Chapter 47

CHAPTER FORTY-SEVEN

CAT

I couldn't scramble away from the door fast enough, gripping the metal gurney and scanning the green-lit room for any hint of where Virgil's distant voice could be coming from. "Cat? Please tell me that isn't you."

Bad idea, lioness, my darkness warned. Destroy the lab, shatter everything Nightmare has worked on, and wait for your husbands.

I ignored the voice, hope swelling in my chest until my heart felt it would burst. I'd done it. I'd finally found Virgil. Maybe Phil had been lying about not knowing where my brother was, because she'd led me right to him. Even if it was a trap, I didn't care. We'd figure out how to escape it together, because that was all that mattered—finally being together again. He'd never be alone again. I wouldn't let anyone hurt my brave, kind, stubborn older brother.

"Virgil?" I called, biting back a moan of pain when the pounding in my head thumped louder, pain driving deeper at the volume of my own voice.

"Get out of here, Cat," he snarled, his voice deeper, gruffer than I remembered. I paused for a second, the memory of how he looked during the video call so sharp in my mind. I wanted to find my brother the way he was a month ago, scowling and amused and healthy, but I had to prepare myself for what Nightmare had made him into.

I followed the sound of Virgil's voice towards the far wall, scanning for an entrance, a door, a vent—anything. The wall was solid grey brick, bare except for a bookcase cluttered with leather-bound volumes, small marble busts of people I didn't recognise, a porcelain phrenology head, and old microscopes. I hesitated, a trickle of ice moving through me. There was no way…

"Virgil?" I called, approaching the bookcase, my fingertips tracing the edges even as I scanned the contents of the shelves.

"You can't be here, Cat. Get out of here!"

"I'm not going anywhere," I argued, peering around the back of the bookcase. It was flush to the concrete wall, which was no help.

Well, there was nothing else for it. I gritted my teeth against a flare of dizziness and began moving busts to the closest metal gurney, dumping armfuls of books beside them until it was covered in a mountain of mess. I would have thrown them on the ground but I couldn't bring myself to damage the busts; they looked hundreds of years old.

"It's not safe for you back here," Virgil argued, hoarse and raspy but undeniably him. Relief was a weight crushing my chest. "Go find someone else to help."

If I ran for help, Nightmare would move him and I'd never see my brother again. It wasn't just paranoia that told me that; it was common sense. She'd led me here using Phil and probably Alastor. She wanted me to find Virgil, but she didn't actually want me to escape with him. She just wanted to torture me with how close I was to saving him. I knew there was a chance she waited behind this bookcase with my brother. I knew there was a chance she'd planned every action I'd taken tonight, but I couldn't quit when Virgil was so close.

I kept tearing books and paraphernalia off the shelves, a puff of air leaving me in a sharp burst when I reached for the phrenology head and instead of sliding off the shelf into my hands, the head cocked to the right.

Like something out of an adventure film, the bookcase swung open on a long corridor.

My heart pounded. Virgil was here, somewhere down this dark hallway. Nightmare was here, too. I couldn't sense her the way I usually could—a shudder of revulsion and fear at the top of my spine, a slow drip of panic in my bloodstream, and the need to run pinching every muscle in my legs—but I knew she was here. Why else lead me to this place? I was under no illusions that Phil had kidnapped me so I could save Virgil; her fear was clearly real, and there'd been no kindness in her motive. She chose herself over me. But Nightmare was the one pulling her strings, through whatever proxy blackmailed Phil.

Which brought me back to why. Why lead me here?

I cast around for a weapon and grabbed a scalpel from a metal dish, holding in front of me as I edged into the darkness, like a scalpel would threaten a goddess.

It took me three steps to realise it wasn't a hallway or an extension of the building where Phil had brought me; it was a tunnel, hewn of the earth and covered in rough bricks. It pressed on me until I shuddered, pain flashing through my pained shoulder. I didn't call out to Virgil again, too aware that this was a trap I walked into like a lamb to slaughter. I wouldn't give Nightmare a chance to place my location before I attacked her. The element of surprise was the only advantage I had.

No, that wasn't true. I also had Death's name. But everything Nightmare did was in the name of her feud with Death—everything helped her goal to murder him. There was no comfort in speaking his name. I'd just drag him into danger, too.

I strained my hearing as I took slow, measured steps through the tunnel, hard-packed dirt beneath my shoes. When I became aware of the swish of my arms against my leather jacket, I carefully slid it off my shoulders and left it on the ground, moving soundlessly ahead. My heart beat so hard I felt it against my ribs, and it drummed faster when something caught the light ahead—long, steel bars from floor to ceiling. A cell.

My stomach knotted. Horror made my body so numb that I barely felt the twinge through my ankle or the throb in my shoulder. My dizziness remained, and my head still pounded, but everything dulled like a blurring veil was thrown over my senses. Virgil was behind bars. Caged. I couldn't see him but I knew he was inside that cell.

I jumped when a howl echoed around the tunnel, and I flattened myself against the wall on instinct, sweat beading on my upper lip. But the howl came from outside; it must have reached the tunnel through an air vent. I struggled to convince my breathing to resume its regular schedule, and even when I took another few steps, I could barely gasp down a breath. What air I did take in tasted of dirt and rotting things and something acidic and chemical. Hairs rose on the back of my neck.

I wanted to call Virgil's name, but I couldn't give Nightmare any warning. In silence, I moved cautiously down the tunnel, forgetting to breathe every time the creature howled outside. At least the monster wasn't trapped in here with me. I didn't want to even acknowledge it but the monster being caged down here was the first thing I thought when I saw the bars.

