I could barely open my eyes enough to see I was still in the warehouse. Everything hurt, so goddamn much. I didn’t feel this awful last time I opened my eyes.
Maybe this would be the end of me. With Winder, I had wished for a time machine, and maybe this was my wish coming true, wrapped up in burlap and chains.
Sleep was overpowering me again, and somewhere in the distance I could hear someone yelling about overdosages. They must have meant me.
It would be so easy to take advantage of their fuck-up, to slip away, to just float on the soft blackness that surrounded me. I could close my eyes and never wake up. Death might ease my aching joints, bring back the things I’d lost. Except.
Except Winder. Winder believed in me, even when I didn’t. When I couldn’t remember, he carried the memories for me. He shouldered the weight, and only ever showed me love. If I gave up now, he’d have to carry that burden as well.
I couldn’t give up. I owed it to Winder. I owed it tomyself. After everything, I couldn’t let my brain be my downfall. I couldn’t make it easy for Conrad.
I could bend, and I could crack, but I couldn’t break. Not yet, not now.
I needed to believe in myself like Winder did.
The urge to close my eyes and fade away was so strong. But I couldn’t.
I wouldn’t.
My hand weighed half a ton, and lifting it took all my energy, but I did it anyway. One hand, then the other, until I was on my hands and knees.
Memories or no, I’d finish this. Conrad fucked up when he tracked me, took me, drugged me. He wouldn’t get the satisfaction of watching my last breath, or hearing me cry out, begging for my life.
You couldn’t kill someone who had already come back from the grave.
Chapter
Thirty-Two
WINDER
My Blaire was tough as nails, but I wished she didn’t have to be. I promised her I would take care of her, and I was going to follow through on my promise. I would make every single one of them pay, and happily watch them suffer, just for taking her away from me.
She deserved better. Hell, she deserved better than any of this—especially me.
I flipped through her dream journal, the only clue I had left of where to find her. The warehouse, parties, all of it seemed too obvious as to where they were keeping her. Besides, there was no way the warehouse he used all those years ago would be the same one. Time wasn’t on my side, and I didn’t have the luxury of making the wrong decision. I couldn’t imagine they were keeping her holed up in some random house, or that Conrad would deign to visit such a location if he didn’t absolutely have to.
I pressed my fingertips into my eyes, trying to make an image that wasn’t there appear. Adam said Conrad had a room at Circuit. Circuit sounded so familiar, but it wasn’t a club I had ever visited, so I couldn’t place it. Would Conrad really have taken her to a club, though?
Fuck. I was losing my mind. I needed her back with me, by my side. I needed to see her smile at me when she woke up in the morning, and to whisper that she loved me when she thought I was sleeping. I spent a decade thinking I’d lost her and the chance she would ever be mine. Now that she was, I would burn the entire fucking city down to get her back. Ten long years, and my soul came down to a single thought, a single reason for my heart to beat.
Blaire.
I closed my eyes, thinking through the locations she had written down again, but all that stuck out in my mind was Circuit. Why was I so stuck on this goddamn club?
The image of a flyer floated through my mind—a promotional piece announcing the opening of a new club. It boasted live music, and a secluded location.
Circuit.
Down by the river, in a converted warehouse.
My eyes flew open. It couldn’t be that simple, could it? I paced my room, fisting my hands into my hair. If I was wrong, Blaire’s life was on the line. I couldn’t afford to be wrong.
But my gut was telling me I was right.
I allowed myself three breaths.
One. The location added up, and everything connected with Blaire’s dreams.
