far too much effort into it already."
Ethan looked at me, seeming so surprised that he didn't even appear angry over me talking to him like that.
"You're saying I get to go home?" he asked, desperation flaring in his eyes and for some reason I rested a hand on his shoulder.
"If you help us get out of here, you can go wherever the fuck you like, Shadowbrook."
I glanced at Rosa, finding her gaze now glued to Ethan and some deep emotion was peeking out from behind her eyes as she waited for his answer.
"I'm in," Ethan growled with a firm nod. "What do you want me to do?"
M y heart was pounding and adrenaline was crashing through my limbs. This was it. No going back. The people in this room were officially my new best friends even if I did happen to hate three of them. It didn't matter, because from now until we were breathing the fresh air of the free, the ten of us were bound together like glue.
Sonny, Esme and Brett were all giggling excitedly as they began stripping books from the designated shelves for today and using the checklist we'd been given to box up the redundant stock. I'd already sworn them to secrecy in the Magic Compound when I'd made my choice for them to come with us, making them promise not to reveal the secret I gave up in here to anyone so I'd know if they betrayed us, but I wasn't really concerned about that at all.
Roary planned on making a similar oath with Claud the next time they were in the compound, and the two of them were talking in low tones as they started the job of hauling the newly emptying shelves away from the walls so that they could begin on the paint work. We’d be making Plunger, Ethan and Pudding swear to that the next time we were up there too. And Gustard if we could manage it, though I was willing to bet that slippery eel would find a way not to comply.
We’d spent the last half hour designating jobs with most of the team taking on the actual renovation work to cover the reality of what we were up to. I’d been seriously relieved when Pudding had told me he’d assumed he’d made the list because of his talent for building communication devices out of the chips in the old pudding pots, and now realised he totally should have anyway.
He’d agreed to get his brother to deliver receivers to the family members of our team so that everyone could make arrangements for when they got out of here without having to risk talking to anyone over the phone or in visitation where the guards would be paying attention. He was going to get one to Jerome too, the Fae who had paid me to get Sin out of here and who was vital to the final stages of my plan coming together so that we could hold off the FIB for as long as possible. All I had to do was make sure my Wolves kept getting him the chips and he’d be able to make enough transmitters for us to talk to everyone on the outside often enough to be sure their end of the plan was coming together too. Ethan had even agreed to get his Wolves gathering chips the moment Roary said he would get the Shades doing it, and Gustard reluctantly said he would get the Watchers on the case as well. With that many chips, Pudding would be all set to make as many transmitters as we needed so long as we all remained subtle about bringing them to him.
We’d selected a darkened corner of the library to start digging our tunnel, moving a bookshelf aside and giving Plunger a small dose of the antidote which would be enough to last him the two hours we had down here while saving the rest of the syringe for another day. We needed to ration it, but as the dose was enough to cover the guards for twenty-four hours we should have plenty with the three Roary had managed to steal.
Sin had volunteered to stay with Plunger in the tunnel and keep an eye on him and I was seriously grateful for that because Plunger on a normal day was too fucking much for me to handle, but Plunger in his shifted form was disturbing on a whole new level. I had literally never been