Daggett and Priscilla dashed their way over to us, and I pulled Cora off of the ground and met them halfway. “He fucked with her head,” I told them. “You gotta take her somewhere safe. Someplace she won’t get hurt.”
“Yeah, I get that, but you guys need backup,” Daggett said. “You need another werewolf.”
“I need my cousin alive more. Molly wants her dead, and with her head fucked up like this, she’s extra vulnerable. You gotta protect her, Daggett. Seriously. Will you do that?”
He didn’t sound so sure of my plan, but he nodded his head anyway. “Yeah, yeah, I can do that.”
I handed her off to Daggett, not knowing if this was our final goodbye. She wasn’t even in the right state of mind for me to even try to say something nice and have her hear it.
“When Master showed me how to get here, he put a layout of the property in my mind,” I explained. “There’s a hedge maze on the outside of the castle, and inside is a shed. You can hide Cora there.”
“What about you?”
I swallowed. “Watch out for her, okay?”
He looked worried, but not for himself. For me. “You know I will,” he said. It almost looked like he was going to reach out and take my hand for comfort, but decided against it. Instead, he took Priscilla and Cora and they booked it.
Into the cold night they went. Away from the madness. Away from me.
Chapter Thirty-Eight
PRISCILLA
Going on a scavenger hunt for a shed through the garden maze from hell was at the bottom of my list, until I saw a dead guy levitate in the air and turn into a giant bat. Suddenly, running around hedges with dweebs like Daggett and Cora sounded so much fucking better. At least I wasn’t dead, right?
We entered through an opening in the hedges, and all I saw were tall walls of green. Even with all this nasty ass snow, the leaves kept some of their color. There were three directions, one in front of us and one on each of our sides. “Where do we go?” I asked.
“Whichever way we pick, we gotta stick with it,” Daggett said. “Put your hand to the wall and don’t remove it.”
Cora was suspiciously quiet. Maybe she was traumatized. Who knows what that weirdo and his duo of brainless Barbies did to her.
“Yeah, but which way do we go?” I asked.
Daggett glanced back and forth. “Left, maybe?”
“Maybe? You’re a werewolf. You should have a sense for this.”
“Becoming a werewolf doesn’t give me the ability to sniff for sheds or see through walls.”
“You can’t, like, smell the wood or something?”
“Look around us, Priscilla. We’re surrounded by trees and plants. I could always lead us in a circle, if you’d like,” he said sarcastically.
“No need to get testy. I can’t keep track of your dog abilities.”
“It’s usually true across the board that dogs can’t see through objects,” he said as we headed into the hedge maze. I kept close to his side because I didn’t want something or someone leaping out and grabbing my ass. Meanwhile, Cora trailed behind us as she looked around like she was stoned. I waited for her to say some lame or corny shit to release the tension, but she never said a word. I lowkey missed her motormouth.
As Daggett kept to the wall of one hedge, I clutched onto the sleeve of his winter coat and kept my chest close to his back. He peeked over at me and said, “Careful. Any closer and I might think you like me.”
“Really? You choose to hit on me now?”
He scoffed. “I’ve been hitting on you since the beginning of this whole trip. What’s a change of scenery gonna hurt?”
“Well, we are probably going to die.”
“Even better. I shoot my shot and either you’re vulnerable enough to take me up on my offer, or we both die and this will all be forgotten.”
“Wow, what a charmer. And you wonder why you’re still single.”
“Priscilla, that has never ever been something I had to ask myself. Before moving into Brinly’s compound, I was jobless and literally living in my mom’s basement. After that, I stopped pondering why I was single.”
Sarcastically, I said, “Oh, god, Daggett, stop turning me on so much.”
He smiled. “I love it when you moan my name.”
I punched him in the shoulder, and he cried out. “Keep being a sex offender and I’ll use one of these knives on your pecker,” I warned as I flashed open my coat to show the butcher knife Max had stolen from the hotel kitchen. It was still tucked away. “Try having nasty thoughts and getting excited without a dick.”
“You say that like my interest in you is purely physical.”
“Oh, and it’s not?” I asked with a laugh.
“Don’t get me wrong, that is a bonus but…I like you. Is that so hard to believe?”
Yes. Yes, it was.
I shook my head and replied, “Shouldn’t we be focused on getting through this maze?”
“You wanna remain silent the entire time? I never figured silence was your forte.”
I was about to give him a sarcastic response that would have blown him away, when I felt my body tugged away from him. It wasn’t a small pull, it was a giant jerk, and my hold on Daggett broke as I spun in the
