Page 39 of The Queen (Masterpiece Duet 2)
And now Damon is on a plane headed toward him. That’s exactly what Jonathan Scott knew would happen. He’s pulling everyone’s strings. “I’m sorry.”
She gives a sad laugh. “Family. That’s how he lured me out of the room, did you know that? Had this lookalike of my mother along the hillside in the moonlight. It was one of the inmates, but she looked so much like her.”
“I had no idea. I woke up alone and so confused, Avery. So scared for you.”
“I think part of me assumed I was dreaming, seeing her like that, following her through the wet grass. It felt like a dream. At least until I woke up in a padded cell.”
“That’s terrifying.”
“Yes,” she says soberly. “Are you still in Tanglewood? We’re going there tomorrow. I want to see you.”
“Actually we’re on our way to the asylum.”
“What? No. Turn around.”
“I’m not sure the pilot can turn around in midair.” I glance at Damon, whose expression has turned hard. “And I’m not sure we’d tell him to if we could. I think Damon needs to finish this.”
A deep breath comes over the line. “Maybe that’s true. I don’t trust the FBI any more than I trust the people who ran that asylum. That man has some kind of hold over people. He gets into their heads.”
I’m familiar with that particular sensation. The sense that he can see inside me. The feeling of invisible fingers combing through my worries and fears.
“That doesn’t mean you need to go,” she adds. “You shouldn’t be anywhere near that place. Jonathan Scott is still there and very much alive. And he has the other inmates with him.”
Nothing about padded walls and creepy asylums appeals to me. That would always be true, but doubly so because that’s where Jonathan Scott hurt me three years ago, in an old abandoned mental hospital in the city. He feels at home there, which makes them the worst possible place to keep him. Where he’s strongest.
“No,” I say softly, because I have no intention of leaving Damon’s side. “I’m going.”
“Penny, no. You can’t.”
“I need to see this through. We all have our strengths, Avery. Yours got you out of that place. And mine… well, mine sent me there. That’s the difference between us.”
Chapter Twenty-Five
We land on a private airstrip amid Cessnas and small luxury jets, the sunset casting an orange glow.
Whatever recreational use this place normally has, it’s now been commandeered by Damon Scott. Five men in black T-shirts and military cargo pants wait for us with an arsenal that could rival a small nation. Large black guns lined up on white folding tables. They make me feel both better and worse—better, because we’re more prepared for whatever might greet us at the asylum. And worse, because it brings home how dangerous it’s really going to be.
Damon confers with the men in hushed tones, leaving me out of the discussion. I might take offense to that, but these men are clearly well-trained. I have no knowledge of combat. And I can’t contain my relief that he isn’t really going to COME ALONE, no matter what the note said.
Hiro finds me looking at an array of strange little capsules. “Smoke bombs,” she says.
I glance back at her. “Did you read about them in your magazine?”
“These? No, these are military grade. Classified. Not commercial.”
“Then how do we have them?”
She only winks. “There are some good people here. I’m impressed, and I’m hard to impress. We’ll set up camp for twenty-four hours. If Damon doesn’t return by then—”
“What do you mean, if he doesn’t return? I’m going with him.” I say the words before I’ve had time to think it through, but it’s true. The whole world turned their back on Damon Scott. All his life he’s been suffering alone. This one time I can go with him.
“Not according to the plan.”
“Screw the plan.”
Her nose scrunches. “I’m not paid to run interference in a lover’s spat.”
Is that what we are—lovers? Friends? Enemies? Everything about Damon Scott is undefinable. He’s a mystery that can’t be solved. A puzzle with limitless layers. A living, breathing Escher painting with stairs folding into stairs for eternity. “This isn’t a spat. This is important. We need to go with him.”
“His orders are clear. He goes in alone.”
Shock renders me speechless for a moment. “I hope that by alone you mean, with all these mercenaries, right? Because otherwise what’s even the point of them?”
“Something else,” she says, not sounding concerned. “If he doesn’t return within twenty-four hours, you and I will board the plane and return to Tanglewood. The mercs have their own orders. I don’t know the specifics, but I’m guessing they’re going to turn the asylum into dust.”
“With Damon inside?”
He appears behind me. “If I don’t come out in twenty-four hours, I’m already dead.”
I whirl to face him. “That is the worst plan I’ve ever heard.”
