“Is that why you’re here?” I asked her. “Because all the grays haven’t been wiped out of the city yet? Because the barrier’s still up? Are you like...like some sort of quality control agent sent to assess how things are progressing?”
When I got nervous, I started talking and asking questions. I was surprised I’d been able to hold my tongue this long.
“Yeah, Blondie,” Kraven spoke up. “Just what are you doing here?”
“I have a mission, of course. Part of it is to assess how the team is succeeding...” She paused. “Or failing.”
“What is your main mission?” Bishop asked.
She swept her gaze over the four of us before she said anything. “We know the Hollow is not acting as it normally does.”
Just the sound of its name spoken aloud made an unpleasant shiver race through me.
“Are interdimensional gateways to supernatural graveyards ever that reliable?” Bishop’s expression had relaxed and his tone felt almost too light.
Bishop had as snarky a sense of humor as Kraven did, only he usually kept it under wraps as leader. However, he seemed different with Cassandra around. More relaxed, more easygoing. I wondered if it was because he felt comfortable with her here...or if it was just the opposite.
“What have you learned about it?” Cassandra pressed, and she shifted her gaze to Roth.
He shrugged a shoulder. “It opens when it’s supposed to—at the death of a supernatural. Sucks in the garbage. Then it closes up. Other than it spitting the Source of the grays back out to cause this current little citywide infestation, I don’t think it’s changed all that much.”
She frowned. “So it’s true. What has been cast into the Hollow now has a chance to return.”
I didn’t have to look to see that Bishop had drawn closer to me. I felt it.
“We think so,” he said. “If a supernatural finds him or herself in the Hollow, there is the chance for escape. But the barrier is here to keep anything that gets loose in the city contained so we can deal with it.”
“Keeping us trapped here like rats also,” Roth grumbled. “All grays should die. Thinking any other way is just delaying the inevitable. And, for the record, I don’t think that Bishop’s pet gray should be given a break. We don’t know that her soul can be restored.”
“Excuse me?” Cassandra said, her gaze moving to me again. “Your soul is still in existence?”
“The one who took it managed to contain it,” Bishop answered before I could. “We mean to find him and retrieve it.”
She watched me again like a scientist studying a fascinating microbe. “This must be why you’re different, Samantha.” She looked at Bishop. “Right?”
“Perhaps,” he conceded, but he believed I was different due to my secret origins.
Either way, I needed my soul back. It wasn’t even a question.
“Very good.” Cassandra nodded and slowly trailed her gaze over Bishop’s body. It was leisurely enough that the sour taste returned to my mouth. “Despite your personal difficulties, you appear to have everything under control here.”
“I do.”
“Then why are you bleeding right now?”
My eyes shot to him.
“Excuse me?” he asked tightly.
She pointed at his abdomen. “How were you wounded?”
His jaw tensed. “It’s nothing.”
“Bishop!” I exclaimed. “What is she talking about? Are you hurt?”
He didn’t look at me. “No.”
“Pull up your shirt,” Cassandra instructed. “Let me see.”
After another hesitation, he reluctantly reached for the bottom of his long-sleeved T-shirt and raised it up to show his flat, muscled abdomen. My breath lodged in my throat. There were three deep cuts in his skin. The flow of blood had slowed, but it had soaked through his shirt. Since the material was black I hadn’t noticed anything before.
I was horrified that he’d been walking around with these wounds all night and I’d had no idea. “Oh, my God! What happened to you?”
His gaze flicked to me. “Nothing. I was going to get Zach to heal me next time I saw him.”
“Nothing? That’s not nothing! Who did that to you?”
“He did it to himself,” Kraven said with disinterest, exchanging a wry look with Roth. “It’s his new thing.”
All I could do was gape at Bishop. “Why would you cut yourself like that?”
“The pain helps me concentrate,” he said through clenched teeth. “It takes my confusion away. I need to be able to keep my focus, no matter what.”
I clasped my hand over my mouth, stunned. This is what he’d discovered during the days we’d been apart. This is why he hadn’t needed me to touch him to help clear his mind.
Instead of sympathy for his struggle, hot anger surged through me. “That was an unforgivably stupid thing to do!”
His gaze hardened. “I found a solution. I used it.”
A strangled sound escaped my throat. “Yeah, fantastic solution, Bishop. Self-mutilation. Really brilliant.”
Kraven snorted.
It was as if someone had just drawn a blade over my skin as well and pressed down hard. He’d chosen to inflict injury on himself rather than seek me out. The realization stung like hell.
He lowered his shirt, frowning deeply. “I didn’t want you to know about this.”