“Lips red as blood, hair black as night,
bring me your heart,
my dear, dear Snow White.”
—Queen Ravenna
(Fourteen years old)
One after the next, strangled cries escaping through gritted teeth rattle my eardrums. Hatred tears through my bones the longer I watch, but I can’t look away.
I’ve never seen it done like this.
Thin streams of blood slip across Griffin’s broad torso. He flexes under the scalpel as Katerina cuts, swirling her hand and making shallow designs like he’s her fucking sketchpad. My eyes are glued to every tick of the blade, my veins strumming with bursts of energy I don’t understand. The scent of fresh blood and sweat thickens the air, his pulse straining against his neck and his skin flushed, and this—this is how I would do it.
Griffin, he doesn’t deserve it, and every cut only makes hatred seep deeper into my chest. But to do this, to dig into the flesh of those orchestrating this whole shitfest, to watch them suffer through each stroke of the blade and remember every single person who died at their hands . . . I inhale the stench and swallow it down, letting the sensation fill me. Jesus, I’ve never felt anything so satisfying.
“You’re doing well, Griffin,” Katerina coos. “I knew you’d show me everything through your eyes if I connected to your past. I do wish you’d discuss the boys who gave you these scars, but this is emotion enough.” She smiles, her voice sounding distant. “I believe your pieces might just be the most honest of them all by the time I’m done with you.”
She glances over her shoulder at me, the scalpel still rotating in her hands. “What do you think, Pet? Surely yours will be more beautiful?” I narrow my eyes, but she’s already turning back to the other kid. “Yes,” she hums to herself. “My sweet, sweet pet.”
Katerina halts when the door is shoved open.
No Name taps my side just as Baldy walks in. “Here,” he whispers, extending his palm and dropping something cold and metallic in my hands. “Slip them into your waistband.”
I glance down to see two small silver keys, grimy with dirt . . . and shit.
“Quick.”
Tucking them into the waistband of my pants, I drop my hands and lean back against the wall.
Katerina’s hushed voice hits my ears, and I stiffen. “And you’re just discovering that they’re missing now?”
He shrugs and scratches his head. “I haven’t needed to use them for the two days you’ve had this one in here. But now we’ve got that new arrival I mentioned”—he points a thumb toward the open door, where a crate sits. The kid inside is hunched over but alert, flicking his gaze over his surroundings—“and I can’t get into the storage room.”
“I’ll let you in, and we’ll discuss this further.” Her tone is impatient as she leads the way toward the exit, and they disappear into the hall.
I waste no time reaching my skinny arm around the bars and sticking the first key into the lock. When that one doesn’t work, I try the next. The cage door swings open, and I let out the biggest fucking breath of my life.
“No fucking shit,” No Name mutters, a grin stretching across his face.
The first genuine smile in almost two years lifts my lips. I might have pursued this escape for Sofia, but now that the taste of freedom is on my tongue . . . I may as well embrace it.
I nod toward Sofia’s cage. “Go. We have probably less than a minute.”
He darts to Sofia’s cage, unlocks it, and she steps aside to let him pass. When she looks at me, I wink. She hugs her teddy bear to her chest, smiling.
Sofia knows the plan. As best as she can anyway. I explained it last night in terms I think a five-year-old would get, and I may have left out the details about what would happen to her mom. She also knows the whole plan could crash and burn before we even get started, and to pretend she knew nothing about it if we’re caught.
No Name pulls open the lid to her toilet. He wets a piece of toilet paper and places it over the overflow pipe, then unscrews the float. After putting the lid back on, he works on the sink, clogging the drains. When Katerina’s heels start clicking toward us, he grabs the handcuffs beside Sofia’s cage and scurries back into ours, closing the door behind him. Neither cage is locked, but we just have to hope she doesn’t notice yet.
Katerina returns to the kid at the worktable, apologizing or some bullshit, and I stare at Sofia’s toilet. Water is already trickling down the sides, but it’s not anywhere near enough to cause the kind of damage we want.
I look at No Name, and he nods. “I know, man,” he whispers from beside me. “It’s cool. I told you I’ve done this before. I just need to get back in there and blast the sink faucets. I mean, it won’t be quick, but I’m gonna check out the pipes too. I can make do with Katerina’s bloodstained tools if I have to. A bunker like this, especially underground, will hold water like a fucking sinking submarine.”
I’m not so sure, but I’ve never tried to flood a place either. And anyway, it’s the best we’ve got.
“All right,” I mutter. “I’m up.”
Shaking out my hands, I take a breath and stand. Shit. A rush of nausea grips my forehead, and I steady myself on the bars. Our water’s been out all day. Oh, the fucking irony.
“Katerina,” I call, my dry throat burning like sandpaper.
Her hand freezes above Griffin’s bloodied ribs. She looks back at me, her eyebrows shooting up. “My pet. To what do I owe this honor?”
