as if there’s still some chance it will magically change and Atticus Crawford, the man I’ve spent the majority of my life in love with, hasn’t been plotting out the deaths of my family, but there’s no changing the facts of what’s right before my eyes.
Ash is on that board.
Harley. Lips. Blaise. Every last person that I love more than anything is staring back at me. Aodhan makes sense to me, if anyone wanted my lover dead it would be Atticus. The rage he’d snarled at me in the storage room when he’d found out I wasn’t a virgin had shown his hand a little more than he probably wanted to.
Ash is on the board.
There’s a groan behind me again and I remember that there’s a man chained and starving behind the glass there. Jesus H. Christ, I need to get the hell out of here and find my head before I lose myself in the panic at once again having my entire world torn down around me by Atticus Crawford. The Crow of Mounts Bay, the rule follower, the man who built his entire empire by the book and who abhors the dark and dirty parts of the world he’s taken control of.
Plotting out the death of the Wolf and her family is not by any goddamn book.
There’s another groan, this one loud enough to startle me out of the processing haze I’ve gone into while trying to figure out exactly what the fuck is going on. I take some very quick, but very careful, photos of the murder board and what little of the man I can see with his back turned on me through the glass, and then I take to the stairs as quickly as I can.
They’re just as steep and narrow on the way up as they were on the way down.
This was not how I planned on getting back into my cardio routine, but I’m still in impeccable shape, so I only really have to worry about watching my step and not falling down the severe incline. Breaking a leg or my freaking neck wouldn’t do any of us any good.
Only Jackson has some kind of a clue about where I am, and I’m not sure he’d send help with all of the threats I’ve been sending his way. Illi would probably beat the truth out of him, but by the time he’d figured out that lead, I could be dead.
Or worse.
I might need to send the creepy asshole hacker a muffin basket or something just to be sure he’d send out the cavalry for me if this type of thing happens again.
It occurs to me that I might be panicking, just a little, but at least it’s keeping my mind busy while I make it up the godforsaken steps and into the dark tunnel again.
I call Aodhan the second I have a signal on my phone.
I desperately want to call Ash, but even in my panic I know that it’ll only make things worse, and this… situation cannot possibly handle anything worse.
Aodhan picks up, his voice drenched in worry without having any of the gory details yet. “Queenie? Why is the line so bad? Where the fuck are you?”
I take a deep breath and force my voice to stay calm and even. “Are you done with… whatever you needed to look into? I need a pickup. Now.”
“What’s happened? What the fuck has that asshole done this time?” Aodhan snarls, and I would get pissy at him for jumping to conclusions, but… I’m too busy trying not to peel my own skin off in disgust over the state of whoever the hell is chained up back down the stairs. Every time I blink, I can see the bones sticking out from under his skin.
“I need you to get Jack to pick me up. It’s either that or I’m calling a cab and risking it. I… I found something. I found something, and I need to get out of here right the hell now.”
I know I sound shrill and panicked, but I don’t think Aodhan has ever really heard me like this before. He’s heard a lot of different things come out of me but freaking the hell out over my entire life being a lie is not one of them.
“The same place he grabbed you earlier? Done, he’s on his way now. Do you need me to come back, Queenie? Fuck it, I’m coming now.”