen’s got her arms around Keeley’s waist, dragging the girl backward as Keeley screams obscenities and curses at Allie that leave me stunned. Sweet, innocent Keeley is gone. “You bitch!” she wails. “My mother’s dead because of you!”
She fights against Zen, her legs kicking as she tries to get in another blow. Allie rolls to avoid her spastic feet. Zen’s petting the top of Keeley’s head, stroking her hair as she murmurs something into the girl’s ear. Whatever it is works because Keeley settles with a sob. Tears stream down her red cheeks. She lets herself be dragged into the hall, leaning heavily on Zen.
On the floor, Allie moans.
“How long until we collect?” East asks.
Nico checks her phone. “He said he’s on the road. He’ll collect her personally in the next six hours. Eight at the most.”
“Eight?” East sounds dubious. “We’re stuck babysitting her until then?”
“Guess we’ll need to make sure she’s not going anywhere.” Nico kneels next to Allie and the zip ties come out again. She loops another strap around Allie’s wrists and tightens it. When she’s done, she stands. “Let’s go,” she tells me as she passes.
Allie’s fighting herself into a sitting position against the dresser. Six hours, I think. I want her clear of here inside of two. I’m not taking any chances.
Nico’s waiting for me at the door. I’m the last to leave the room. I don’t risk so much as a fidget in Allie’s direction. When I’m over the threshold and into the hall, Nico swings the door shut and locks it with an antique skeleton key.
“Does this place even have ice?” East says in a clogged voice once the door’s secure. The double swaths of blood flowing from his nose have slowed but he’s making a big show of pinching it off as he follows the sobbing Keeley, Zen still embracing her. Quinn hesitates and then Nico must give him some signal I miss because he nods and follows the rest of them. Soon, it’s just me and Nico in the hallway.
I don’t trust whatever’s going on. If she wanted me captured, she would have kept her brother close. She can’t expect to take me alone. “What happened to Keeley’s mom?” I ask to distract her from her plan.
I’m fairly certain Nico won’t answer before she sighs. “Nothing happened,” Nico says. “Keeley’s grandpa called. The resurrectionist came. The family, they had the money but the person they hired wouldn’t bring her back to life.”
“Sometimes Allie can’t do it,” I say. “There are time limits.” I’m hoping it’ll help Nico shift some blame off the resurrectionists.
“When you said you were holding out on us,” she starts. “You weren’t kidding. How much did you learn about them, Ploy?” Her brow rises in a perfect arc. “Or is it Christopher?”
Hearing my real name makes me feel exposed.
I shrug. Allie’s secrets might win me sufficient points to keep me alive. I still won’t betray her. “Was it Allie who wouldn’t bring Keeley’s mom back?” I say instead.
As she tucks the key into her pocket, Nico shakes her head. “They’re all the same though, aren’t they?”
I’m not prepared for the flippant way she says it. “No,” I say. “Allie, she’s—”
“What, different?” Nico scoffs before she sobers. “You sure you don’t have a thing for that girl?”
My voice won’t come.
“East doesn’t trust you,” she says.
“I get the feeling your brother doesn’t trust anybody.” The crooked smile she offers urges me to push. “Especially when it comes to you,” I add.
“Fair,” she admits. She ponders me through her mascaraed lashes. Her next sentence surprises me. “Quinn’s on the fence about you, too.”
“Ouch,” I say. I thought if I’d won anyone in the group over, it would have been him.
Except in this moment, I couldn’t care less, because in this moment, I’m stuck on the key in Nico’s pocket, the zip ties she has on her. I’m thinking about the way she’s focused on me, the way she’s batting her lashes, and the pointed look she gave Quinn to send him scurrying off. I’m running the odds on how many minutes the others would give Nico alone up here with me. How long it would take them to investigate a thump, a moan. Mostly, though, I’m deciding if it’s too much of a gamble to subdue Nico.
If it’s better to kill her.
I’ve spent the last two weeks terrified I’m a villain, and now, to save Allie, I need to be worse.
Nico’s smile softens. Her steps slow the closer we creep to the main staircase and I realize she’s matching my pace. “Quinn’s got more walls up than he lets on. But Zen thinks you’re okay. And Keeley’s rocking a pretty decent-sized crush on you.”
She gives up on the pretense of us walking and leans against the wall of the wide hallway.
“Oh yeah?” I say as I lower a hand to my hip. The other, I raise. I press my palm against the wallpaper, close enough for the edge of my thumb to stroke Nico’s jaw if I wanted. Already, my heart’s beating double time.
Nico’s tongue slips between her lips to wet them as she tilts her head up and toward me. When she speaks, her voice is a rough whisper. “She might not be the only one.”
Her eyes close. It’s an invitation.
