by Cara Martin
Braden has transformed into Lauren. She and Tanvi share a set of wealthy grandparents, the owners of the Molto Troppo chain. Clearly, the kidnappers know that. The Mahajans are well off in their own right, but not like Helena’s parents. The kidnappers are after hardcore cash. A double helping.
Mark thumps down the steps as I stare at Lauren, acclimatizing to the change. Any other day I would’ve clued in sooner; she really doesn’t look much different. Lauren’s sixth sense must be tingling. She swivels her neck, staring openly back at me. One second all I see is a kid in a bad situation, trying to hold herself together. The next, an eerie smile twists onto Lauren’s lips. Ominous, low laughter trickles from her crooked mouth and infects the musty air. The laugh of a taunting bully. Senselessly cruel.
Braden didn’t laugh that way on Christmas Eve. It sounds nothing like the kid I played the drama bag game with.
“They will soon fade like the grass and wither like the green herb,” Lauren intones, biting down on her smile. Tanvi’s face whips toward her cousin, full of questions there’s no time to ask because Mark stomps in, disappointment hanging heavy on his bones.
“Nothing up there but dead air,” he says grimly.
The quietest of all the kidnappers adds, “Not in the kitchen or back workroom either.”
“How can that be possible?” the black kidnapper asks. His tone is genuine surprise. “We were just here. There were no problems.”
The leader reaches under his mask to scratch his chin. It’s not even fall yet. They all have to be sweltering under the black acrylic.
“The storm must’ve knocked out the nearest cell tower,” he says. “Matthew, check outside, just in case. Worst-case scenario we’ll need to load everyone back into the van and drive until we pick up a signal.”
The quietest kidnapper disappears into the hallway. Matthew. Seconds later the front door slams shut behind him.
“I don’t feel good,” Lauren murmurs, wrapping her arms in front of her stomach and hunching over, her back forming the shape of a capital C. “This place isn’t right.” Her malicious smile has dissolved or gone into hiding. She sounds closer to the kid I met eight and a half months ago, but her skin is sallow, her eyes dull.
“It’s okay,” Tanvi whispers, eyebrows knitting closer together in concern. “We won’t be here long.”
Behind me, a pocket of cold opens up. Blows on the back of my neck with perfect aim. I snap around, facing the antique wheelchair. The seat bottom hangs crookedly down through the metal frame, making it unusable, even as a chair.
There’s no one behind me. Naturally this fossil of a house would be full of drafts. Dust, drafts, and other things civilization prefers to keep out with walls.
“Look, you could let us go,” Tanvi says, shifting my attention to her. She peers steadily up at the leader, her brown eyes nearly as impenetrable as black holes. “We don’t know what you look like. We have no idea who you are. You could drop us off down the road somewhere. They’d never catch you.”
“You think we went through all of this just to have some rich bitch talk us out of it?” the dickhead scoffs. “Not happening. Rest your pretty head and let us iron out the kinks.”
The leader stares straight through Tanvi, as if seeing something that isn’t there. “It’s not up for discussion,” he says after two beats. “This isn’t a democracy. Like I said before, if you can’t keep quiet, the duct tape goes on again.”
An electromagnetic pulse can burn out power lines and render electronic equipment useless, sending people back to the Dark Ages. The leader’s words have a similar effect, only on sound instead of electricity. Silence sprints across the room in weightless sock feet. My ears ring with the absence of noise.
Refusing to turn and confront the empty space behind me, I watch the remaining three kidnappers from the corners of my eyes. The leader sits in the folding chair closest to the door looking Cal, Tanvi, Lauren, and me over like a shrewd substitute teacher. The other two kidnappers dart around the room holding their phones above their heads, searching for something that doesn’t want to be found.
“Luke, take our two unexpected guests’ names and the contact info for their families,” the leader mutters, his gun reclining comfortably in his lap like a metal cat faithful to only one master.
The black kidnapper reclaims his left hand from the air, his right resting on his gun as he makes a beeline for Cal. Matthew, Mark, Luke. My brain leaps for the punchline. When asked, Mom claims to be Orthodox Christian because of her Russian father. But no one in my family is religious. Doesn’t matter. Everyone’s heard of the four gospel writers. So far, the only name missing is John. He must be the leader.
