“Where is she now?” I asked.
The yellow-eyed woman slung a protective arm around Reva’s shoulders. “We haven’t seen her since she brought in Reva.”
Norah was probably long gone by now.
Add that to the list of problems for another day.
“Is Gray okay, though?” Reva asked.
“She’s… dealing with Jonathan.”
“That fucker?” Yellow Eyes said. “Did she kill him? Tell me she killed him.”
“She’s… working on it,” I said. In truth, I had no idea whether she’d killed him or yanked his soul into another dimension or some other crazy magical possibility I hadn’t even considered. With Gray, you just never fucking knew.
Haley blew out a breath, pacing the cell. The others sat quietly along the wall or curled up on the floor, some of them comforting each other, others still in shock. Reva went back to her wall in the back and closed her eyes.
Looking to Yellow Eyes, I lowered my voice and said, “The hunters. Did any of them… Are you guys… Did they…” I shoved a hand through my hair, not sure how to say it—only knowing I was going to cut off every hunter’s dick if I didn’t like the answer to her question.
“No, they didn’t touch us. Not like that,” the woman said, and I breathed a sigh of relief. “Jonathan actually forbid it. Said some bullshit about how witches are naturally wonton and indecent, and if he allowed us to give in to our carnal desires, our blood would become tainted and ruin his experiments.”
“That,” Haley added with a snort, “and McKenna let loose an old wives’ tale about turning certain body parts into certain amphibious creatures.”
“Ribbit,” someone replied from the shadows. McKenna, I was guessing. Several of the witches giggled. A few of them coughed.
I finally found the hidden access panel on a wall around the corner from the cell, but it wasn’t a keycard reader. It was a damn retina scanner.
“How often do the guards come down here?” I asked Haley.
“When Jonathan doesn’t need us as lab rats, they only come by once a day. If that.” She kicked at a moldy heel of bread on the ground. “I haven’t seen anyone yet today.”
Alright. We needed an eyeball, and we needed it now.
“Don’t take this the wrong way, ladies, but… Which one of you do the guards hate the most?”
Haley looked over her shoulder, grinning at the witch who’d made the frog sound. “That would be McKenna. Definitely.”
“McKenna?” I asked. “Think you might be up for a little shit-starting, sweetheart?”
A smile lit up her face, and she got right to her feet. “I’m your girl.”
Nineteen
Gray
I emerged from the orchard into another world, stepping barefoot onto a sandy shore. No longer nude, I was suddenly dressed in loose cargo shorts and a purple tank top, my hair wrapped in a bandeau. Sunglasses hung from my shirt collar, and a pair of pineapple flip-flops dangled from my fingers.
This fucking place.
Still. After everything I’d just seen in the orchard, I wasn’t about to complain about a walk on the beach.
A blissful turquoise sea lapped gently at my toes. They’d been painted white with pink polka-dots, reminding me of Sophie. Thankfully, the memory made me smile instead of ache.
It was a postcard-worthy moment, the bright sunshine warm and delicious on my skin, the salty air a perfect balm for my soul.
When I saw the man jogging along the shore toward me, a smile broke across my face.
“It’s beautiful, isn’t it?” Liam said when we met. He looked happy and relaxed, his skin tan, his hair streaked with summer highlights. Dressed in red board shorts and a faded gray T-shirt that hugged his frame, he was truly in his element.
