“Heart,” I said.

“You mean that thing you don’t have?”

I gasped. “I have a heart. Her name is Betty White.” I slammed a fist against my chest passionately, wincing slightly. “She’s right here with me, hand in hand – or ventricle in ventricle – through thick and thin, day in and day out. Otherwise, I’d be dead.”

“Your point being?”

“Heart. The music group. They sing a song about this chick who picks up this guy and has sex with him. He sees her later with a kid and the kid has his eyes. The chick explains that she just needed his sperm. Those weren’t the exact words, but apparently, her husband couldn’t get her pregtastic, so she went out and seduced a guy just to get knocked up. Maybe it’s the same thing with Marika?”

He stuffed his phone into his pocket. “Maybe.”

“I mean, you said she’d just come over for sex in the middle of the night and then leave. There was no real relationship, right?”

One shoulder went up in a halfhearted shrug.

“Maybe she just wanted a baby daddy.” I looked toward the building, growing more impatient by the second. They’d been in there awhile. “You need to call Reyes,” I said, but the moment I said it, I heard a shrill scream coming from the asylum. I straightened once more and pulled against my restraint.

“What?” Garrett said in alarm. He couldn’t hear her.

“Strawberry,” I gasped, then ran for the gate.

Reyes had propped the front door open, too, and I rocketed through it and flew down the stairs and to the kitchen. I came to a screeching halt in front of Reyes, the Dealer, and Strawberry. She glanced around the room wildly, her face in shock as she tried to make sense of her surroundings. The other two looked from her to each other, then back again until they noticed my presence.

“Dutch, son of a bitch,” Reyes said, storming toward me, his expression not pleasant in the least. “What the f**k are you doing in here?”

I blinked, taking in the scene with a mixture of shock and awe. It was clean. Sterile, in fact. Not a drop of blood anywhere. Not a body. Not a speck of dirt out of place. “What the hell?” I asked, turning in a full circle.

“There’s nothing here,” the Dealer said. “But the guy’s shit is still in there.” He nodded toward the freezer.

Reyes took my arm to drag me back out, but I stood my ground.

“Where did he go? Where did all the blood go?”

“There isn’t any, but the scent is still strong.” The Dealer inhaled through his nose. “I can smell it. Blood. A lot of it.”

Reyes jerked me to attention. “What are you doing in here?”

“I heard Strawberry scream.”

Garrett finally found me, having burst through the door and come face-to-face with a very angry demon.

In a microsecond, Reyes had let go of me and clutched on to Garrett’s throat. If he’d wanted to, he could’ve crushed the larynx with very little effort.

I clutched on to Reyes’s arm to stop him, but the anger flaring inside him scorched me. I held my ground, placed a hand on his cheek, spoke with a soft yet firm voice. “Reyes, let go.” But the surreality of the situation hit me just as it had Garrett, who didn’t look scared or angry as Reyes sank his fingers into his throat. He looked… surprised. And he was looking at me despite the fact that the son of Satan was choking the life out of him.

“Evade,” I said to Reyes.

Caught off guard, he released Swopes, then turned his anger my way.

But, picking up on Garrett’s astonishment, I looked down at my wrist, completely handcuff free.

“Did it break?” I asked Garrett as he coughed and wheezed to get air. People did that a lot around me.

“No,” he said through his abused esophagus. “You just —” He blinked at me a moment, then continued. “You just… went through it.”

He held it up, the empty side still adjusted to the size of my wrist, still locked in place.

“My hand doesn’t even hurt,” I said, rubbing it. “I don’t know how it slipped off.”

Garrett focused on Reyes, who was still tamping down his anger. Freaking demons. “She went through it,” he repeated. “Her wrist… just slipped through.”

“I don’t understand,” I said.

“You don’t have to.” Reyes wrapped an arm around me again. “I told you not to come in here.”

My anger reignited. “I told you, I heard Strawberry scream.” I suddenly remembered her and knelt beside her. “Are you okay, honey?”

“Where did it all go?” she asked. “Where did that man go?”

I scanned the room. “I wish I knew.” Glancing at the Dealer, I asked, “How is this possible?”

He shook his head as though he couldn’t form the words to explain his bewilderment.

“Get her out,” Reyes said to Garrett.

Garrett took hold of my arm to escort me out, but I needed to talk to Strawberry. “Honey, I need you to leave and don’t come back for a while, okay? Remember?”

“I was looking for Blue and Rocket.”

“Okay, but not in here, okay. Go outside and call them.”

She nodded and stuck the Barbie head back into her mouth before disappearing again. From my kneeling position, I could see something under the slats of the pallet floor as I looked into the freezer. It looked like a driver’s license.