CHAPTER 96 JAMESON
JAMESON
Jameson dug until his hands were bloody, and as he did, he thought all the way back to his very first meeting with Avery, to an almost nonsensical riddle she’d solved without a second thought.
And then his mind went once more to stepping out of the fireplace and into her room. Hair in her face. Ratty pajamas.
Heads, Avery had found a path forward. Tails, Alice had been lying and there was never a path for Avery to find. Heads, she’d survived somehow. Tails, she hadn’t.
Either way, Avery Kylie Grambs, all I am and all I have is yours.
Stone after stone. Chunk after chunk. On some level, Jameson was vaguely aware that Grayson and Nash were right there beside him—and not just Grayson and Nash.
Lyra and Alisa had been allowed to join them.
And then at some point, Xander was there, too, somehow, and all Jameson could think was: She’s our Avery. Est unus ex nobis. Nos defendat eius.
Time meant nothing. Pain meant nothing.
“Over here!”
Jameson’s head snapped up. In the span between one microsecond and the next, his breath seemed to freeze in the air, even though it wasn’t nearly cold enough for that. The sound of his own heartbeat was like a string of violent claps of thunder.
And then he was running. Three of Bowen’s men had descended on a single spot. Jameson saw a flash of red—red hair, red cloak—as a body was extracted. Emily. Immediately, they covered the body with a tarp.
Jameson pulled it roughly back. He had to see for himself. He had to be sure this time, and he was. Her face was intact, but her body… no one could fake that many broken bones. This time, Jameson hadn’t watched her die.
This time, she was dead.
One of Bowen’s men ripped the tarp from Jameson’s hands and pushed him roughly back. And when a second body was removed—dark hair, golden-tan skin, black cloak—no one let him near it.
Alice was next, her white cloak drenched in blood, her neck at the most unnatural angle.
There was no faking this—no faking any of it.
The next body was a young woman Jameson did not recognize, her hair nearly as pale as Grayson’s.
The other Candidate. Not Avery. Not Eve.
It was another twenty minutes before a second, pale-haired body was removed.
A woman, who Jameson presumed was the head of the Kyrie.
For the longest time after that, there was nothing—nothing but Jameson screaming Avery’s name, all of them screaming it, looking for her… until finally, enough rubble had been cleared away to reveal three massive slabs of stone, bigger than the rest by far.
Jameson’s heart jumped into his throat. He yelled through those slabs, but there was no response, and when equipment was brought in to move them, when a hollow was revealed underneath, it wasn’t Avery they found.
Toby. His body was curled around Eve’s. Bodies, Jameson registered. Limp and still.
Again, he was held back, but even from six feet away, it was obvious that Toby’s back had been broken.
He’d taken the impact. The last thing he’d ever done was shield his daughter’s body with his own.
Thanks to the way those large stones had fallen, thanks to Toby taking that impact, Eve’s body was almost unbroken, almost unmarred.
Almost.
There was blood at her temple. The medic shook his head, and Jameson found himself hoping that Eve’s death had been quick, that she hadn’t died slowly, pinned beneath her father’s body, waiting for rescue to come.
Too many bodies. Too many tarps.
Jameson couldn’t afford to let the horror of that touch him. He couldn’t let himself mourn Toby, because there was no choice but to keep going. He had to go deeper. He had to keep looking.
I’m coming, Heiress. Hide and Seek.
Jameson just kept telling himself that if there’d been a trap door or a hidden passage, if there’d been shelter to be found at all, Avery would have found it. The fact that they hadn’t found her body yet—it had to mean she’d found a way.
“Jamie.”
Jameson shook off Nash’s touch. “Deeper,” he said—or tried to, but no sound left his mouth.
I know, Jameson could hear Toby telling him what felt like a lifetime ago, what it’s like for your entire world to begin and end with another person’s eyes, to have fallen so deeply in love with her mind and her strength and her soul that you will never be the same.
She was here. Somewhere in the rubble, somewhere beneath it all, somehow—she’d found a way, and she was here.
Like the sun and the moon, I loved her. Memories washed over Jameson until he was drowning in them, and still he did not stop. Heads I kiss you, tails you kiss me, and either way, it means something.
And then, finally, Jameson hit something metal. He roared, and then one of Bowen’s men was there with a blowtorch, cutting through steel, and the first thing Jameson saw when it was peeled back was John Oren. Jameson hadn’t been expecting that.
Did you save him, Alice, the way you saved us?
Oren climbed out, and then he turned and reached back down into the hole from which he’d climbed and then—
And then—
Like the sun and the moon…
Until death…
He left you the fortune, Heiress. And all he left us is…
“You,” Jameson whispered, as the vision of Avery in his memory—tangled hair, ratty pajamas—gave way to reality. Tangled hair, tattered ballgown. For Jameson, her eyes were the beginning and the end of the world. They were everything.
And then he was holding her, and she was looking up at him, and Jameson pressed his lips gently, desperately to her forehead, her temple, her lips.
“Heads or tails, Heiress,” Jameson whispered, unable to believe she was real.
“Hide and Seek.” Avery’s voice was beyond hoarse. “You found me.”