I force my expression to look desperate, my lips turned down. “I need to talk to you. Please. This”—I gesture to Griffin, the blood dripping to the floor—“I can’t take it. It’s too much. I’m gonna fucking be sick.” That part might be true, but I have my deteriorating physical state to thank for that.
Her head tilts, and she sets down the instrument. Griffin’s body relaxes against the table, his chest going up and down with rapid breaths as Katerina steps away. Her eyes soften with each step she takes toward me.
“Is that right, my sweet boy?” She reaches the cage, and I move slightly to the left for what I’m about to do. “Is it painful for you to watch? Seeing someone suffer before they’re put to sleep?”
I nod slowly, keeping my body relaxed. When she inches closer, I swing the door open and lunge. She gasps as No Name and I double-team her, shoving her inside and locking the cuffs around her wrist. My chest hammers straight to my ears. No Name locks the cage door while I reach between the bars, forcing her to the floor by securing the cuffs around the water dispenser, just a foot above the ground.
Her forehead connects with one of the bars, and she winces before staring up at me. “My pet.” She sounds genuinely hurt, and my face twists with disgust. “You tricked me.”
Holy shit. Yes, we fucking did.
Turning for Sofia’s cage, I don’t respond. We don’t have time to waste on Katerina. No Name gets to work on the sink while I lower to my haunches in front of Sofia. I’ve never been this close to her, and she looks even smaller from here.
“Hey,” I mutter, trying to smile even though my adrenaline is through the roof. “You still sure about this?”
She nods, her sky-blue eyes twinkling up at me.
When a familiar humming fills the room, all three of us look back at our old cage. Katerina is sitting cross-legged on the floor, watching us, and fucking singing. Except she’s actually singing, lyrics and all. She’s too quiet for me to make out all the words, but I catch something about children coming with her, into some kind of garden. A cold shiver shoots down my spine, and I break my gaze away before her level of psycho sucks me in any more than it already has.
After a second, I pull myself up, grabbing ahold of the bar this time for support. Glancing at No Name, I wipe my sweaty forehead with the back of my arm. “I gotta get those crate kids out, man.”
He arches a brow, flicks his gaze to the hall. “You still sure about that? We might not have enough time.”
I shake my head. “Stay with Sofia. I don’t want her seeing that room.”
When No Name’s eyes dart to Sofia, he barely contains his loathing. It pisses me off, but I don’t have a choice. I have to leave him with her. There’s no way I’m walking her into a room overflowing with street kids stuffed in crates, especially when I don’t know how they’ll react once I break them out.
“Fine,” he grumbles, “but you won’t have time to come back and get her after all that. I’ll bring her out with me. I’ll make sure she’s safe.”
I cock a brow. Yeah, no fucking way. “Nah. I got her.” Shifting back to Sofia, I soften my voice. “I’ll come back for you.”
She hugs her teddy bear tighter.
“Go, Lucas,” No Name says, angling his head toward the exit. “Unless you want this to take all night. I still have to get to those pipes.”
No Name turns away, and I head to Griffin. Shit, he’s tore up. But the wounds are mostly superficial. Might be fatigued, but he should be able to stand. I grab a white cloth from beside the table and wrap it around his torso, then unstrap his wrists and ankles.
When he looks up as I pull him forward, our gazes lock. For a second, I’m taken aback by the black holes staring into me. I saw him before she strapped him down. It was obvious even then he’d been through hell already. But the look etched into his face now? It’s like Katerina carved his heart out and left him to bleed.
I don’t know how you come back from something like that.
Maybe you don’t.
Maybe none of us will.
He grimaces as he slides off the table, but he walks pretty good as long as he leans on me. Just as I step foot into the hall, a small voice stops me solid.
“Promise?” it squeaks.
I look over my shoulder. Sofia is standing in the cage’s open doorway, peering up at me.
When I don’t respond, she hugs her stuffed animal. “Promise you’ll come back for me?”
Something turns hollow in my chest, and I don’t know what it is, but it hurts and soothes all at once. I can’t believe she spoke, for me.
Finally, I nod. “Promise.”
I start to turn, but Griffin stays rooted to the ground. Frustrated, I tug him again, and when he still won’t budge, I look beside me to find him glaring at Sofia hard enough to burn a hole through her head.
A growl sounds from low in my throat, and my knuckles turn white around his arm. “You coming or staying?”
After a second, he rips his gaze away, wincing when I drag him down to the storage room. It’s the only door in this short hall, other than the exit at the top of the built-in ladder behind us. I unlock it, and we enter a room of rotten stench and dark corners.
Crates line the walls side by side, piled on top of each other in stacks. Arms as skinny as toothpicks immediately reach out, grabbing for us, and parched voices climb over each other to be heard.
“Help—”
“Get out while you can—”
“Don’t leave me here—”
The hair on the back of my neck stands on end, and I try to ignore the voices since my head is already pounding without every shrill cry.
“Here.” I set Griffin on the ground so he can rest, but he grunts and struggles back to his feet. He gestures to our left, where a single bolt cutter and a fire extinguisher lean against the wall.
