“See?”Piney said.“Princess carry.Real romantic.”
“Shut up,” I muttered.
McKayla looked between the two of us.“Are all of you this annoying?”
“Yes,” Anchor answered immediately.
Prime nodded once.“Pretty much.”
“Good to know.”
I adjusted her carefully against my chest and headed for the metal door.
Prime and Piney followed behind us while Anchor stayed back to deal with the body situation still waiting down near the dock.
That was the fucked-up part.
A dead body should’ve been the biggest problem tonight.
Everything had gotten twisted sideways the second she hit the ground.
The tunnel beyond the steel door stretched long beneath the island, concrete walls damp from years of lake moisture settling into the underground passageways.Industrial lights buzzed overhead every few feet, casting yellow pools of light across the floor.
McKayla stayed quiet for a minute while I carried her through the tunnels.
Probably taking everything in.Probably realizing this situation was real.
Then she looked up at me.“You people seriously have underground tunnels beneath a haunted island.”
“Yep.”
“That’s incredibly sketchy.”
“Probably.”
She sighed dramatically.“This is exactly how people end up in documentaries.”
Piney barked out a laugh behind us.
Prime shook his head.“You hit your head and somehow got funnier.”
“I cope through sarcasm,” she informed him.
“Clearly.”
I glanced down at her.
Even exhausted and concussed, she kept looking around like she was cataloging exits and details automatically.Her PI instincts hadn’t shut off completely.
Smart, dangerous, and a little impressive.
“You okay?”I asked.
Her eyes flicked up to mine, surprised enough by the question that it almost made me regret asking it.“My head feels like someone hit it with a baseball bat.”
“That’s because you cracked it on a rock.”
“Again with the comforting bedside manner.”
