Chapter 21
Chapter
Twenty-One
BONES
I’d learned to rest with my feet off the ground.
Hanging from your wrists long enough, your body figures it out—how to go slack just enough that the fire in your shoulders becomes background noise, not a screaming siren. Let go, float inside your skull, try not to think. That’s what they hadn’t broken. Not yet.
Then the silence cracked.
A distant thump. Something falling upstairs. Then again—louder. A crash, like a statue hitting marble. Raised voices, just barely audible through the vents. Muffled shouting. And—was that an alarm?
I lifted my head, slowly, every muscle complaining. Blood ran down my arms in tired rivers. The concrete around me was still the same: damp, cold, and lit by a single grimy bulb that buzzed like it hated its job. Same tools on the tray. Same dark stains.
But the noise was getting closer. Boots. Scuffling. Gunfire.
Gunfire.
Something flipped in me—hope, or adrenaline, or whatever sad little survival instinct I had left. My breath caught in my throat. I twisted, trying to see past the door. Chains rattled, weak as I was.
Then she appeared.
She came through the shadowed hallway like a hallucination. Like a goddamn painting. Grace—Grace—in a strapless blue dress that clung to her like silk on fire. Hair up. Something glittering at her ears. And heels, the kind that should’ve echoed on a ballroom floor, not this bloodstained concrete.
She shouldn’t have been real. Not here. Not now.
I blinked, once. Twice.
Still there.
She stepped over a body—someone—didn’t look down, didn’t even break stride. The weapon—was that a club?—in her hand didn’t match the dress, but the way she held it sure as hell matched the woman I remembered. Confident. Furious. Ready to raise hell.
She saw me. And smiled.
“Jesus, Bones,” she said, like she’d just found me napping somewhere stupid. The warmth there “You look like hell.”
My throat tried to work. Nothing came out.
She crossed the room, heels clicking now though there was still chaos behind her based on the sounds. What was she doing here? The only thing that slowed her down was grabbing a metal folding chair on her way to me. I blinked slowly—there were chairs in here?
My situational awareness was at an all-time low. The clunk of the chair next to me jolted me back to the present. I had to stop drifting. Grace was here.
“Dollface, you shouldn’t be here,” I croaked, or I thought I did. It sounded more like gravel being ground under a boot. Abruptly, between one pained breath and the next, she seemed to have grown a foot and a half.
Wait. No. She was standing on the chair, wearing next to nothing.
“It’s not safe,” I warned her and then tried to blink the sweat and blood from my eyes to look past her. Why was she here alone? Where the fuck were the guys? Reality trickled into the cracks left behind from the last “interrogation.”
“Shh.” Without any sign of rejection, she whispered a kiss to my bruised and bloodied cheek. I was filthy, she shouldn’t have to —
Before I could pull away, she touched my face gently with a cool, soft hand like I wasn’t swinging half-conscious in this basement hell.
“You’re lucky I like you,” she said on a soft sigh that carried some notes of impatience and… worry? “Or I’d have to let you rot in this damn museum.”
Museum?
It was a museum?
I was still chewing on that nugget when she said, “Yes, I found him. He’s a mess, but in one piece.” A pause. “Mostly.” More worry. The sadness drenching that last word had me trying to shift. “I don’t know why they cut out, I’m just glad they’re back on.”
“Keys,” a masculine voice called and then Grace twisted to catch the keys that sailed through the air. Not Alphabet.
Nor Lunchbox.
Adrenaline spiked in my system as she reached above me with the keys rattling against the shackles holding me in place.
“Who?” The word came out raw, rough, and I coughed. Flecks of blood hit the smooth skin of her shoulder and I scowled.
“Hang on, Boney Boy,” she half-hummed the words. “I’m almost there.” A little snap. “Fuck.” I blinked, the sweat stinging my eyes and blurring my vision. “No, I’m fine, I just broke a nail,” she muttered.
“Want me to help?” The masculine voice was back—not Voodoo either.
The man circled her and then I shifted, wrapping my hands on the chains even if I could barely feel my fingers. Then I locked my legs around the guy who was too close to her and jerked him off his feet.
“No! No!” Grace said, the keys falling as she caught my face in her hands. “It’s O’Rourke—he’s with us…”
What? O’Rourke?
