I nodded because he was right. I wasn’t sure about a jet, but we definitely needed more security. We needed an exit plan to get Maeve out if things went sideways, a hideaway somewhere, like the loaned apartment in Romania, somewhere we could send Maeve if things got bad in Blackwell Falls.
And we needed to make sure Maeve was taken care of if something happened to us too. Make sure she would never have to worry about money or a place to live.
“Happy Birthday by the way,” I said to Bram.
He pulled out his phone, looked at the screen, and put it back in his pocket. “Thanks.”
We sat in silence for a minute. I knew we were all thinking about Maeve, about how different things would have been if we were at home on Bram’s birthday. Maeve would have gotten him presents and made us get him presents too. She would have made him his favorite dinner — a steak as big as his face and garlic mashed potatoes and homemade rolls because in Bram’s opinion you could never have too much meat or too many carbs — and a birthday cake.
She would have made us sing to the fucker, and even though Poe and I would have grumbled about it, we would have been secretly happy we were doing it. We would have been happy because Maeve had pulled us all into the land of the living without even realizing it.
Poe’s phone buzzed and he picked it up off the table, then sat up straighter.
“What?” Bram said.
“It’s Nolan. They think they found Todd.”
5
MAEVE
I wokeup to the clang of the outer gate echoing down the hall. My underground cell was like a sensory deprivation tank, dark except for the stark white light that leaked in from the stone hall, silent except for the buzz of the lights.
The lack of stimulus had made me hypersensitive to movement from the mice that occasionally ventured into my cell, to any sound other than their scurrying in the shadows and the light’s white noise.
But now someone was coming, and I sat up with my back against the stone wall and willed my mind to clear the remnants of a dream — the Butchers and I walking through the woods, Remy holding one hand and Poe the other while Bram stalked a path through the brush in front of us.
I only got two meals a day, and I needed to be clearheaded when Mr. Skinny came to deliver my tray and — humiliatingly — to empty the bucket I used as a toilet.
I wasn’t exactly appealing — I was in the same velour tracksuit and long-sleeve T-shirt I’d been in when I’d been taken — but he was starting to crack. Nothing earth-shattering hadhappened, but he’d gotten nicer, and he’d told me I could call him Jack even though that probably wasn’t his real name.
Also, I knew he had a sister because I’d asked how he would feel if his sister was being held prisoner in an underground cell, and he’d said, “My sister’s a whore.”
The footsteps outside my cell grew louder and I prepared to greet Mr. Skinny calmly. I’d thank him for the food (it was always a sandwich, sometimes peanut butter and sometimes just cheese), tell him his company was the only bright spot in my day if I could get away with it without sounding manipulative.
Except as the footsteps came closer, I realized they belonged to more than one person, and when two figures came into view on the other side of the bars that separated my cell from the stone hall, I saw that Mr. Skinny wasn’t there at all.
It was Meathead and Ethan Todd.
My heart beat like an overactive drum, adrenaline flooding my body as Meathead unlocked the iron door to my cell. He stepped inside with Todd and my mind went into overdrive trying to make sense of the mental noise: June and the videos of Ethan Todd that were embedded in my psyche and the memory of being chained in the tunnels under Blackwell Falls and Ethan Todd’s face in the moments before I’d lost consciousness outside the loft with Ray.
It was all there, all part of my fucked-up connection to Ethan Todd.
Now it seemed impossible that I hadn’t known he was the man who ordered Meathead and Mr. Skinny to strip me in the tunnels, even with the masks they’d been wearing. Todd’s hair was a mousy brown, and he was surprisingly short and lithe for a man who did so much big talking about being an alpha. He was fit though, one of those guys who spent a lot of time in the gym and had tapped the potential of his genetic code even though no amount of gym time would make him taller or more muscular.
He had presence, the swagger of a guy who’d gotten his way long enough to believe it was his birthright.
He didn’t say anything until Meathead had locked the door behind them. The older, bigger man stood a few feet behind Ethan Todd and watched me with wary eyes. My nails weren’t particularly long, but they’d left bright scratches on his right cheek, and I was pretty sure his limp was more pronounced than it had been before I’d kicked him on my first day in the underground cell.
I felt a thrill at the knowledge that I’d hurt him.
“Good morning,” Ethan Todd said, folding his arms over his chest.
He wore jeans and a fitted T-shirt, the kind that probably cost as much as my rent in the apartment I’d shared with Bailey. I caught the scent of his expensive cologne and felt my stomach turn.
“Is it?” I had no idea what time of day it was but I knew it wasn’t agoodanything.
He smirked. “Of course. The sun is shining. The world is our oyster.”