Aliases.
Somehow Lauren figures out the significance of the kidnappers’ names at the precise moment I do. Either that or she’s reading my mind. Her pout contorts into a haggard, malicious grin the second I get the joke. The kind of smile someone cracks when they’re out to get you and you both know it. They’ve been biding their time, and it won’t be long now. That’s what I see. We’re on opposite sides of a game, and I don’t know how we got there.
Or John lied and the pills weren’t tramadol.
Or … the concussion. My brain’s twisted in my skull, screwing with my brain cells.
Has to be. Something’s revved up my imagination. Sent me tripping. Lauren’s not smiling in the slightest. Not anymore, not even according to my chemically altered, temporarily damaged mind. Why would a kid I played with for hours on Christmas Eve be out to get me? She wouldn’t. Completely the opposite. She was infinitely careful with the wet wipes and gauze. She’s just sick and scared, and I’m temporarily broken.
End of story.
Luke takes Cal’s full name and a short list of Cal’s people. Anyone who might want to financially contribute to the cause of Cal’s freedom. He writes the information in a plain red notebook you can pick up for two bucks at Dollarama. Then he starts on mine, his printing compact and neat like my sister’s.
“I think I’m going to be sick,” Lauren says, pitching to one side.
“What was in the water?” Tanvi asks hesitantly.
John’s left foot raps the floor. Agitation in three-quarter time. “Nothing but H2O. It’s probably just nerves.” He focuses on Lauren, the mask that obscures his identity slicing the comfort from his words. “Your grandparents will pay up, and then you’ll be out of here. Try to relax in the meantime. We can get you a pillow. You can close your eyes and sleep.”
Mark’s arms swing savagely at his sides as he gorilla-struts into our — the hostages — midst. Looming over Tanvi and Lauren, he casts a misshapen assortment of dull shadows on the wooden floor. “You were told to keep your mouth shut. You better fu—”
“Mark,” John snaps, straightening abruptly in his chair. “Never mind about that. Go look for Matthew. He’s been out there too long.”
“You told them to shut up. I’m enforcing the rules.”
John touches his gun, adjusting its weight on his thighs. “I get it. But we need to move this along. The clock is ticking.”
“Fine,” Mark says in a tone that spells the opposite. He lumbers into the hallway, emerging with a pillow seconds later. “For the little princess,” he declares, lobbing the pillow at Lauren, who makes no attempt to catch it. The pillow sails into her face with a thwack, then drops inanimately to the floor.
“Asshole,” I protest, fury tweaking at my veins. “She’s sick.” My own pain has begun to fade. A yellowed wall in the process of being painted shaving-cream white.
Mark’s turned his back on us. He doesn’t look over his shoulder. He doesn’t stop or change direction.
Lauren giggles as he goes, the sound curling eely chills into my lower spine. “We shall not all sleep, but we shall all be changed,” she whispers. At least, that’s what I think she says before her lips clamp shut, her skin near
ly as pale as Styrofoam. The phrase triggers a memory that sends my mind sinking into darkness. My father said the same thing in my nightmare the first time I betrayed Tanvi.
I didn’t know what it meant then, and I don’t know now. We’re drifting further into uncharted territory together, and I can’t catch my breath.
Five sets of eyes whip toward Lauren. “What?” Tanvi says gingerly, bumping her cousin’s shoulder lightly. “What are you talking about?”
Lauren shakes her head swiftly, her eyes rolling slightly in their sockets, lifeboats bobbing at sea. “No no no no no no — get me out of here. We can’t stay. We have to go now.”
“She’s feverish,” Tanvi says, staring at John as she raises her voice. “You need to do something.”
Luke steps forward, crouching to lay his palm across Lauren’s forehead. “There’s no fever. Her skin feels normal.”
“She’s not normal,” Cal objects. “Something’s happening.”
John rises, holding his gun. It points at the floor, harmless for the moment but ready and waiting. “Or she’s faking it. She was all right a few minutes ago. Nothing strikes that quickly.”
