I swallowed, but it did nothing to remove the lump in my throat. “There was a kid in there, Malachi. They were hurting him.”

Malachi shook his head. “They don’t hurt their recruits. Not unless—”

“This isn’t like the dark city where their prisoners are passive and cooperative! The kid wouldn’t be quiet, and he was trying to escape. They’d scratched him.” Tears burned my eyes. “I saw a chance to get him out. I couldn’t leave him there.”

Confusion softened Malachi’s steely glare as Henry called out, “You freed a prisoner? Where is he now?”

I have no idea. I bit my lip as a tear leaked from the corner of my eye. Malachi cupped my face in his hands, and I shuddered as I noticed a smear of blood on his fingers. When he spoke again, his voice was soft. “Is he still trapped in there?”

I shook my head, the dread suffocating me. Malachi searched my expression for clues. “Did he escape before I arrived?”

I shook my head again. “He was right behind me.”

Malachi went utterly still as the color drained from his face. “No. No, that was a Mazikin,” he stammered. “He was chasing you—trying—he was trying to grab you. I had to … to protect you.”

“You did,” I choked out. “The other man was a Mazikin.”

“But the boy—”

“Wasn’t.”

Malachi’s hands shook as they fell away from me. He stared down at them and finally seemed to notice the blood on his fingers. “Are you sure?” he whispered.

Before I had a chance to respond, he was already wiping his bloody hands on his pants with desperate movements. But the smears had dried, so he started to rub them fiercely and scrape at them with his short, blunt fingernails. In seconds, his skin was red from the friction, and I reached over to stop him. He ripped his hands away from me and folded them beneath his arms. I sat back, completely at a loss. He looked like he was about to explode, and I had no idea how to defuse this kind of bomb. We lapsed into an uncomfortable silence.

As Henry got onto the highway, I realized I’d forgotten all about Tegan. I reached for my phone so that I could text her. But it wasn’t in my pocket. I patted myself down and realized that, somewhere along the line, I’d dropped not only the phone, but also my knife. Sucking in a breath, I touched Malachi’s arm. “Can I borrow your phone?”

He dropped it into my hand without looking at me. Pretending to be Malachi, I texted Tegan, telling her he’d found me and asking her if she could get a ride home from Ian. I got an answer immediately:

Where the hell did Lela go?!

So I responded: Had to deal with something

Tell her shes on my shitlist