Hell—
“Bones,” Alphabet was suddenly there, his voice clear and crisp. Grace had pressed an ear comm in. “Listen to me. Echo echo one two one. Goblin doesn’t need any scattered bones right now.”
It was an old code but still a viable one. Somewhat nonsensical, but tied together with a warning that said while it wasn’t all clear, we weren’t under live fire.
O’Rourke wasn’t a friend.
But right now, he wasn’t an enemy either.
“We’ll talk about that later,” I managed to push the words out as I shoved O’Rourke away. The man stumbled, one hand at his throat as he coughed. I could have choked him unconscious.
I could have snapped his neck.
The boys better be right about this.
“Especially why he’s here with Grace.” The fact Grace was here at all was actively scraping over me like a cheese grater.
“You’ll get a full debrief after we’re out,” Grace said, her fingers still achingly soft where she touched my cheek and at the same time her grip was steel. She didn’t let me look away. “Are you with us again?”
Alphabet didn’t comment. Probably wise. Anger fueled my adrenaline as I tracked O’Rourke’s stumbling steps. The man straightened, his hair mussed and his expression a grimace.
“You’re welcome,” he muttered.
“Shut up,” Grace said, and I felt the absence of her touch far too keenly. She’d retrieved the keys and she was rattling them around my wrists.
The cuffs snapped open and my arms gave out. I would have fallen but Grace caught me, arms coming around me as she stepped off the chair and went down with me as I landed on my knees.
It wasn’t as hard of a crash landing as it could have been, but I was now bleeding all over her. “I’ve got you,” she said. “I’ve got you.”
“We need to go,” O’Rourke was suddenly next to us and even with my head swimming, I had a fist ready to strike. He narrowly avoided the blow. “Fine, fucking crawl then.”
He retreated once more, but I couldn’t follow his movements. Not when Grace was just there, cradling my face in her hands and keeping my gaze on her.
“I don’t get it,” I whispered, trying to focus. “How are you even—?”
“Shh.” She ghosted a kiss to my lips, then looked me in the eye.
That smile again. It was so damn sinful and filled with warmth.
“You’re a mess. Probably have broken ribs, a concussion, and your wrists are a disaster.
I can’t count the cuts and the burns…” Her voice darkened on the last. “But we have a plan. If you can walk, we’re leaving right now. ”
“I might be hallucinating you,” I muttered. I didn’t want to know what the plan was if I couldn’t walk. O’Rourke was there, a blurry movement behind her.
She leaned closer, voice like velvet over razors.
“Then hallucinate faster. We have less than a minute before the guys set off the alarms.”
Hallucinate faster?
A rough laugh escaped me. “You make me crazy, Dollface,” I told her.
“I know,” she said, another whisper of a kiss as she rose, then she held out her hand to me. “That’s why you like me.”
Everything hurt.
Fucking. Everything.
But I clasped her hand and let her help me to my feet. I swayed, but she wrapped one of my arms over her bare shoulders. “God help me,” I said. “It is.”
Her laughter was a balm to soothe the raw wounds in my soul. “Don’t sound so mad about it.”
O’Rourke was in front of us and I curled my arm a little tighter over her shoulder to keep her with me. He had no business being here with her.
“Thirty seconds,” Alphabet warned. “You guys ready to go?”
“We are,” Grace said, tipping her head back as O’Rourke shook his head. He didn’t argue, however, just moved ahead of us. “Right, Captain Boney Boy?”
“Dollface, you remember what I said about spanking you?”
Her smile was sunshine. “Now now, don’t promise me a good time until you’re ready to deliver it.”
“Ten seconds,” Alphabet said.
“Let’s go,” she murmured. “One foot in front of the other.”
The floor was blessedly cold against the bottoms of my abused feet. Oh, I was bare foot. That barely even registered. Did I have on pants? Took a moment, but yes there they were.
I stumbled, but caught the rhythm. She was still in heels, I did not want to knock her off her feet.
“Five seconds.” The countdown galvanized me.
“How far?” I lifted my chin, tried to look ahead. An escape meant resistance. I had to be ready to handle…
“Three…”
“Oh, let’s talk about that later.”
“Two…”
Before I could ask why, the sound of alarms erupting everywhere drowned out Alphabet’s “one.”
Then all hell broke loose.