Page 68 of Cruel Crypts
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“This is it.” I pulled up outside the row of shops. “Above the fried chicken place.”
In the rear-view mirror, I watched my mum wrinkle her nose. “She’s spent five days too long here already. Go and get her.”
Next to me, my dad patted my arm. “If she refuses to listen to you, carry her out of there.”
I raised a brow. “As a legal professional, are you advocating kidnapping as an acceptable method of getting her to listen?”
“As a legal professional, I am not advocating kidnapping. As your father, I am advocating the use of any means necessary to bring Elena back home with us, where she belongs.”
My mother climbed out of the car as I did and took my place behind the wheel. My dad still wasn’t able to drive, thanks to his broken ankle, so my mum had offered.
“Good luck,” she murmured. “I agree with your father—if she won’t listen to you, carry her out of there by force.”
“I might have to.”
Adjusting the small bag that was slung across my body, I stepped up to the door that led to the flats, between the chicken place and a laundrette, and pressed the buzzer marked Flat 4.
There was no answer. I buzzed again, and again, and then I tried the next buzzer up. They didn’t answer either. Fuck, where was she? It was Friday night, and I thought she’d be home. We’d driven to London as soon as my lacrosse game was over, and from the information we’d managed to gather, she should have been here.
“Excuse me.” A dark-haired woman who looked to be in her mid-twenties appeared next to me, juggling three bags with a set of keys. “I need to get inside.”
“Need any help?” I gave her a wide smile, the kind that I used a lot when I was younger to get out of trouble with my parents. “Let me get the door for you.”
“Thank you.” She returned my smile, and I took the keys from her, unlocked the door, and held it open for her before handing back the keys.
“No problem. Hey, do you know the girl who lives in flat number four? Elena? She’s a friend of mine, and I was hoping to surprise her with a visit, but she’s not answering her buzzer.”
The woman nodded, and hope surged through me. “Elena. Yes. The new girl. Her flat’s opposite mine. You won’t find her at home tonight—she’s working.”
“Working? I didn’t know—I mean, she didn’t tell me she had a job already.”
“Well.” She glanced around us, lowering her voice even though we were the only two people in an otherwise deserted stairwell. “It’s off the books, if you know what I mean. She only started there yesterday.”
“Your secret’s safe with me.” I winked at her, and she smiled.
“If you want to surprise her, you can. The staff aren’t supposed to have visitors when they’re working, but the owners don’t care.” She shrugged. “If anyone asks, tell them Laura sent you.”
“I will. Where can I find her?”
Nodding her head towards the street behind me, she said, “The pub at the end of the row. The Hog’s Head. She’s in the kitchens.”
“Thanks.” Wasting no more time, I backed out of the flat’s entryway and jogged over to the car, letting my parents know what was happening. Within two minutes, I was pushing inside the dingy pub and heading straight for the door marked “Staff Only.”
She wasn’t in the kitchen, so I kept going down another corridor and through another door, ending up outside in a walled backyard with beer barrels stacked around the space. Literally no one seemed to even care that I was back here. It was fucking crazy. Although I guessed if they were employing people off the books, then it probably wasn’t the kind of establishment that cared about patrons going where they weren’t supposed to.
That was irrelevant, though, in light of the fact that Elena was here, working, when she’d only just been in hospital and had a blood transfusion. She shouldn’t be here. She should be with—
The second I laid eyes on my girl, my heart fucking jump-started in my chest, and everything I felt for her came rushing back to the surface.
“Elena.”
Her head whipped around, and her jaw dropped as she took me in. Almost immediately, her eyes filled with tears.
“Knox? Wh—what are you doing here?”
I stepped closer, dying to touch her, but I held off, taking in her defensive posture and the way she was hugging her arms to herself.