Finn coughs, or maybe he laughs, and says, “Okay enough.”
Which is as good as I think we’re going to get.
“What’s the plan here, Jo?” Sloane asks.
I look between them, these people I’ve risked everything to save. I look at the four walls they were destined to die between. And they are only the latest batch in a string of stolen kids. The newest cast of a two-decades-old horror movie.
So many souls were exchanged to keep one girl alive.
“I have an idea,” I say. And it’s not a great one, but I ran out of good ideas when I woke up strapped to a bed.
So I haul Finn toward the door, Sloane, Aisha, and Jasper behind me, and return to the girl who started all of this. Cecily Holden.
Forty-One
Sloane, Aisha, and Jasper breakoff into the storage room, looking for clothing better than the hospital gowns and pants they woke in. I’m the only one in regular clothing, though a threadbare pair of leggings, a stolen hoodie, and no shoes is hardly helpful.
As hard as it is to walk away from them, logic reminds me that the faster we can get our ducks in a row, the faster we can find a way out. And if we do miraculously manage to convince Cecily to let us out—which is more unlikely by the second—no one is in proper shape for a barefoot jaunt through the elements.
Finn is worse off than the others, and though I try to leave him against the doorway outside Cecily’s room, he instantly starts sliding down the wall, eyes fluttering. I need him conscious; he may be thin, but he’s still taller than me, and I don’t trust myself to fireman’s-carry him anywhere. I hoist him back up.
“Sorry, sorry,” he mumbles. One of his hands has a tight grip on my shirt, his knuckles grazing my hip, and if we were anywhere else, if his hands weren’t alarmingly cold, it might give me butterflies. Right now, it exacerbates my already massive worry.
“Just try not to pass out on me, okay?”
“Doin’ my best, sweetheart,” he says.
I take a wavering breath and blink the dizziness out of my own eyes. I still feel a bit like I’m swimming, my head murky.
Inside the room, Cecily Holden has made surprising progress undoing her binds. One ankle is free, the shoe discarded a few feet away, and one of her wrist straps is loose; not loose enough yet, but a few more minutes and she’d likely have it. She has also managed to tip the bed all the way over onto its side, leaving her body straining against the leather straps. At our entrance, her efforts cease, and her head snaps our way. Her gaze flicks between Finn and me and settles back on Finn.
There is a recognition in her eyes, in the twist of her mouth and flare of her nostrils.
“Finn?” Cecily asks.
“Cecily,” Finn grinds out.
Cecily huffs. She’s clearly uncomfortable, hanging limp against her straps, and I’m inclined to leave her there, letting the circulation cut off in her limbs, powerless, like she’s left all of us.
“You really expect us to believe you didn’t know he was down here?” I ask. I have to swallow the urge to place my body in front of Finn’s, to hide him from anyone else who’d hurt him.
“I—I wondered. After he disappeared. But I don’t know any names, and I’ve never—”
“What, plausible deniability?” I snap. Her cheeks warm. It’s as much of a confirmation as I’m likely to get from her.
Finn, pressed to my side, is stiff.
Cecily opens her mouth to speak, but I interrupt her.
“Unless you’re giving us the code for the door at the top of the stairs, I don’t want to hear it,” I say.
Cecily looks to Finn, presumably for help, but he’s looking at me. “I can’t,” Cecily says eventually. “If you all get out—”
“You go to jail,” I say. She’s a couple years older than Finn and Nora, who recently turned eighteen. In a court of law, she’s an accomplice.
“I’ll die,” Cecily cries.
Finn’s hand closes around my arm, thumb tracing a line up my bicep.
