My eyes snapped open at the thought of Devon.
All I saw was darkness, but I blinked again and the world came into focus. A lone bulb burned in the ceiling, casting out long shadows that twisted every which way like monsters about to strike. I scanned the shadows, but all I saw was a warehouse with a dirty concrete floor and gray cinderblock walls. The air was cool enough to make me shiver, despite my black suit. But perhaps the most curious things were the drains that had been set into the floor at regular intervals. One was directly underneath my bare, bloody feet, which were sprawled across the concrete, since I’d been unconscious.
Since I couldn’t really tell where I was, I moved on to how I was. My jaw pulsed with pain, but other than that, I seemed to be okay. I didn’t feel any stinging cuts or throbbing bruises, although a dull ache filled every other part of me.
I looked up at the source of the pain—my arms. My hands were tied together with a heavy rope, which had been looped over a metal hook hanging down from the ceiling. Someone had strung me up on the hook and then left me to dangle for however long it took for me to wake up. More hooks hung from the ceiling, each one right over a drain.
The hooks, the cool air, the drains in the concrete floor. My heart dropped like a stone. This wasn’t a warehouse—it was a slaughterhouse.
The sort of place where they hung slabs of beef and pork in cold storage before shipping them out to butcher shops. A perfect metaphor for what Grant wanted to do to Devon—
“Mm ! Mm-mmm!”
A muffled sound caught my attention. I looked to my right to find Devon tied to a chair. My eyes scanned over him, but he seemed to be okay. Red welts and bruises marred his face, and his knuckles were scraped and bloody, probably from his fight with Grant and his goons. The ropes binding him to the chair were as thick and heavy as mine, and a strip of silver tape covered his mouth, to keep him from speaking and using his compulsion magic.
Questions crowded into my mind, mainly about whether Felix and the others realized what had happened yet, if they were tracking us, and how close they might be to finding us. But I forced myself to push those thoughts away and focus on Devon. All that mattered right now was getting both of us out of here—alive.
“Are you okay?” I asked.
Devon nodded, then abruptly stopped. He looked past me, his eyes narrowing in anger, rage, and hate.
“He’s fine,” a snide voice answered me. “For now.”
Footsteps sounded, and Grant walked in front of me. He wasn’t alone. Two men also appeared and moved behind him, flanking him like soldiers. I looked around, but I didn’t see anyone else. Once they’d captured Devon, Grant must have paid off all the other men he’d hired and sent them away.
“Oh good,” he sneered. “Sleeping Beauty is finally awake.”
It took me a couple of tries, but I managed to get my bare feet under me and stand up straight. That eased the ache in my arms, although pins and needles started stabbing into my shoulders from the uncomfortable position I’d been in for . . . well, I didn’t know how long. But I started flexing my fingers, opening them as wide as I could, given the ropes, and then clenching them together, trying to get the blood flowing again. I needed as much of me to be in the best shape possible if Devon and I had any chance of escaping. Even if I had no idea how I was going to get out of my ropes to start with, much less the ones that bound Devon to his chair.
To distract myself from the pins and needles, I scanned the slaughterhouse again, this time looking for exits. No windows were set into the walls, although I did notice a door at the far end of this section. Where that door led, I didn’t know, but it had to be better than being trapped in here with Grant.
“I’m glad you’re awake,” Grant said. “I wanted you to be the first to witness my newfound power—after I take it from Devon.”
He held up the same dagger he’d attacked Devon with earlier, and I realized it was a black blade—bloodiron—with a hand holding a sword carved into the hilt. The Sinclair crest. He must have gotten it from the training room at the mansion.
Grant twirled the dagger around and around in his hand, like a cowboy spinning a six-shooter on his finger. Devon kept glaring at him, the anger in his eyes flaring hotter and brighter. Grant gave him an evil grin and stepped in that direction, ready to hurt Devon if I didn’t figure out a way to stop him.
“How did you find out about Devon’s Talent?” I called out.
Yeah, it was a weak ploy at best, but ego was the one thing that Grant had more of than anything else, and I was counting on it to buy me a few more minutes to do . . . something.
Grant stopped and looked over his shoulder at me. “You mean his compulsion magic?”
I nodded.
“I overheard Claudia and Reginald talking about it with Oscar. Apparently, they were reminiscing about how they once saw Devon use his power to make a kitten climb down out of a tree in one of the squares. It’s not a big secret, no matter what Claudia likes to think.”
“And you decided that you wanted Devon’s magic for yourself.”