As unnerving as it was to lie in a coffin, knowing that somewhere someone was watching, ready to report back to her family and the man they answered to, it weren’t nothing compared to the way her heart pounded with terror at the thought of the lid being nailed in place with her still inside.

She and Baz had practiced finding and pushing out a nail from a plank of wood in the dark, but it’d taken Dominique a few days to alter existing coffins for them to use, especially given he’d been altering a hearse as well. They’d run out of time for practicing escaping the coffins themselves.

That worried her.

She’d pried open coffins before, but always from the outside. And she was blasted good at doing it without leaving marks, without drawing attention. She hated that she was good at that. But it also meant she’d a head full of knowledge on coffins and how they worked. She prayed that’d be enough to get her out quickly, with time enough to free Baz.

Gemma forced herself to keep breathing shallowly as she heard Brogan tell the mourners it was time for removing the flowers and nailing the lids in place. Stone and Fletcher would be doing that as they’d been taught of the trick of it.

With her eyes closed, Gemma felt the darkness descend. Her heart drubbed a steady beat of worry. With the lid on, she could open her peepers at last. She immediately regretted it. Nothing but darkness and distant, echoing voices. Panic slithered over her like a snake in a garden.

The nails were pounded one by one. Heaven help her if they weren’t doing it proper. The coffin was lifted. She slipped her hand beneath herself and felt around until her fingers found the steel pry bar. Her lifeline. Her means of escape.

The coffin wobbled a little as it was moved. After a time, it thudded hard underneath, likely against the floor in the back of the hearse. Then it were shoved forward, deeper inside the vehicle that was to be the scene of the most impossible resurrection ever undertaken.

She ran her fingers along the inner edge of the coffin near the lid, following the notches Dominique had placed there. She heard the thud of Baz’s coffin set next to hers. Muffled voices filled the space around her, and the coffin was jostled. They’d be placing the flowers on either side to block the view through the hearse’s windows. She had to wait until all was quiet and the hearse was moving before she’d risk making a sound.

An eternity passed. There was air enough in the coffin, but her mind screamed that she was suffocating. It was the panic of being nailed in. Only a trick of the brain.