Zach and Connor exchanged a look.
“Bishop!” I said it louder, my heart pounding. “It’s me. I’m here!”
“Oh, give me a—” Kraven began.
“Quiet! I need to concentrate. I need to clear my head so I can know if this is real.”
“And how are you going to do that?” Kraven asked.
Bishop yanked the dagger from his sheath and held it against his bare arm.
My view of what he saw flickered in that moment of craziness. For a second, I feared I was losing the connection completely.
Connor grabbed him before he made the cut. “Don’t do this!”
Bishop pushed him back. “I have to. It’s the only way.”
Horror crashed over me. “Don’t you dare cut yourself!” My scream wasn’t delivered out loud. It was fully internal and my words sped along the ribbon that joined us. It was the same one that allowed me to see through his eyes—a metaphysical television cable.
The blade stilled.
“It’s her,” he whispered.
“Bishop...” Zach said cautiously.
I couldn’t believe this was really happening. He heard me!
“Samantha?” Bishop said hoarsely. “Is that really you?”
A million thoughts and questions raced through my mind about how this was possible and what it all meant. But none of that mattered right now. “I swear, Bishop, if you cut yourself again I’m going to kill you!”
He snorted softly, still half-uncertain. “This is incredible. Where are you?”
“Oh, boy,” Kraven said, coming into Bishop’s sightline to peer at his brother curiously. “He’s definitely gone completely off the deep end this time.”
I did what I usually did when it came to the demon and ignored him. “Stephen grabbed me yesterday morning. He has me in a locked room, but I don’t know where.”
“How can you do this? How can I hear you in my head?”
“Now he’s talking to himself,” Kraven said, bemused.
“Shut up,” Zach snapped at him. “You’re not helping.”
Kraven rolled his eyes. “Whatever. He’s crazy, that’s all. Don’t you see that?”
God, he was so frustrating. “Tell James I told him to shut the hell up.”
Bishop snorted. “He’d just talk more.”
The image I saw through Bishop’s eyes went staticky again, it flickered to black, to white and then back to normal. “I don’t think this is going to last much longer. Bishop, listen to me. I got to you from that piece of your soul I took—it’s still inside me. It’s what our bond is, why I can see things. It works both ways, I’m sure of it. So you need to find that, too. You have to follow it.”
“I’ll do it. I’ll find you. I swear it.”
“Hurry, though. I—I don’t have much time.”
“What do you mean?” His voice turned harsh and raw. “Did that son of a bitch hurt you? I’m going to kill him.”
“Stephen locked me in a room with someone—someone with a soul. Please, you need to find—”
Snap!
The thread connecting us disappeared and my mind returned fully to the small, locked room. My eyes popped open.
“What are you doing?” Jordan demanded. “Do you really think meditation is going to help us right now?”
I sent a look at her across the room. “You sure better hope so.”
So strange, but just being in Bishop’s head helped to bring me some much-needed warmth. The whole time I’d seen through his eyes I didn’t think once about the previous memory melds, not once. I wasn’t afraid of him. All I felt when I’d been in his head was that warmth. He wasn’t the same person now that he’d been back then.
I’d told him I wanted him to stay away from me. He’d believed me, even though I’d never told a bigger lie in my life.
“Now what?” Jordan asked, the anger fading from her voice.
I swallowed hard. “Now we wait.”
I concentrated on the sound of my heart beating, but I lost count at a thousand. My stomach growled. It was so empty after being locked in here for so long. Food might help a little; the more I ate the better I felt. But not enough.
Something hit me and I opened my eyes to look down at the energy bar that had pinged off my leg.
“Eat it,” Jordan said.
“It won’t help.”
“Eat it anyway.”
I ate it. And then I tried to come up with a Plan B. Because with every minute that ticked by, my resolve and my control were slipping away like the sand in a very scary hourglass.
My chills returned and my arms broke out in goose bumps. I crossed my arms over my chest and tried to keep from shivering.
I could figure this out. I had to use my brain, which had rarely failed me before—not including the F I’d received on my English test. I’d assumed I knew enough. One can’t assume. One had to know for sure, because guessing could lead to failure.
I could pretend to take Jordan’s soul. Stephen would see through the camera and he’d come in. I’d use Jordan’s brick to knock him out. Yeah, that was a plan.
A really lousy one.
“Come on, brain,” I mumbled under my breath. “Start thinking.”