Chapter 41
Raven
Drip. Drip. Drip.
I’ve been listening to that water for how long? Hours? Days? Time’s gone all silly putty in this concrete box. Stretchy and bendy and completely fucking useless.
The single bulb hanging overhead never changes, casting the same harsh shadows across the floor, across Adam’s body, across the growing puddle of what used to be inside him. I swallow hard, wincing at the razor blades in my throat.
If I fall asleep, I might wake up dead. Or worse, wake up with company. So I keep talking, even though my voice has shredded itself into something barely human.
“One-one-thousand, two-one-thousand, three-one-thousand,” I count between drips, then frown at the ceiling. “You’re inconsistent. That’s not good for business. The dripping water market is very competitive these days.”
I tilt my head, listening more carefully.
“Wait a second.” My voice breaks on the last word, turning into a painful croak. “That’s not random. That’s… that’s Morse code.”
I squint at the ceiling, tracking each drip with desperate concentration.
“Dot-dot-dash-dot… that’s… R? Are you spelling my name, you pretentious leak?” I laugh, the sound scraping against my raw throat like sandpaper. “Fucking ghost water thinking it’s clever.”
I shake my head, arguing with myself. “It’s not Morse code, you idiot. It’s a fucking leak. Not everything is a sign.” I also don’t know any damn Morse code at all, but that’s hardly the point right now.
The handcuffs rattle against the metal table as I shift, sending fresh waves of pain through my already raw wrist. The metal has rubbed my skin so raw I can feel warm wetness. I keep telling myself it’s just sweat.
“Except… what if it is? What if…” I tilt my head again, counting the drips with renewed interest. “Fuck. You. That’s what you’re spelling, isn’t it? Very mature, ceiling. Very fucking mature.”
My gaze drifts to Adam, still sprawled on the floor. His eyes remain open, fixed in eternal surprise, staring at me.
“Rude,” I mutter to him. “It’s impolite to stare, you know.”
I squint, making a game of it.
“I bet I can win a staring contest with you now. Couldn’t before, but the circumstances have shifted in my favor.”
Thirty seconds pass. A minute.
“Ha, you blinked,” I call out, then frown. “No, you didn’t. You’d blink if you were still alive. You’re definitely cheating.”
Another minute passes while I stare into his vacant eyes until the reality of what I’m doing crashes over me like ice water. I’m having a staring contest with a corpse. Fucking hell.
“You’re not going to haunt me, right?” I whisper, voice cracking. “If you’re going to haunt anyone, haunt your psycho brother. Not me. I wasn’t the one who shot you.”
My stomach growls loudly, the sound startlingly normal in this nightmare.
“Shut up,” I tell it. “You don’t get to complain. I didn’t kidnap us.”
Another growl, longer and more insistent.
“When Matteo finds me,” I promise my stomach, patting it with my free hand, “he owes us both pasta. And chocolate. All the fucking chocolate in Cleveland.”
I close my eyes for a second, then snap them open in panic. No sleeping. Sleeping is dangerous.
“Is it June or December?” I wonder aloud, shivering as another wave of cold seeps through my thin summer dress. “It feels like December. Maybe we’re having a freak blizzard. Maybe I’ve been here for six months and it’s actually winter.”
My teeth chatter, and I tuck my free arm against my body for warmth.
“Is hypothermia napping a thing?” I ask Adam, who continues his impolite staring. “Like, if I just rest my eyes for a second, will I wake up a Ravencicle?”
The air tastes like copper and rot, the metallic smell of blood mixing with something earthy and damp. I try to breathe through my mouth, but that just means I can taste it instead.
“You know what this place needs?” I say to the dripping water. “Music. Ambiance. A little something to lighten the mood.”
I clear my throat, which feels like swallowing broken glass, and start to sing.
Drip-drip, drop-drop.
Finn can eat a rancid sock.
Drip-drip, don’t you stop.
‘Cause if you stop, I’ll fucking drop.
I laugh at my own absurdity, the sound turning into a painful cough. “Grammy worthy, right? I call it ‘Ode to Shitty Plumbing and Kidnapping Assholes.’”
My free hand moves to the handcuff again, fingers tracing the cold metal, checking to make sure it hasn’t somehow tightened while I wasn’t paying attention. It’s become a compulsive gesture—touch the cuff, follow the chain to the table, tug gently to confirm it’s still the same.
“I should write a song for Matteo,” I whisper, my voice growing weaker with each word. “Something he’d hear if he were here.”
My next song comes out as barely more than a rasp, desperate and quiet.
Firestarter’s coming home.
Burn the world until I’m found.
Light it up and scorch the sky.
