Page 98 of Winter's End

The devil himself appeared in the doorway, as if summoned for a soul swap. His eyes roamed the room. When he saw us, his eyes lit up with evil glee.

Fuck. That wasn’t good.

“New plan, Angelo. These two will make a perfect addition to our test.” He clapped his hands together and subtly nodded toward the black case I hadn’t noticed on the desk.

“There are more than enough supplies in there. Jonah and Mical will help you out.”

The identical Latino men with severe frowns walked into the room and the first real traces of fear trickled through me.

One of them opened the case and took out three hypodermic needles in their packaging, along with a bottle of a cloudy liquid. I reached around to hold Winter tightly to me, knowing we wouldn’t escape this fate. I hoped to fuck whatever they were about to shoot us up with wouldn’t hurt Winter or derail my treatment.

We wouldn’t have a choice in the matter, though. I was an egotistical bastard, but I wasn’t stupid enough to think we’d make it through a wall of armed criminals.

“We’re going to be okay,” I whispered to Winter, squeezing her hand one last time before the needle pricked my skin and all I saw was black.

My skull felt like some fucker had hit a home run using my head as the ball. My cheek pressed into a rough surface and when I breathed in, I got a nose full of dirt.

Fucking gross.

My hands were bound behind me, but my feet were still free. I shifted awkwardly into an upright position. Winter lay beside me, curled up in the same position and out cold. I’d shake her awake in a second, but first I needed to see where the fuck we were.

At first glance, I thought we were in the cellar, but once my vision fully cleared, I could see we were in a tunnel of some sort. Dim light came from a pneumatic lamp buried into the wall above our heads.

Janet lay on the other side of the tunnel. A deep gash at her hairline was bleeding down her face, and her lip was split in two.

We were in trouble.Realtrouble. Where in the fuck was Kellan?

Winter moaned beside me, and I shuffled my ass over to give her the comfort of my touch. I had no other fucking options with my hands tied.

“Hey, Queenie.” I tried to be soothing, but what the fuck did that look like in this massively fucked up scenario? “How are you feeling?”

“Fuck off, Logan, and tell me how bad it is.”

Her rebuke was slow and slurred, but it made me smile. Winter was a fucking fighter, and I loved her for it.

Fine, I wouldn’t sugarcoat this for her. That wasn’t my style, anyway. Let Drew or Travis be the White Knight.

“Pretty fucking bad,” I admitted. “I think we’re in a mine shaft or something.”

How long had we been fucking out? The closest mine was twenty-five minutes outside of Carlisle.

I no longer had my phone on me and my watch had been removed. I looked down to see my tie clip still in place—the tie clip with the tracker in it. Thank fuck. At least someone could find us, sooner or later.

Hopefully fucking sooner.

Wherein the fuckwas Kellan? FBI leader or not, I was going tomurderthe fucker.

Winter fumbled her way to a seated position and surveyed our earthy jail cell with her own eyes. She gasped when she saw Janet.

“What can we do to help her?”

I scoffed in irritation. “We’re fucking tied up, Winter. What do you think we can do?”

I could appreciate her heart of gold, but it was a pretty useless trait right now. More softly, I added, “Can you walk? The best thing we can do is find a way out of here to get her some help.”

Winter wiggled her legs and nodded. Her sexy yet impractical heels wouldn’t last long in here, but they’d have to do. At least with the bottom half of her dress gone, she’d be able to move.

We never got the fucking chance to move. Voices carried down the shaft, and there were many of them.