You're fine, you're fine, I told myself, but it was nowhere near confident enough to slow my heart rate.

Turn back now, my darkness warned.

I sucked down a shuddering breath and forged on, ignoring the warnings of my instincts, hoping their violent encouragements would return when I needed them.

The bars were close enough now that I could see the cell behind it was empty. A breath whooshed out of me in relief and I managed to take a deeper inhale, filling my lungs. Virgil wasn't here. Maybe he was locked in a room at the end of this tunnel, not in one of the cages. Maybe he was—

I reached the end and my heart sank. There was enough light to see by thanks to emergency lights placed at regular intervals along the tunnel. It wasn't just one cell; it was a whole row of them, disappearing left and right into the darkness. So many I couldn't count them.

Why did Nightmare need so many cages?

Run, my darkness growled. Now.

Not without Virgil.

I took a tentative step, my hands shaking at my sides, soft light bouncing off the scalpel in my fingers.

"You shouldn't have come," Virgil said, startling me, far closer than I'd expected.

My stomach crashed to my shoes when he emerged from the darkness of a cell to my left, haggard and scruffy, his hair messy and longer, eyes sunken and hopeless. I flung myself across the last bit of space between us, reaching for him. His hands were curled around the bars; the moment I covered his left hand with mine, a brutal sob ripped from his throat.

"I'm getting you out," I promised, masking every bit of pain and fear I had with confidence. "I told you I'd find you, didn't I? I told you you'd be fine."

I squeezed Virgil's hand and let go, considering the bars of the cell. "Where does this thing lock?"

"It's not safe," he rasped, his voice choked with emotion.

"Shut up. Where does it lock?" I pressed on each bar, growing more frantic with every second. My breath caught when a simple push on a bar made a whole portion swing open like a door.

"It's not locked," Virgil said, half a sob. He scrubbed his face. "I think she's hoping I'll—I'll kill you."

My stomach knotted. He was so upset I didn't need to be Misery to be able to feel it.

"You wouldn't kill me," I said with a forced scoff. I knew Virgil; at his core he loved taking care of people. He wasn't one to hurt someone.

But Nightmare could get into someone's mind, scramble it, and turn them into someone who lived for violence. She could do to him what she'd done to Miz when he killed Byron. Cold spread through me; I fought back a shiver, not wanting Virgil to see my fear.

"We're both gonna be fine."

His throat bobbed, his skin dirty and smeared with grime. His clothes weren't much better, grungy and dark and hanging from his shoulders like they were a size too big even though I recognised the university rowing emblem.

I held out my hand to him, but Virgil stayed put, his eyes bright with suffering in the dim glow from the emergency lights. "It doesn't matter what she did, or what she made you do. I love you no matter what. You know that right, Virgil?"

His throat jumped again, a tear streaking the grime on his face. "I know, Prickly."

I smiled even as my heart hurt, lanced through with grief and pain. I hadn't lost Virgil, he was alive, he was right here. But he was traumatised and hurting and I didn't know how to fix it. But I needed to fix it. I couldn't stand seeing him in pain.

"Did she—make you do things you didn't want to?" I asked tentatively, my fingers curled around the cold bars.

He blinked fast, staring beyond me. "I couldn't stop it. I tried to."

"So did I."

His eyes snapped to mine, searing right into my soul. "What did she do to you?" The words were a deep, guttural growl I didn't recognise. Hairs stood on end all down my arms.

If you don't run, you're going to die.

I shook off the voice, my stomach a mess of twists and knots as I answered Virgil's question. "She—took control of me. She made me stab my friend Darya." I forced myself to meet his bleak eyes. "I killed her."

Shock made him look younger. "Fuck."

"Yeah," I agreed with a raspy laugh. "Will you come out now? Please."

Virgil's smile was miserable. "This is the best place for me, Cat. You need to leave me he—"

"Fuck that," I snapped. "I didn't find you just to leave you to Nightmare's mercy. Fuck. That."

"How did you find me?"

I pulled the cell door wider, intent on going inside and dragging him out if necessary. "A woman I thought was my friend hit me on the head and dragged me here."

"What?" Virgil's voice was deep and bestial again. "I'll kill her."

"I hit her skull with a test tube rack; she might already be dead." I ignored my twinge of panic. Phil had betrayed me, and proven she was no real friend. "Come on, let's go."

I lifted my foot to take a step and three things happened at once. Virgil's eyes snapped to something behind me. A body slammed into mine, knocking me to the ground. And the scalpel fell from my fingers.

Nightmare, I thought. She's finally shown her face.

But the woman who pinned me to the ground, her teeth bared as she snarled in my face, took me a moment to recognise.

Elaina Jackson. Ford's administrator.

I grabbed her jaw in both hands when she snapped her teeth at me, my heart racing as I stared at her—the wildness in her green eyes, the gauntness of her features, the way her mouth stretched… and stretched. My stomach flipped. Oh, no. No, no, no.

I remembered the gift basket Nightmare had me deliver to Elaina's room. Days before Caroline was murdered and left in shreds in the park.

Elaina lunged at me now, saliva dripping off teeth too sharp to be human, burning when it hit my face. Her breath was hot and rank, invading all my senses.

She was right above me, too close. I gritted my teeth against a scream when pain ripping through my injured shoulder, my arms locked to keep those teeth away from my face. My tailbone spiked with pain where I'd hit the ground, a distracting ache, but I couldn't let it weaken me.

My elbows buckled when her mouth stretched to accommodate bigger teeth, her jaw cracking as it grew, her arms popping from their sockets and, oh god…

I tried to scramble away as the quiet, diminutive administrator transformed into a monster.