Half a heartbeat later, I’m clamping my hand over her mouth, my blade feathering shallow cuts into the skin of her neck. “Make a noise and I’ll slit your throat,” I promise her.
She freezes. I expected a fight. I expected the excuse to kill her. Without it, I don’t know what to do.
For a split second, I consider leading her
into the room where they’re holding Allie, but these floors are old and creaky. If Nico and I are hooking up, we’re not going to be screwing around in front of the prisoner when there are plenty of empty rooms. “Move along the wall to your left,” I tell her. “We’re—”
Under my palm, Nico draws a breath to scream.
My blade silences any cry for help. Her last exhale mutates into a gurgle, her eyes widening as if she can’t quite believe this really happened; as if this whole thing—my knife, the threat—was a twisted sort of game between the two of us until it wasn’t.
It’s instinct when my hand moves from her lips to the parting gash across her neck, the flesh too stunned to gush until my touch unleashes a burbling torrent.
“Oh, God, Nico,” I whisper, dragging her through the doorway into a room before the blood can leave a trail. The less gore, the longer it’ll take for her to be discovered. My hands are slick as I lower Nico to the dusty floor. She’s still watching me, her blinks stunned and slow. I scoot to avoid the spread of the dark puddle underneath her as her lips form a surprised o, then peel back into a grimace. She reaches for me, begging for help I don’t offer before the blood bubble pop of my name gapes her mouth and she stills.
Nico’s death isn’t final, not yet because Allie could fix this. The weird disconnect of that knowledge keeps me moving. We have hours where Nico’s death could be reversed, dangerous hours where East will do anything to get to Allie’s blood and save his sister. I have to get Allie out of here.
I steal the key and then I remember Nico took Allie’s phone. DNA and evidence might matter. Until I know for sure, I’ve at least gotta get Allie’s phone back.
“Damn it,” I whisper as I give Nico’s hip a hard shove and roll her just enough to snag the phone. Her deadweight drops again the second I lift my touch free of her.
When I head into the light of the hall, I see my blood-covered fingers, more red smeared across my arms. At least my shirt is dark enough to hide the stains. Allie’s phone is slick. I shove it into my pocket and make a quick sweep of the hallway before I jet across it. At every creak of the floorboards, I picture one of the other hunters weighing their need to investigate with the fear of Nico’s wrath at being interrupted.
The clock is ticking.
Allie
As soon as my captors leave, I drop the docile act and go to work unraveling my bracelet, but with my fingers bent at odd angles, untying the knots is taking ages. I switch tactics and contort my body, nudging my bound wrists over the rise of my butt. After that, it’s easy to slide my legs through the hoop of my arms until my hands, while still secured together, are at least in front of me and usable to some extent.
My wrists burn where the cable ties have cut into the fragile skin.
“Come on,” I plead.
Using my teeth, I rip at the knots and the woven bracelet comes undone. Now, instead of an accessory, I’ve got six feet of paracord.
I wiggle my fingers to urge some feeling into them and tie a loop around the toe of my left shoe. With the tip of my thumb, I jab the free end of the paracord through the zip ties and use my teeth to yank the slack. I wrap another loop around my right shoe.
“Faster,” I mumble to myself. I bicycle my legs, frantic, and the paracord saws violently across the plastic. I bite down on my moan of relief as the friction cuts through first one zip tie, then the second. Massaging my sore wrists, I kick off the loops of paracord.
Not only am I free, I think as I draw one of the sharpened sticks holding my bun in place, I’m armed.
I wasn’t faking my fear at the mention of the Doctor. I’m not sure it’s a bluff, but if it is, how could the hunters know about him? The Doctor is the exact sort of mad geneticist my parents warned me about if I told our secrets, but he’s always been more urban legend than threat; the resurrectionist version of Bloody Mary. Even at eighteen though, I’m not saying Bloody Mary’s name into dark mirrors, and I’m definitely not sticking around to discover if the Doctor crawled free of my childhood nightmares.
I should run down the stairs I came up, slide through the side door, and never look back. Except the youngest of the hunters took my vial. If the Doctor gets hold of it, he could analyze what’s in it and make an antidote. We’ll have no way to protect the blood.
I take an extra second to rub my wrists where the cuts are the worst and admit to myself why I’m stalling.
Christopher is downstairs. I can’t leave him.
They’ve caught him in lies. The curses I spat at him while Nico tethered me felt over the top and too late. If I go missing and the bounty evaporates, he’ll suffer the punishment.
Okay, I tell myself. No part of my plan has changed. Isolate each of the hunters and kill them off one by one. Christopher and I can get free of here and I’ll warn him about Talia, and then we can go our separate ways. We’ll be square.