“She’s not faking it.” Tanvi’s voice stretches thin, pleading for understanding. “Please. I know my cousin. This isn’t some kind of trick she’s playing. Something’s the matter with her.”
Luke swears under his breath as he backs slowly away.
John reaches his free hand up to his head, dropping it just shy of encountering acrylic. “Nobody panic. Like I said, your grandparents will make the payment. Then this will be over with.” He glances hurriedly over his shoulder. “Jesus, what’s the holdup out there?”
“I’ll go,” Luke volunteers.
“No, I will. You stay and watch over our guests. Keep your distance from them. I still think she’s faking.” John stares pointedly at Lauren. “Put the duct tape back on. Everyone but her. I don’t want the rest of them giving you trouble.”
Luke applies fresh duct tape to our mouths, slashing an air-slit into mine, while John stands apart, overseeing. With only two of the kidnappers in the house, my mind’s working overtime. If I knocked Luke over — wrestled his gun away from him — John would still have enough time to shoot someone. Maybe Lauren, maybe Tanvi.
The risk’s too high.
“Bind the girl’s hands again,” John orders. “We can’t trust her.”
Lauren’s head wilts on her shoulders, her unfocused eyes aiming into an unoccupied middle ground. “Turn around,” John says sternly. “Let’s get this over with.”
Lauren might as well be stone. She doesn’t react. If I didn’t know better, I’d think she was asleep, in the throes of somnambulism. But mostly it’s younger kids who sleepwalk, and Lauren isn’t going anywhere. The only signs that she’s alive are the slow blink of her eyelashes and the rise and fall of her chest, taking in oxygen.
Luke pauses. “It’s okay,” he says, skirting around the back of her. Pulling Lauren’s arms behind her, he tightens a zip-tie around her wrists. She doesn’t resist. She’s as compliant as a rag doll.
“You can lie down any time you want,” he tells her, echoing John who exits the room while the rest of us watch. Luke takes John’s place in the folding chair nearest the door, fidgeting in his seat, his fingers coiled around the gun’s handle.
They haven’t tied our feet. Any one of us could still make a run for it. With the pain in my stomach dulling, I could outpace Luke, although not a bullet — and I’m thinking about it, weighing my chances — when Cal begins to speak. “Yu can led us gow. Yu dohnt have …” I lose the rest of the sentence to the duct tape.
“Just because you’re a brother, don’t think we’re on the same side,” Luke growls, his voice dropping an octave. “I don’t want to hear it. Shut your mouth or someone’s going to pay for it.”
Cal and I swap loaded glances. Now? Do we charge at Luke and hope that gives the girls a chance to escape? Would Lauren even try, or would she remain catatonic? Tanvi would never leave this place without her.
Before we can decide, the front door claps open, frantic footsteps slapping into the hall. John stands in the living room doorway, wild-eyed and breathless. He cocks his head, ordering Luke toward him without a sound.
Their heads bend hastily together, John murmuring in a low voice that prevents us from hearing. Luke stiffens at the news, his body struggling to absorb the shock.
“You,” John calls, his forefinger tagging me from across the room. “You’re coming with me.”
Lauren’s head falls sideways onto the pillow, the rest of her body slumping along with it. Her eyelids drift shut while John’s feet thump the floorboards, moving in on me. “Up,” he demands, tearing off my duct tape as I stand.
“Where are we going?” I mumble.
“You’ll know when we get there.” The gun digs into my side. “Out in front of me.” I do as he says, stepping nearer to Luke, who stops me dead with his hands, swings me around, and snaps my arms free with a small bolt cutter.
Nothing hurts anymore. Not exactly. The flutter in my stomach reminds me of birds’ wings. Birds trapped in too small a space. I glance over my shoulder at Tanvi while the gun barrel thrusts into my lower back. Something still hurts after all. The thought of leaving her behind. The feeling picks at my esophagus like a scavenger. Only I’m not dead. Not yet.
Tanvi catches my look. Holds it lightly in her own eyes and floats something aside from anger and panic back to me in exchange.
