He didn’t know how many times he checked his phone. But after what felt like the hundredth, thirty minutes had finally passed.
It’s time. I’ll be there soon, Little Siren.
Unless they catch me and kill me first.
Nox climbed the stairs and listened at the door. When he didn’t hear anything, he took a chance and opened it. He remembered that the butler’s pantry lay on the other side, just off the kitchen. What he couldn’t remember was where the door opposite it led. He needed to get outside and around the back of the house. He only knew one way into the labs—the route he’d taken so many years ago as a child.
Nox had no choice; he was going to have to retrace his steps, relive some hide-and-seek that was almost too painful to remember. He opened the door slowly, and for once, luck was on his side.
The back of the estate stretched out before him, partially hidden by the shadows between what was left of the night and dawn. Weeping willows and old oaks dripping with Spanish moss guarded the property, along with more than a few enormous men. They had to be Darkborns—they were too unnaturally big to be Dark Casters, and with dawn breaking, Incubuses would have already fled inside to avoid the sunlight.
Unless Silas has more hybrids like Link and his friend John Breed.
Either way, this was a suicide mission, which wouldn’t have mattered to Nox except for the fact that he was probably Ridley’s only hope. Based on Link’s track record of keeping Ridley safe, the chances of the hybrid finding his way here and getting her out were slim to none.
I won’t fail you, Rid. No matter what.
Nox stole through the darkness like a shadow himself, staying close to the trees, working his way slowly toward the entrance to the labs, behind the carriage house. He crossed his fingers, hoping the door was still there.
As he edged his way around the side of the old building, he saw it.
The steel door that had reminded him of a tornado shelter when he was a kid lay a few feet away, unguarded. But Nox didn’t let that lull him into a false sense of security. He remembered the Incubuses patrolling the labs the first time he’d snuck in.
When he opened the door, a chill ran up the back of his neck, as if Abraham Ravenwood himself was there, watching him.
Haunting him, the way he always had and always would.
After all the people I’ve hurt, maybe I deserve it. Maybe I’m no better than he is.
But there was no time to think about it now. Nox slipped inside and moved quietly through the passage that led to the main hallway. When the passage ended, he peered around the corner.
Finally.
He was startled to see how the labs had changed. When he was a kid, the labs had reminded him of a state-of-the-art military facility or futuristic hospital—with gleaming steel walls and glass observation windows.
The steel walls were still here, but the observation window was gone.
On the left side of the hallway, sheets of thick plastic hung from the ceiling in front of a sterile-looking white door marked AUTHORIZED PERSONNEL ONLY.
Nox almost expected to see people wearing biohazard suits coming out at any moment. He couldn’t help but wonder if Abraham had continued his experiments—and if Silas was still conducting them now.
One look down the other side of the hallway made it clear that Silas was doing a lot more than that in the labs. Halfway down the hall, the steel walls ended abruptly, replaced by intricately carved mahogany paneling.
Strange.
The floor was covered in the hides of more animals than Nox could count; the crowning glory was the pelt of a huge Bengal tiger, complete with its head, paws, and tail.
What’s this weird museum doing in the middle of the labs?
It was more than just the animal pelts and mounted heads.
Leather club chairs were arranged beneath them, in small clusters, like you’d find in an upper-crust men’s club—and not at all the kind of club Nox himself had ever run. A huge marble fireplace added to the Masterpiece Theatre effect.
Nox looked away from the fireplace. Even though it wasn’t lit, it was force of habit with him now.
Careful.
A portrait of a white-haired man in a Sunday suit hung above the mantel. Nox couldn’t tell if it really was Abraham from where he was standing, but he was too fixated on what was hanging around the painting to care.
Animal heads—at least a dozen of them.
From a feral-looking wolverine and a black panther baring its ivory teeth to a lion with a full mane, and a gray wolf, still snarling, the world’s most dangerous predators surrounded the greatest predator of them all.
It’s almost like Silas has a sense of humor. A deeply deranged sense of humor.
What could Silas possibly be doing with some kind of boys’ club in the labs? When Nox was younger, Abraham never allowed visitors in the labs, and now it seemed as if Silas was entertaining in here.
What’s he selling? Or dealing? And why here?
But then Nox heard voices on the other side of the biohazard door and quickly stepped back into the alcove, pressing himself against the wall.
“It’s unrealistic. If production continues this way, we’re gonna run out of space,” a woman said. “We’re already pushing maximum capacity as it is.”
“If you want to be the one to tell him, feel free,” a man said. “It’ll be your blood spatter on the floor. But I’m not waiting around to mop it up. I’m going home.”
Nox got a good look at the golden-eyed Dark Casters as they walked by in their pristine white lab coats. So the place was teeming with Ravenwood lab lackeys, just as it had been in Abraham’s day.