I grab the bolt cutter and make my way toward the first crate. It’s holding the new kid that was just brought in.
“What the fuck do you think—” Baldy’s gruff yell is cut off when the fire extinguisher connects with the back of his head. He falls in a lump to the floor, right in the middle of the doorway. Griffin lowers the extinguisher, grimacing as he wraps an arm around the bloodied cloth on his stomach.
“Shit,” I pant, my pulse ringing in my ears and competing with the shouts around us. “Thanks, man.”
“Guess I owed you, right?” he huffs, leaning against the wall and sliding to the ground.
“Guess so. Hang on.”
Returning to the crate in front of me, a fresh sweat breaks out on my skin as I cut the padlock.
The new arrival comes stumbling out, his eyes darting from me to Griffin. He’s breathing hard, but his pupils are dilated with excitement.
What the hell?
“Thanks. I’ll stay and help you.” He nudges his chin toward Griffin. “Or I can get that guy out of here before he passes out. Your call.”
My brows pull together.
“I’m Lex,” he adds, like that somehow matters. “So what’s it gonna be?”
The kid could be making a break for it, but he’d rather risk getting caught. Fucking weird.
I glance at the wall, my thoughts swinging back to Sofia. I need to get her the hell out of here. I want to tell him to get her instead. But I don’t know him worth shit, and I hate that I can’t take the risk.
“Get him,” I finally mutter, pointing to Griffin. Then I pick up the bolt cutter and move toward the next crate. “Heads up, there might be alarms.”
“You kidding? I know alarms better than I know my way around the streets.”
“Also, you’ll probably run into someone along the way.” I glance back once more, my tone serious. “Kill them if you need to.”
The new kid’s lips quirk. “After this? Shit, with pleasure. I’ll light their fucking souls on fire.”
My head tilts. I like this one.
He takes Griffin, and I continue busting crates open, one by one. Exhaustion cripples me more and more by the second. Most of the kids say nothing, pummeling straight through the room as quick as their weak legs can take them. Some of them pat me on the back or shout thank yous. Many are crying.
When I get to the final row and my eyes start to blur, the bolt cutter slips from my sweaty grip. I wince as I bend to grab it, and black spots dot my vision.
Fuck.
I rest a hand on the wall, waiting for the spots to clear like they usually do, but they only get worse. Keeping my palms on the wall, I force my legs to move blindly toward the studio.
I have to get to Sofia.
I have to.
I take another step before I’m plunged headfirst into darkness, and I’m falling down an endless tunnel.
“Hey.” Something smacks my cheek. “Hey, man. Get up. Right the fuck now.”
Another smack, and I’m being dragged to my feet. My eyes drift open as I’m lugged forward, one arm draped over someone’s neck. It takes a minute for my vision to focus, but soon I’m able to make out No Name. He grunts as he pulls my dead weight. With a groan, I manage to work my leg muscles and push myself forward with his help.
I look around, realizing I’m still in the storage room. Lifting my hands, I turn them from back to front. They’re wet, along with the back of my pants and shirt. “Shit. Shit, shit, shit.” It’s shallow, but water covers every inch of the floor.
“Yeah, say that another ten times and you’re getting there. You fucking passed out. You’ll never believe how lucky I got, though. There’s a damn garden above us. Already busted the main pipes by the time I found the hose, then got the hell out of here right after closing the studio. I thought you and the girl were long gone. Took me forever to realize you weren’t one of the kids outside.” He lifts his left hand, fresh blood smeared across his palm and fingers. “Had to go through some shit to get back down here. You owe me, man.”
My brows crash together. “Sofia . . . You closed the studio?”
“Of course. I thought you had her. ‘Nah, I got her.’ Remember that?”
The adrenaline comes rushing back full speed, and I’m tearing free from his grasp. Sofia can’t swim. I know because I asked last night, and she shook her little head. I storm past the empty crates, water sloshing at my feet, and get to the studio’s closed door, then shove. “Give me the fucking key.”
“I don’t have the fucking studio key,” he growls. “As far as I know, only Katerina had that one.”
My throat tightens, my lungs constricting as I glance up at the shoebox-sized, rectangular window at the top of the door. “Give me a lift.”
“Are you crazy? We don’t fucking have time for—”
“Giving me a fucking lift!”
He stares at me. I know my face is red, my eyes bulging like I might kill him with my bare hands if he doesn’t, but I think I really might.
“Fine,” he grits.
He crosses his fingers together and flips his hands so they’re palm up. Stepping onto his palms, I use the door for balance and peek into the slit of a window.
The room is halfway flooded. Katerina floats at the bottom, cuffed to the bars with her eyes wide and black hair floating in streams around her head. I shift my gaze to the right and swallow when only the bars of Sofia’s cage are visible from here.
Just a few feet in front of me, though, a pink teddy bear drifts along the surface.
Oil crayons hover above the floor.
And the tips of long black hair poke out from between the bars. Floating, just like her mother’s.