John marches me in the direction of the front door. Tells me to open it. Tells me we’re going outside and that he needs my help. “So, I hope the tramadol’s kicked in.” His tense laugh buckles in the wind. “To your right,” he says. “Head for the trees.”
I hear the door close behind us, feel the barrel leave my spine. The empty space doesn’t feel like freedom. If John’s planning to kill me, I’ll have to run. Take my chances.
I shift my weight, flexing my leg muscles, calling them to life. The sight of the utility van that brought us here forces my eyes to the left. The van’s parked in the front yard, exactly where I last saw it. Less than an hour ago it looked almost new. Now it’s a blackened husk. I cringe as I digest the missing windshield, mottled chargrilled exterior, and sagging, melted body. While we’ve been held captive inside the house, the van has blazed to a crisp. A marshmallow dropped directly into a campfire and retrieved when it was past saving.
But there’s no smell. No smoke and no fire to see, either. Shouldn’t a freshly burnt-out van stink to hell? Shouldn’t we have heard the windshield shatter in the heat?
“It’s dead,” John says hollowly, and the sound of his missing confidence scares me more than anything that’s happened so far. “The weirdest thing is that if you get close to it, the van doesn’t even feel warm.”
“How can that be?” I ask.
“That’s what I’ve been asking myself.” John hurls an arm out in front of him, the light from his lantern swerving. “But the van’s not what you’re here for. Keep going. Do you see it yet?”
We’re in the middle of nowhere, and tonight is made of the kind of thick black a single lantern is no match for, the kind that makes a person feel like they’re going blind. But suddenly I understand what John’s talking about.
It’s up ahead, where the decomposing house’s domain ends and a forest begins — a body draped over a low-hanging tree branch. Folded at the waist in the same way people fold a hand towel over a towel rack. The head points lifelessly at the ground, clad in generic black acrylic.
Then I hear it, too. The sound somehow different from the mundane background noise of rain-soaked foliage — the incessant pitter-patter of freshly draining blood against fallen leaves.
12
“TAKE HIM DOWN,” JOHN commands from behind me. A drop of water from the soggy leaves overhead pelts my cheek. It’s muggy enough
that a ten-minute run could have me sweating through my shirt. Muggy enough to storm a second time — the first rainfall did nothing to clear the air. Instead I shiver, staring up at the body from five feet away. Blood has soaked through the ski mask. It’s draining from his fingertips too, spitting to the ground through the drenched fabric.
“Is he …” I’ve never laid eyes on an inanimate body before. I’m already standing closer to death than I want to get. It feels contagious, the dark whispering just beyond reach, like it wants us to hear.
“He’s not breathing,” John confirms.
“Who did this?” My voice echoes on the breeze. Late summer air hurls its weight over me like a cloak, pressing me into the ground.
“Your guess is as good as mine. Just get him down. Now.” John doesn’t want to touch the body either. Without the gun he’s as vulnerable as I am. He doesn’t want it to leave his hand — that’s why I’m here to do the grunt work.
The gun.
I reach up fast, closing my arms around the kidnapper’s legs and feeling for his handgun as I drag him down from the branch. Each of the captors was armed. Matthew or Mark wouldn’t have come out here without his weapon.
The body flops back onto my chest, my hands frantically smoothing over his pockets and finding nothing. Then the head lolls against me, a second behind the rest of the body.
“It’s not there,” John says as I recoil, throwing my head back and to the side, trying to escape the thing in my arms. Stepping back, I lay the body at the ground beneath my feet. Birds flap frantically under my rib cage, desperate to escape. One of them tears into bone — the tramadol floundering under physical exertion.
I bend, my arms folding protectively in front of me.
John peers fixedly down at the body, his gun held aloft. My eyes can’t look away from the damage. The longer I stare, the worse I feel. Like a monkey in a test lab, waiting for a horror show I’m not built to understand. The skin surrounding the body’s closed eyes is coated in red. His hands are slick with blood. It pools thickly at the bottom of his black crewneck too. If there are bullet holes in the body’s clothing, I can’t see them. But what else could have done this?