The grandfather’s expression is unreadable, a smooth, polished mask. “He can take care of himself,” he says, his voice calm and certain. “Something tells me he’s fine.”
Not something. I’m sure of it. The Pit told him.Jax mentioned once how his grandfather talked about it—not like a place, but like a partner. A business associate.
The grandfather shifts his stance. “That’s enough,” he says smoothly, cutting off the detective before he can ask another question. “Miss Zaitseva needs medical attention.”
“I’m fine,” I snap, trying to shrug his hand off.
“She’s in shock,” he corrects, already guiding me away from the group. “I’ll take her to my son.”
One of the officers steps forward. “Sir, she needs to remain available for questioning?—”
“She will,” he says pleasantly. “You know where to find us.”
Jaxwell doesn’t look like a man worried about his grandson or about what they’re implying he’s done. He looks like a man calculating the next move on a chessboard.
As he steers me toward the lights, I see him. Detective Rosen, Ivan’s father. He’s standing just beyond the ambulance. Our eyes meet and my stomach lurches violently. I tear free of the grandfather’s hand just in time to double over and vomit onto the ground.
Fifty-One
NOW | JAX
“Okay, so let me get this straight,” I say, watching the copper bowl spit a blue flame. “You knew about this.”
Murtaugh’s hunched over a table cluttered with glass beakers, leather-bound books, a human skull carved with symbols, and something that looks suspiciously like a mechanical heart suspended in fluid.
This lab stopped being a normal lab years ago.The first time O brought me here, I was out of my mind, still fighting the magic like some fool who thought there was a way out. Murtaugh and O were right there with me, clinging to that same hope. We ran every test. Drained so much blood I should’ve died, pumped me full of experimental shit trying to get the tar out. We tried brute force, medication, anything. Of course, none of it worked. Years of this, and we’re right back where we started. Square one.
Murtaugh, though, he seems to get off on it. To him, I’m not a person; I’m an exciting project. A mad scientist in his natural habitat. He spends his days theorizing, writing his papers about how the tar is a force to be studied, understood.He’s wrong.It’s something you should either leave the hell alone or try everything you can to rip out by the roots. I keep telling him, it’s a waste of time.
Behind me, Sisk makes a small, disgusted sound. “Is that a… human?—”
“Dick, yeah,” I cut in, jerking my chin toward the specimen floating in cloudy preservative on the shelf.
“Told you to hide that one,” I tell him.
“It’s an anatomical study,” he replies without so much of a glance at us.
“It’s a floating penis.”
“It’s data.”
Sisk mutters, “This is insane.”
She’s right, everything in here is, me included.There are jars of preserved organs, bundles of dried herbs, vials of black tar sealed in wax, a chalkboard with equations tangled through sigils. Anyone sane would call this witchcraft. Murtaugh calls it tar physics.
“Subject J,” he says absently, already turning back to the copper bowl. “You’re late. Now, come on. Tongue out. Let’s get a sample.”
I don’t move.
“You should have come to me immediately,” he adds.
“We’ve been over this,” I snap. “There’s nothing you can do. Nothing anyone can fucking do.”
He hasn’t changed one tiny bit since O dragged me down here years ago. Same ideas, same outfit: long hair tied back and a lab coat thrown over a black turtleneck, landing between a scientist and a cult leader.
Sisk’s eyes cut to me. “Subject J?”
I shrug. “Told you he’s crazy.” I nod toward a shelf where a row of glass vials is filled with tar. Each one is labeled with a date, but the one in the middle has a different label. “See those? All mine. But that one?” I point with my chin. “That’s Subject R.”