Come before I fucking die.
The last word breaks on a sob that I quickly swallow down. No crying. Crying is just dehydration with an audience, and I don’t have water to spare.
“He’s coming,” I tell Adam’s corpse. “He’s going to find me, and then he’s going to blast your brother into so many pieces they’ll need tweezers to identify him.”
I try to imagine Matteo right now, what he might be doing.
“Maybe he’s already burning the city down,” I muse, the thought bringing a strange comfort. “Maybe Cleveland’s just one big bonfire right now. That would be nice. Warm.”
I shiver again, harder this time, the cold from the concrete floor seeping through my dress and into my bones. My feet have gone numb, and I wiggle my toes inside my shoes to get some feeling back.
The dripping water continues its maddening rhythm, and I find myself counting again. Since I don’t remember where I got to, I just say random numbers. Ten-thousand-one, ten-thousand-two.
“Matteo,” I whisper, no longer caring if the corpse or the dripping water or the concrete walls hear the naked desperation in my voice. “Matteo, please. Please find me.”
The cold seeps deeper, and I curl my free arm tighter against my body, trying to preserve what little warmth remains. My eyelids feel impossibly heavy, each blink lasting longer than the one before.
No sleeping. I have to stay awake.
I pinch my thigh hard through my dress, the pain a momentary spark that does nothing to clear the fog settling over my brain.
“Just a little longer,” I promise myself, my voice barely a thread of sound. “Just stay awake a little longer. He’s coming. He has to be coming.”
Drip. Drip. Drip.
The door bangs open like a gunshot, making me flinch so hard I nearly dislocate my wrist. Finn storms in, each boot strike against concrete a thunderclap in my tiny hell.
The sudden noise after hours of nothing but drips and my own voice is like having my eardrums scraped with rusty nails. He’s on his phone, face twisted with a rage so pure it practically glows beneath the single bulb.
“I don’t care what they’re saying,” he snarls into the phone, not even glancing at me. “Deal with it. No, not tomorrow. Now.” His voice is tight, controlled fury threading through each word. “What part of ‘clean it up’ was unclear? And you’re telling me—”
He stops abruptly, finally registering the sound of my hoarse humming. I hadn’t even realized I was still making noise, the melody of my Finn can eat a rancid sock song apparently still playing on repeat somewhere in my brain.
His eyes snap to mine, cold and flat as a snake’s. “I’ll call you back.” With those words, he hangs up. “Shut the fuck up,” he commands, each word precise as a blade.
I blink at him, struggling to process the sudden presence of another human after so long alone with Adam’s corpse. My lips are moving, I realize, still forming silent lyrics.
“Did you hear me?” Finn takes two steps closer, looming over me. The light catches the edges of his silhouette, turning him into something more shadow than man. “I said shut the fuck up.”
“The water’s spelling your name,” I whisper, voice barely audible. “D-i-c-k-h-e-a-d. Drip by drip. Isn’t that neat?”
His face contorts with disbelief, then rage. In one fluid motion, he’s beside me, fingers tangling in my hair, yanking my head back until my throat is exposed. Pain explodes across my scalp, bright and clarifying.
“I have tried being patient,” he hisses, his breath hot against my face, smelling of coffee and mint. Such a normal smell for such a monster. “I have tried being professional. But I swear to God, if I hear one more word out of you—”
“One more word,” I croak, unable to stop myself. Why the hell am I like this?
His grip tightens, tears springing to my eyes. “You think this is funny? You think this is a game?” He pulls harder, forcing me to look directly into his eyes. “I will cut out your tongue and make you eat it. Do you understand me?”
Something inside me snaps—a tether to sanity, perhaps—and laughter bubbles up from my raw throat. It’s not brave laughter. Hell, it’s not even defiant laughter. This is the sound of something broken, a high, fractured giggle that doesn’t even sound like it’s coming from me.
I laugh because it’s all so absurd—me cuffed to a table with a corpse for company, this man who killed his own brother threatening to torture me. I laugh because I’m terrified and exhausted and my brain has simply run out of appropriate responses.
“What the fuck is wrong with you?” Finn breathes, his grip on my hair loosening slightly in confusion.
The laughter keeps coming, tears streaming down my face now, my body shaking with it. I can’t stop. It hurts—God, it hurts my throat so badly—but I can’t make it stop.
“You’ve lost your mind,” he scoffs, and there’s something new in his voice. Uncertainty, perhaps. He didn’t expect this. He wanted fear, tears, and begging. Not whatever broken thing I’ve become.
“Adam’s still staring,” I gasp between bursts of manic laughter. “He thinks you’re rude too.”