Back meant back toward Ethan Todd, back toward his twisted plan to put me to work with the other girls in his trafficking operation.
I didn’t know what forward meant. Escape? Death?
Maybe Todd and his flunkies would hurt themselves in the tunnels. Maybe I still believed the Butchers would come for mein time. All I knew was that if I let myself fall into Todd’s hands, I was screwed, and that meant I had to play his game.
The temperature dropped by ten degrees when I reached the bottom of the stairs, and I walked past the rusted skeleton of another iron gate. Whatever — or whoever — had been held in this lower level had been extra secure, locked in by the iron doors at both the top and bottom of the stairs.
It was darker down here, but I wasn’t afraid of the dark anymore. I thought about the first Hunt under Blackwell Falls, how the darkness had hit me like a physical thing, how it had almost immobilized me.
I wasn’t that girl anymore. I’d been hunted by three men who’d captured more than my body.
Three men whowerethe dark.
I’d been strung up, stripped by Ethan Todd, Anton, and Mr. Skinny.
I’d had my heart broken in ways I’d never thought possible, had it put back together again by a man most of the world would consider a monster. I’d been kidnapped, taken somewhere far from my family and the life that had once been mine. I’d been held prisoner underground, had been treated like an animal.
I wasn’t afraid of the dark anymore.
Now I claimed it as mine.
The tunnel continued at the bottom of the stairs, but I was only a few feet past the staircase when I spotted another coiled object on the floor. At first I thought it was another chain, but when I bent to inspect it, I saw that it was a thick, heavy rope. It was frayed and slimy, and I dragged it back to the stairs, looking for a way to string it across the treads.
It took me longer than I would have liked to tie it to the remnants of the iron gate at the bottom of the stairs, but in the process I noticed that one of the iron bars was loose.
I set down the glass bottle and maneuvered the bar back and forth, praying to anyone who would listen that it would break loose, then gasped with surprise when it came free in my hand.
Now I had three weapons.
I couldn’t find anything to secure the chain to the other side of the staircase, so I pulled it as tight as I could and left it there, hoping it would be enough to trip Todd or one of the other guys.
Then I picked up the glass bottle and the iron bar — heavier than it looked — and moved deeper into the tunnel at the bottom of the stairs.
Deeper into the dark that was mine.
12
REMY
The castle was spooky.It wasn’t just the massive rooms, the stone floors, and the mildew that was visible on some of the walls. It was fucking desolate, made even more creepy by the fact that most of the rooms were cold and dark, furniture shrouded in white cloths scattered around like ghosts.
I thought we’d made a mistake at first. Thought maybe Ethan Todd wasn’t here at all, but then I remembered the Rover parked outside and knew someone was here somewhere.
And Maeve was here too. I didn’t need evidence of her to know that: I could feel her.
I had to force myself to check the frustration that filled my body like a rising tide while we moved through the unoccupied rooms. The place was huge, and we were burning time, but we needed to make sure the place was clear, make sure we wouldn’t be ambushed from behind as we moved deeper into the old castle.
“Who would want to own a place like this anyway,” I said as we moved toward the back of the ground floor. It was cold and smelled like mold.
“Someone who might need a place to hide.” Bram’s masked face was as familiar to me as his unmasked one, but it occurred to me that he would make a terrifying image to anyone else who came across him.
“It’s warmer here,” Poe said as we moved down a long hall.
Doors were open on either side, giving us glimpses into cavernous rooms — all of them empty — with more shrouded furniture.
“I think you’re right,” I said, as the frigid cold eased.
We found the source of the warmth in a room at the end of the hall. It was wood paneled and well furnished, two old sofas and several upholstered wood-framed chairs with high backs scattered throughout the room.
