“Because I’m awesome.” I cocked an eyebrow at him.
Quinn whistled through his teeth and dropped my hands. “You’re something else.”
“Damn right.”I just wish I knew what that something elsewas.“I know this is hard for you, but can you hold on to your sanity a little longer? We need to see what’s inside.”
“Yeah. Okay.” The lack of a witty retort showed just how rattled Quinn was. He pulled himself to his feet and shoved up the roller door. Behind us, the rats skittered and squeaked amongst themselves. Behind the door was another vast room, and I had to send up a flame from my palm to penetrate the darkness. Quinn let out a strangled cry, but he didn’t leave my side.
It was an old weight room, but it had a new purpose. Dusty workout equipment had been pushed against the walls to make way for a long stainless steel table littered with lab equipment. I recognized some of the machines from Gail’s laboratory. Racks of test tubes lined a rack that once held hand weights, and power cables snaked across the floor. Dry ice curled from beneath a door labeled ‘sauna.’
We found Ms. West’s lab.
In the corner, chained to a squat rack, was a slumped, shadowy figure. A flash of dirty-blond hair peeked out from a torn and bloody face.
“Greg!” I raced over and dropped to my knees, grabbing his chin and pulling his head into the light. It was him. His eyes lolled in his head, and his tongue hung out the side of his mouth. Blood caked under his fingers, and his usually bright hair was streaked with dirt and clinging to his face in matted clumps.
“Greg, can you hear me?” I slapped his cheeks, but all that elicited was a low groan.
“Hazy, look.” Quinn knelt on the other side of the squat rack, cradling something in his hands. I held the flame closer to him and realized it was another body. He turned the head toward me, and a curtain of dark hair fell away to reveal another familiar face.
Zehra.
Chapter Twenty-Seven
“Shit.” My eyes met Quinn’s – my fear reflected in his blue orbs. He tried to shake Zehra awake, but she was even more out-of-it than Greg.
Zehra’s here! But is she alive? Please let them both be alive.
“How come she’s here?” he whispered. “I thought you said she was dead.”
I shook my head. “I never saw her body. I just assumed because of the cave-in and she never showed up to meet me, and the Eldritch Club got hold of my phone… but now that I know she’s here, it makes me think that cave-in wasn’t an accident. When they saw my text, they would know exactly where she was meeting me. I think they made the god’s shadow servants move the rocks so it would collapse the cave on her so that I couldn’t tell her what I knew. Then they dragged her out through the god’s cavern and brought her here.”
I didn’t have to ask why. I knew. They needed Ayaz to lie to me, they needed him to complete the illusion so I believed I was crazy. They drugged him to erase his memory of me, but even that wasn’t enough to make him agree to it, so they used his sister as leverage.
So much of this didn’t make sense. From what Ms. West was saying in the gym, she hadn’t wanted to send me away, but then why did she cooperate with Vincent’s plan? I didn’t have time to consider it further, because Greg groaned and opened one eye.
“Haze…” he murmured.
“Greg, hey.” I cupped his face in my hands. His skin felt cold, clammy. Both he and Zehra’s chains had been loosely tied so they could move their arms and legs, even stand up, but they couldn’t step more than a foot in any direction. Dog bowls beside him held water and some kind of dried food. “We’re going to get you out of here, okay? I won’t let Ms. West hurt you anymore.”
Greg lifted his chin. “The rats… you have to know…”
“It’s a long story, but don’t worry about them. They’re sort of our friends.”
“I know,” Greg whispered. His chains clanged as he pointed a shaking finger across the room, where the rats lined up along the wall and started jumping in unison. “They… visit me. Good… company. But that’s not what I meant… look.”
I followed his finger. The rats lined up along the wall, standing on their hind legs and scraping their claws against the wood, leaving thin marks. They must’ve done it a hundred times before, because there was already a line of scratches running along the edge of the wall…
Wait a second…
I dropped Greg’s arm and crawled toward the wall. The rats parted ways, scampering under the gym equipment to give me a view of the scratches. I ran my hand over the wall, feeling the deep cuts where the rats had dug in with their claws.
These weren’t just random claw marks.
They scratchedwordsinto the wall.
No, not words.Names.
Bridget Bishop. Sarah Good. Susannah Martin. Sarah Wildes. Elizabeth Howe…