A key rattles in the lock. There’s no time to hide, so I hold the hair stick in front of me like a shiv. The door opens. Christopher slithers through and closes it behind him before he stands facing the hallway without looking at me, his forehead pressed against the wood. When he raises his hands to either side of him on the door, his knuckles are blood crusted. Thick smears drip down his arms.
“You’re hurt!” I’m on my feet and almost to him before he rotates to catch me. His hold tightens until it’s painful. Whatever happened to him in the five minutes I spent in here alone, something’s very wrong. “It’s not your blood,” I say as I lean away from him.
There’s too much unsaid between us for the look to last long. He’s the first to break contact. “Figured you could use a rescue,” he says. As he moves out of my embrace, his fingers graze my wrists. “Should have known better.”
“I’m getting to be an expert at escaping,” I joke, but the humor falls flat. All I can think about is our fight, the terrible things I said. Does he know I did it to protect him?
“This Doctor guy who’s on his way, he’s bad news, isn’t he?”
I muster up a nod.
“We’ve got to get you out of here then,” Christopher says. “He’s not getting more resurrectionist blood.” He pauses when he catches sight of my expression. “Right?”
I’m momentarily taken aback. He knows what matters to me. He understands it’s not just my life at stake and the brutal consequences to my kind if I fail.
“I’m sorry,” I blurt, overcome. “I freaked last night. I was wrong, and I was mean and I was selfish and I don’t know how to do thi—”
His kiss cuts off my apology before he knocks his forehead lightly against mine. His brown eyes bore into me. “I love you,” he says.
“What?” The word comes out of me a confused sort of warning, not a proper question. I expect him to freeze, or rethink, or retreat the way he’s always done in the past.
“I love you,” he says again. “I should have told you when I knew. I should have told you the night Jamison killed Brandon.”
A tiny noise of disbelief breaks from me before I can stop it. Impossible. Could he love me so long and not say anything?
“I was a coward,” he says. “I kept waiting to be good enough for you, to change into the person you seem to see. I can’t wait anymore, Allie. I’m afraid I’ll die without ever getting to tell you how much I love you.” He glances around the derelict room. “Even though this isn’t the perfect moment, or the perfect place.”
Despite the gore, I lean into his touch before I can help myself. We weren’t supposed to have more of these moments. I want to tell him I was wrong, and I love him, too, and he’s all I’ve ever wanted for myself. Except the things I love end up buried. End up burned. End up charred remains I have to sift through rubble to find.
“I’m not going to be perfect. I wouldn’t know how to start.” His voice breaks. He swallows before he can get the last words out. “But I’ll try so hard,” he whispers, and this time the room blurs as I turn from him to hide my face.
His touch urges my gaze back
to him. When he goes on, his voice trembles with gravity. “Whatever you want me to do, I’ll do it. I swear to God I’ll never keep anything from you again.” His next sentence is so quiet, I almost miss it. “There’s only you, Allie.”
The knot inside me tightens. I don’t love him. I don’t. I can’t.
“Say something.” His words are part hope, part prayer.
These seconds are costing us. We could escape and instead we’re spilling our hearts in ways too dangerous to not have consequences.
“Don’t you ever,” I snarl and his eyes widen. “Ever think I only kept you around because you were useful to me. Not before. Not now.” I’m done fighting this. His jaw in my hands, I drop a kiss on the tip of his nose. “I sent you away because I didn’t want you hurt. And I kept you close for so long because I love you, too.”
It’s a dare to the universe. Happiness is a jinx. Love, only a trap set to spring, crush me with a broken heart. But not now. Not yet.
Not with him.
Our fingers lace together, the grip we have on each other unbreakable. “Let’s get the hell out of here,” I say, and his grin blows wide before he catches himself and it fades.
“I killed Nico,” he says. “It happened so fast and—”
She must be the source of the blood on his hands. The rush of adrenaline from our confessions dims with the knowledge of what it’s going to take for both of us to escape alive. “Four left then,” I say.
Something I don’t want to believe is regret passes through his expression before he nods. “East will be the worst of them. Keeley’s the least threatening,” he says. “Quinn and Zen… I’m not sure what weapons they have, how well they can fight.”
“You’re wrong about Keeley,” I tell him. “That kid’s dangerous.”
“Plan?” he asks.
“Nico?” a sudden voice calls from what sounds like downstairs, muffled by the door.
We’re out of time.
We could break for those narrow stairs and hope we make it, but if East has a gun, we’ll be sitting ducks in the stairwell. I’m who they want, and it doesn’t matter if I’m taken alive. Whether or not they find Nico’s body, it’ll be obvious Christopher isn’t on their team anymore.
Something Grave: The Resurrectionists Series book two Page 22
