Chapter Twenty-Two
She was walking down a set of stairs.
There was no handrail on either side, only unending curtains of blackness spinning and twisting like swirling ink if she looked at it too long. As she descended the air cooled and became damp. A smell enveloped her, making the contents of her stomach slew dangerously. Mildew and old decay. Familiar. When she looked down a sense of vertigo so strong overwhelmed her, it felt as if she were on the deck of a pitching ship.
Though she knew she was going downward, her feet were climbing the stairs.
When the treads appeared out of the murk each one was higher than the last, despite the fact she had the sense of dropping with every step.
She swayed, losing her balance, and listed toward the yawning darkness. She had an impression that the void was hungry and if she fell into it she wouldn’t only encounter the will of gravity, but also a waiting maw lined with teeth anxious to meet her.
There was something ahead, a faint light at the bottom of the stairs she was climbing. She stepped into her bedroom, the one she’d lived in until she was nearly fourteen. It was empty, her bed and desk gone, the window looking out onto the Refuge’s solid darkness. A single guttering candle stood in the middle of the room and she went to it, meaning to pick it up, but a voice speaking from outside the light stopped her.
“You shouldn’t have run,” her father said from beneath the door. He was lying on his side in the hallway, face pressed to the floor so that she could see the edge of his mouth and cheek as well as one eye. “Sacrifice is love. There is no greater act.”
She tried to speak but couldn’t make her lips or tongue form the words. Her arm throbbed where someone had latched onto it, and when she looked down one of her hands was pressed to the candle flame, the smell of cooking flesh floating up to her in wisps of smoke she inhaled in an attempt to scream.
Clare’s head jerked up from the pillow, mouth open to release the shout started in her dream.
Her eyes shot down to her hand, to the place where she could still feel the licking touch of flame, expecting to see fresh blisters burst and leaking. But there was only the old dimpled scars. Nothing more.
All of her air whooshed out at once and she dropped onto her back, letting reality seep in and claim her fully. “Damn,” she said quietly. The nightmare had been so vivid, so real. She’d had strong dreams before, but that one had hit an eleven on a one-to-ten scale. She recalled the sliver of her father’s face visible beneath her bedroom door and shuddered, pushing herself to a full sitting position.
Dawn was minutes away, the sky a sheet of gray and flat as a calm sea. Clare rose and left the room without disturbing Shanna, attempting to leave the nightmare’s cloying touch behind. She massaged a crick in her neck as she made her way down the hallways until she found the cafeteria. Two nurses and a lone doctor sat at separate tables, the physician’s bloodshot eyes and slumped shoulders enough to tell her he’d just come off the night shift. She ordered a coffee and grabbed a slice of toast with jelly from the buffet-style serving line. On the eastern side of the cafeteria a bank of windows looked out to the muted sunrise. Clare sat in a booth and ate her breakfast, watching the sun attempt to spear through gunmetal clouds and fail.
As she neared Shanna’s room again, plans for the remainder of the day coalescing in her mind, Clare spotted two men approaching from the opposite direction. One of them was Sheriff Hughes, fully uniformed and harboring a slight frown, while the other stood six inches taller and wore a faded plaid button-up as well as blue jeans and hiking boots. Adam Zimmer was powerfully built with wide shoulders and thick legs despite their length. His dark hair was unconventionally long for a government agent, falling nearly to his chin. He was what Lia would’ve called unhandsome. Not ugly, but not good-looking in the traditional sense. Adam saw her at nearly the same instant and a crooked smile pulled at his features.
“Hope you’re sharing,” Adam said, motioning to the coffee cup in one hand. He bent and gave her a quick hug.
“You wouldn’t want any of this.”
“I’d lick the bottom of a barista’s shoe at this point.”
“Late flight?”
“Early, late, it all blends at some point.”
Hughes cleared his throat. “Agent Zimmer was kind enough to swing by and let me know he was in the area.”
“Again, I’m here in an unofficial capacity,” Adam said. “I wear a size twelve but I won’t be stepping on any toes.” The look Hughes shot her said he wasn’t necessarily convinced.
“Shanna said she could be released today,” Clare said.
“That’s why we’re here, actually,” Hughes said. “If she feels up to it, I’d like her to show us where she was being held. I’ve got a team ready to go. Unlikely Rainier’s still there, but we might find something that points us in the direction he went.”
“I don’t know if she’ll be up for that.”
“We can wait if she’s not ready, but I’m sure you know time is of the essence.”
Clare glanced at Adam, who gave her a slight shrug. “Okay, let’s ask her.”
“Barnes, you can hit patrol for your last two hours,” Hughes said to the deputy standing nearby who had relieved Wilt. The younger officer jerked his head once and strode away down the hall as they filed into the room.
Shanna was awake and sitting up in bed. She registered each of them individually, her eyes lingering longest on Adam.
“Good morning, Shanna. This is Special Agent Adam Zimmer with the FBI,” Hughes said, motioning to Adam. “How are you feeling this morning?”
“Okay,” Shanna said, her voice small.
“It sounds like you’ll be able to leave here today, and I was wondering if you’d be up to showing us the location of where you were being held. Do you think you could do that?”
Shanna shrunk into the mattress, gaze sliding away. Her left hand worried at the scars on her right wrist. Clare stepped closer to the bed. “Hey, you don’t have to. You can take your time.” Shanna nodded. There was so much tangible fear rolling off her, Clare could feel it like heat. “It’s up to you.”
“Why do I have to go back there?”
“The police haven’t been able to find it. Rainier might still be there, and if he’s not, there may be clues as to where he went.”
“If . . . if we wait, he would have more time to get away, right?”
“That’s a possibility,” Hughes said, and Clare felt a shade of dislike color her view of him. She waited, watching her sister worry at the phantom bonds.
“Okay,” Shanna finally said. “I’ll do it.” She looked down at the hospital gown she wore. “But I don’t have any clothes.”
“We’ll get you some,” Hughes said, opening a file folder Clare hadn’t noticed up to that point. “On another note, I just received the preliminary DNA analysis both for the tissue we extracted from beneath your fingernails and in regard to your relation to one another. It takes weeks to get the full work-up, but I pulled some strings and got them to give me the basics fast.”
Clare became rigid, a cold steel rod suddenly in her spine. It was so quiet in the room the hum of the light fixture overhead was almost deafening.