Jester’s waiting at the door. “Yo, I don’t know what the fuck happened, Wraith. I came downstairs, and she was gone. No struggle. Nothing. Only this.”
He hands me a folded piece of paper.
Just you.
Scrawled bold as you fucking please in a man’s handwriting.
I storm past Jester. “Where was it?”
Jester follows me in the house. “On the kitchen table.” He jabs his hands in his pockets. “Fuck, man. They were right here. Right fucking here, and I didn’t hear them. I’m so sorry.”
“It’s not your fault.” I look around for something.Anything.But there’s nothing. No signs of a struggle. Nothing but empty space where Jamie should be. Silence where I should hear her voice. No smell where her summery aroma would be. “She knew who took her.”
“Okay, but who? Could have been anyone. A friend. Family—”
“Only family she has, she wouldn’t trust,” I say, cutting him off. “Other than who she knows here, she has only two friends. Roger stayed behind in Gomorrah. And Thomas…”
I let the sentence trail off as my blood turns to sludge, oozing through my veins. Each heartbeat is a slam against my sternum as fragments of my conversations with Thomas come back to me. It was a mostly one-sided discussion during my recovery after that last torture session, with him telling me how after Jamie married Crane, she set up a charity to funnel money to him and Roger. That money got them off the streets. It’s also how she kept in contact with them. How, if it hadn’t been for her, Thomas wouldn’t have met his wife. He wouldn’t have his daughter.
I fist my hands, needing to make that motherfucker bleed. “I’ll bet my right nut Thomas took Jamie.”
“No fucking way.” Jester paces the kitchen. “He helped you guys get out.”
I grip the counter, rage battling the monster for space inside my head. “Who else, Jester? There’s not a soul in Mayhem who’d flip. But a desperate man who needs to protect his kid? Yeah. That man would sacrifice anything to save his daughter, even when he knows the kid’s going to die anyway because the devil has no mercy.”
“All right, we got shit to do, so let’s get it done.” Jester’s already in motion. “Go pack a bag. Take a shit. Do whatever you gotta do, because we got to go murder some motherfuckers, and bring our girl home.”
I don’t miss theourin that sentence.
Jamie is family. She’s Mayhem. And she’s coming home.
Put a period on the end of that.
Problem is, there are a lot of hours separating now and when we get to Gomorrah. Gives that sadistic sonofabitch too much time to hurt her, and my stretch as his prisoner taught me that Crane is inventive when it comes to pain. I swore the world would have to go through me to get to her, but I already failed her because all it took was a knock on the door for Crane to snatch her right out from under me.
And now she’s in hell alone.
But I’m coming for her—and I’m bringing a reckoning with me.
23
Jamie
The echo of heavy footsteps bang against concrete. I bolt upright on the mattress after drifting in and out of sleep for God knows how long. My brain and body struggle to catch up with each other after being drugged and dragged from Pennsylvania to Florida, and I fight back nausea as I peer through the murky light.
The hum of the flickering fluorescent bulb truly is a special torment in this otherwise silent, claustrophobic prison.
Hunger gnaws at me, bringing back a familiar void from when I was homeless and my meals were few and far between. But if David thinks he’s frightening me by depriving me of food, he’s underestimated me.Again.He believes I’m weak. Wraith thinks I’m strong. The reality is, I’m somewhere between both. Not quite fearless but too durable to crumble.
Thirst turned my mouth to sand hours ago, and after I realized the sink-toilet combo didn’t work, I learned the extent of David’s subtle deviousness. Already I want to claw at the wall in a desperate attempt at freedom. I honestly don’t know how Wraith lasted and did it with his sanity—and humanity—intact.
He once remarked how time stood still in the dungeon. He wasn’t wrong. I don’t know if I’ve been here for an hour or a day. God, how could I have been so stupid? I should have realized I’d been set up the moment I saw Thomas. But shock won over sense, and before I could stop myself, I threw open the door, and I was in Thomas’s arms, hugging my friend in relief that he was alive and in Mayhem. My mind had a moment to register the pinch of the needle before I sank into an abyss. I woke up in Wraith’s cell with no memory of the plane ride that brought me back to Gomorrah. Nor have I seen David or a guard since I’ve been here.
I keep assuring myself that Wraith will know I didn’t leave on my own volition. That I didn’t panic and run. He’ll come for me, and when he does, he’ll have the Unholy with him. My husband may be cruel. Evil, even. But he’s not a force of nature. The Unholy are a storm, and they will decimate Gomorrah, and David along with it.
Angry muffled voices resonate from the Hub. Sweating, I slide to the edge of the metal bed frame, my bare toes grazing the floor. My jeans and long-sleeved, boho-style shirt are ideal for an autumn Pennsylvania day. Not for the sweltering dungeon heat. I was waiting for Jester to finish his shower so he could to drive me to Sanctum. Ava, Tempest, and Sadie were already there preparing lunch while the men loaded the trucks with enough weaponry to level a small city. But Thomas ambushed me, and well, here I am, shoeless and alone, and at the unmistakable rattle of keys, I swear to God, my heart feels like it’s going to beat right out of my chest.
I can’t regulate my breathing, and I grasp for a calm that’s out of reach when the lock clicks and turns. Rusted hinges creak. I’m lightheaded and numb because I know exactly who will walk through the door.
