She was once again alone.
The basement of the Cast Iron was quiet and dark. Corinne hated seeing it like this. In the past there had always been a light burning somewhere, even in the middle of the night. She maneuvered her way through the common room by touch. She managed to avoid the armchair but bashed her shin on the edge of the coffee table, rattling the glass bottles. She cursed right as the light came on.
“You okay?” Gabriel asked from the light switch. There was a hint of amusement in his voice that Corinne opted to ignore.
“Never better,” she said.
She went into Saint’s room without knocking and was surprised to find the light on, bathing his paintings in a dingy yellow. Before she could speak, Saint’s arms were around her in a fierce embrace.
“I thought you were dead,” he told her.
Corinne coughed into his shoulder, and he released her.
“Where were you? Why didn’t you call?” And then, when he’d had a chance to take in her bedraggled state: “What happened to you?”
“There’s not enough time for the long or the short version,” Corinne said. “We have to get out of here. The HPA is—”
When the door shut behind her, her first thought was that Gabriel had come into the room. She turned, but he wasn’t there. There was a soft click, and her heart leapt into her throat before her mind had even registered what the sound was.
A key turning in the lock.
She tried the handle, because she didn’t want to believe it, because she couldn’t believe it.
“What’s going on?” Saint asked behind her.
“Gabriel,” Corinne said, pressing her cheek against the wood. “What are you doing?”
There was a moment of quiet, a moment when she still had hope, but then his voice came through the door.
“I’m so sorry, Cor.”
Her disbelief was eclipsed almost instantly by a searing, blinding panic. She yanked at the handle, ignoring the blood coating her palm, and when that didn’t work, she threw her weight into the door. It shuddered but didn’t budge. Her breaths were stabbing pains in her chest. She couldn’t stop thinking of that iron corridor, of the woman’s screams echoing in her ears, and of Wilkey’s sunny, stomach-turning smile.
You’ll be back soon.
“They’re going to take us both back there,” she cried into the unyielding wood. “Gabriel, the things they’re doing to hemopaths—it’s—you can’t—please.”
“I don’t have a choice.” His voice was softer now, barely audible over the pounding of her pulse.
“Gabriel,” she screamed, throwing her weight against the door again and again. “Gabriel!”
But there was no reply.
CHAPTER FIFTEEN
Corinne didn’t give up her assault on the door until her shoulder ached so badly she was afraid she had broken something. She turned to find Saint kneeling on the floor, putting final touches on a large canvas that leaned against the opposite wall. It was the outside of the Mythic Theatre at night, the marquee glowing orange and red, the sidewalk dark and slick with recent rain.
“If you’re not too busy, you might consider helping me escape our doom,” Corinne said.
Saint dabbed his brush on the palette. “Even if you did manage to knock down the door with a hundred and twenty pounds of raw obstinacy, how were you planning on dealing with Gabriel and his gun on the other side?”
He smudged the orange around the letter M to give it a bleary look in the misty air.
“I was leaning toward strangling him with my bare hands,” Corinne said, dropping onto Saint’s cot. “I’m open to suggestions, though.”
“The door opens inward,” he said. “All you’re doing is exhausting yourself.”
He was very matter-of-fact about it. His attention seemed to be mostly on his work. There were flecks of black paint in his auburn hair and a smudge of orange on his chin.
“So you just want to sit quietly and finish up your magnum opus until it’s time for us to be dragged to the asylum?” Corinne asked.
Saint snorted. “It’s hardly my magnum opus. At least I hope it’s not.” He frowned at it, considering. “A little derivative of Van Gogh, actually, but it’ll do the trick.”
“You mean trip up the HPA when they come through the door?”
Saint stood up, dusted off his trousers, and put the paintbrush into a cup. He sat down next to her on the cot and took her bleeding hand in his. He pulled a rag from his pocket and pressed it against her palm.
“I’m sorry about Gabriel,” he said. “Really.”
“He doesn’t matter,” Corinne said.
But she couldn’t find any conviction to inject in her words. There were voices outside the door. Footsteps. Corinne thought of Agents Pierce and Wilkey sauntering arrogantly through the life they had built, and her pulse roared in her ears. Saint jumped to his feet and faced her.
“Come here,” he said, offering her his hand.
“Why, Sebastian, are you going to propose?”
“You will literally be making sarcastic comments as they pour dirt in your grave, won’t you?”