Page 79 of TBR: Dead But Well Read

Evander rubbed his jaw. “If you’re worried about being an asset—which you shouldn’t be—remember that you saved ourlives. You’d be like traveling with a portable battery pack just in case there was an emergency.”

I thought about Saul’s warning that there would be Hades to pay if I fed the guys without him there to make sure I didn’t give too much. He wasn’t going to like this plan, but I wanted to be near the guys just in case they needed me.

“How about we figure it out case by case?” Lochlan offered. “I snooped on Rhodes’ laptop, and one case he’s considering is a supposedly haunted cruise ship. You could come along and enjoy the cruise and read to your heart’s content while we work. And when we’re not working…”

“Stop going through my laptop!” Rhodes snarled.

“Why? Are you afraid I’ll tell Axelle about the poetry you started writing for her? Don’t worry, your secret is safe, bro.” Lochlan pretended to zip his lips and throw away the key.

“Are you sure you’re attached to him? There would be more room in the bed if I make him disappear.” Rhodes asked me, a knife appearing in his hand out of nowhere.

“Yes, I’d very much like to keep all four of my men. Now let’s focus and find my reaper.”

“I wonder what said reaper will have to say about us taking Axelle with us? He might want to lock her up for safekeeping,” Evander mused out loud.

Squeak!

Wasabi’s head appeared from a pocket in Evander’s rucksack.

“What is he doing here?”

“He looked sad, and I didn’t want to leave him alone, so I brought him with us,” Evander answered sheepishly.

Wasabi scampered down Ev’s back and leg to the floor. As though he were a rat on a mission, he ran straight to the far wall of the chamber. He leaped up onto a small stone near the floor.

It stuck out just enough that he could sit on it, which he did, and stared up at us as the tunnel trembled and a piece of the floor slid to the side, revealing a set of stairs.

“Why does it feel like he’s judging us?” Evander whispered.

“That was the most thug life thing I’ve ever witnessed! He didn’t even break eye contact while he made us look like idiots!” Lochlan laughed, bending down and holding out his fist for Wasabi to bump.

I knew Wasabi was smart, but Lochlan was giving him a little too much credit. “Loch, he doesn’t know what that means?—”

Wasabi rested his tiny front paw on Lochlan’s knuckles.

“That was just a coincidence. Now let’s focus on finding Saul.” I watched Rhodes head down the stairs into another creepy tunnel.

Thankfully, this one was far shorter and led straight to a large room packed with various types of modern lab equipment. Was this Zacharias’ evil laboratory?

Nothing appeared particularly menacing, but a sense of heaviness permeated the air.

While Evander stood slightly in front of me, Rhodes and Lochlan moved around the room, checking beneath cabinets and behind the sparse furniture for anyone who might be hiding.

“It’s clear,” Lochlan told us.

Evander relaxed and shifted to stand beside me now that he wasn’t worried about an immediate threat. There had to be some irony in the fact that they were trying so hard to keep me alive, when I was technically already dead.

“We’ve found our ghosts,” Rhodes called from where he stood in front of a small door with a viewing window.

We squeezed in around him and peered through the window. A chamber that was the size of an ice-skating rink stretched out in front of us. It was empty except for the ghosts packed inside it.They barely had room to move without bumping against another ghost.

“How long do you think he’s kept them down here?” My chest tightened. Why had Saul agreed to this?

“Not more than a few weeks to months. Otherwise, they would have faded, and I assume he wants their energy for something. The better question is, how is he keeping them confined?” Rhodes shook his head in disgust.

“I’m guessing it has something to do with the metal pipes wrapping around the walls and the roof. Those pipes hook to the large vats in here. I bet he’s feeding one of his concoctions through those pipes and the ghosts can’t cross them.” Evander’s ability to problem solve on the fly was nothing short of impressive.

It would’ve taken me far longer to put those pieces together.

---