Chapter 25

With no windows and constant, glaring light, the passage of time was impossible to track. I definitely had to pee, my eyelids were heavy, and my muscles burned, so I assumed that at least a few hours had passed since Lochan had left, but there was no way of knowing.

Austin had been snoring quietly for a while, and I hoped he stayed asleep and that his dreams were pleasant.

I was so exhausted that my brain mostly didn't have the energy to go into a panic spiral, so that was nice, at least. There was definitely plenty of fear at the forefront of my mind, but I was almost at peace with it, because right now, there was nothing I could do.

If there was so much as a minor chance that we could fight back, then I was going to. I would go down kicking and screaming, and causing as many headaches for as many people as I could.

But until then, I was conserving my energy.

The stairs creaked, and I hissed at Austin to wake up, though he didn't until the door flew open with a bang.

This time Lochan was alone, and he looked furious about it.

"How's it going?" I asked him cheerfully, emulating Austin's confidence from earlier. "All alone this time, I see. Not facing any fallout from your terrible choices, I hope?"

Austin snorted.

"People don't know what's good for them," Lochan muttered furiously. "They should be grateful. At least someone is taking decisive action. Until they realize that this is the right plan—the only plan—apparently, I'm on babysitting duty."

"I just want to know if Sebastian and Cora were part of this plan," I said, keeping my tone light and nonconfrontational as Lochan unlocked the cell door and let himself in, not making any effort to hide the dagger he held in one hand.

His body language wasn't screaming "I'm about to murder you," but I'd also never come face-to-face with death before, so maybe I was reading the signs wrong.

"No." Lochan narrowed his eyes at me. "Nothing we said was untrue. Sebastian and I were given a remit by the Hunters Council to open lines of communication. My sister really did want to come with me." He swallowed thickly, looking uncomfortable at that. "I tried to convince her not to, but… Well, it doesn't matter. I was given a separate remit by your grandfather, who disliked the Council's plan. Frankly, as one of their primary financial backers, I felt that his opinion held more weight."

"Unfortunately for you, the Hunters Council isn't a total oligarchy yet," Austin shot back. "So that was a weird choice to make. Of course, you were going to face some backlash."

There was a funny sort of irony in the fact that we were giving our kidnapper a pep talk about making better life choices.

"Could you two just stop fucking talking for five minutes?" Lochan growled. "I'm going to cut the ropes. Once I am out of the cell and it is secured again, you may approach the bars and I will release the cuffs. Until some level of consensus has been reached, apparently, I'm meant to keep you alive."

"Are we going to see our grandfather at any point?" I asked.

"He's in New York," Lochan replied, cutting through my binds first with a warning look that had me staying firmly seated while he switched his attention to Austin's ropes. "Everyone is in New York. Negotiating with small-minded morons who don't understand his vision."

Thatwas interesting. New York was where the big Hunter headquarters was located. This plan of his was going very badly indeed if he'd been summoned there to answer for it.

That idea brought me great joy, as well as the tiniest inkling of hope.

If Grandfather had gone against the majority, then there was a sliver of a chance that someone might intercede on our behalf and let us go—if only to try to undo the damage he'd done to the negotiations Sebastian had been having in good faith.

"Did you work with any Shades to get us back here?" I asked.

Lochan snorted. "Yes—thanks for that, by the way. I was having some difficulty in finding someone to collaborate with, but you rejecting a perfectly nice rich boy in favor of an apparently mutilated one was a real ego blow. Aither was more than happy to provide assistance to have you removed from the shadow realm."

That fucking asshole. I was mad at myself all over again for not laying into him and his horrible family on that date for being so rude to Evrin.

Once Austin had been released from his binds, Lochan stood, backing toward the cell door and unlocking it with a beep. Austin and I both stared him down, but neither of us made a move. Our hands were still in cuffs behind our backs, and Lochan was armed. We had to be smart about this.

Lochan triple-checked the lock was in place before moving to stand at the bars. "Approach one at a time, turn around and present your hands to me so I can remove the cuffs. Don't do anything stupid."

Except, I had just had a very stupid idea. Or a genius one. Or perhaps it was a little of both.

"You first," I said to Austin, tipping my chin at Lochan and rolling my shoulders, trying to get the blood flowing to my arms. If Austin had any objection to this, he didn't show it. He just glared at Lochan as he stood, crossing the small space before turning around, obediently presenting his back to have the cuffs removed. I watched as discreetly as I could as they clicked open, while Lochan struggled for a moment to get a hold of the cuffs and pull them back through the bars.

My plan involved a level of hand-eye coordination that I wasn't entirely sure I possessed in that moment, but I'd been a people-pleasing Hunter who'd attended every training session, and a World Softball Champion in middle school. I could pull it off. Maybe.

Austin moved away, and I stood up on shaky legs, making my way over to take his place. Giving Lochan my back was a terrifying prospect, considering what he'd already done to me. But I needed these cuffs off.

I held my breath as the first one clicked off, my wrist instantly feeling a hundred times lighter. The moment I heard the second one go, I was twisting away from Lochan, snatching up the sharp metal in my hand.

"Hey!" he yelled, but I was already running—or stumbling, rather—to the outer corner of the cell. If there had been a light closer to us, I would have gone for that, but the only one I had a clear shot of was the lone, dangling bulb in the corner of the room, above a stack of archive boxes. I hurled the handcuffs through the bars, not quite hitting the bulb square on like I'd intended, but at least sending the glass crashing into the concrete block wall, which did the job for me.

Austin whooped as the bulb shattered, spraying glass all over the boxes and plunging that one corner of the room into darkness. It wasn't much—I wasn't even sure it would be dark enough for a Shade to get in, but it was… something. For a very brief moment, I felt somewhat powerful.

"For fuck's sake!" Lochan said, slamming the bars with his hand and making me jump. "Thanks for that. I hope you feel real good about it for the three minutes it's going to take me to get a replacement and come back downstairs," he snapped, already stomping away. "How very impressive of you. Fucking childish."

"Childish," Austin snorted as the basement door slammed shut behind Lochan. "Apparently, we're supposed to have a more mature response to kidnapping. Someone should put that in the manual. It's looking pretty dark over in that corner. Maybe it'll work?"

I was pretty sure the hopeful note in his tone was purely for my benefit, rather than coming from a place of actually believing it was going to do anything, but I chose to cling onto it, anyway.

I hoped to believe that Evrin would come. I didn't have a mating bond to feel him through, so there was no way of knowing, and my anxiety practically demanded that I not believe it. That I assume the worst, because there was a plenty big-enough part of me that felt that was what I deserved.

And I would have to work through that, no doubt. If not for me, then for my child, who deserved to have me as the best version of myself.

But for now, it was enough just to tell those persistent negative voices to shut the fuck up.

If that patch of darkness was enough, Evrin would come for me—for us. He was going to swoop in to save the day. And the moment we were free from this place, I was going to demand he bite me and claim me and keep me forever.