by Rachel Caine
The other door is opening, too, and Lanny hits the ground running. She shouldn’t come at us, but she does. She’s running straight for us.
She’s getting in Kezia’s way.
Lanny is screaming my name—Brady, not Connor, because she’s so angry and so scared—and she tackles the man trying to pull me so hard it knocks his grip loose, and I bang my head hard into the road from the recoil. Everything goes soft. I scramble up, but the world keeps moving, and I can’t get to Lanny because she’s fighting with the man in the coat. I see Boot; he’s trying to stand up on shaking legs now, and he’s barking, but it sounds frantic, strangled, and he can’t help much, either.
Kezia fires into the air and yells, “Lanny, goddammit, get down!”
Lanny tries, but then the man grabs her by the hair and yanks her backward to hide behind her. He climbs backward up into the open doors of the van and pulls her in with him. I hear the sizzling sound again. He’s shocked her.
I try to get to her, I do, but he’s dragged her all the way up front, and now he’s dropping into the driver’s seat, and I can’t reach my sister . . .
The van screeches away. He hasn’t even closed the back doors, and they flop around until they slam closed as he accelerates around the turn by Sam Cade’s cabin. He’s going around the lake.
He’s going to get away.
Kezia is suddenly there, and I feel her warm hand on my face, turning me to see how much I’m hurt. I think I’m bleeding. I don’t know. All I can think is, I did this. I must say it out loud, because Kezia presses her hand to my forehead, and says, “No, baby, you didn’t. You’re okay. We’re going to find her. You just relax, it’s all right.” Her voice is shaking, and she takes her cell phone and dials. “Goddammit, where’s my backup? White van, heading around the lake! Confirmed child abduction, I repeat, confirmed child abduction, victim is Lanny Proctor, white female, fourteen years old, wearing jeans and a red down jacket, black hair, do you copy that?”
My head hurts so much I throw up. I can feel Lanny’s old book digging into my ribs.
I can feel when Boot limps over and starts licking my face.
Then I don’t feel anything else.
22
GWEN
Pain comes in a slow, thick wave.
It’s just a red wall at first, an announcement by my entire body that things are not okay, and then it recedes a little, and I begin to identify specifics: my right ankle, throbbing in hot pulses. My left wrist. My right knee. My jaw, and I don’t remember being hit there, but you don’t in a real fight; it all becomes a blur. My shoulders ache horribly.
There’s something in my mouth, tied tightly enough that it’s forced between my teeth. Cloth. A gag. That’s why my jaw hurts.
I remember . . . what do I remember? The motel room. The man in the Melvin mask. Taser. Van. It all feels distant and smeared, but I know it’s real, because it terrifies me. Nightmares aren’t frightening once you wake up.
Memories are.
I remember being in the van. Tied up with . . . something. I remember the rattle of chains. We drove, and then we stopped. The van went up a sharp incline, and then it was all very, very dark, and we started to move again.
I remember a flashlight in my eyes, so bright it hurt, and a sting on my arm. He’s injected me with something, I realize. Maybe more than once to keep me sedated. That accounts for the horrible, bitter taste in my mouth, like poisoned chalk. I’m so thirsty my lips are cracked, and my throat aches horribly. I can’t summon up enough spit to swallow.
I’m in the dark, and I’m so cold that I’m shivering convulsively, even though there’s a blanket wrapped around me. I’m not in a van now.
I’m in a box. I’m curled up, legs pressed against my chest, and my hands are still cuffed behind me. That’s why my shoulders hurt. My head throbs so badly that I wish someone would cut it off and spare me the agony, and I think that’s the aftereffects of the meds. It’s pitch black, and I can’t see the box I’m in, but when I scrape my fingers over the surface, I feel rough wood. Splinters. The air smells stale, but I feel a breeze coming in on one side. There are airholes, and when I twist and look in that direction, I can see a dim glimmer of light.
Funny how a little whisper of hope can steady you.
Okay, I tell myself. You’re cold, you’re hurt, but you’re still alive. First thing: get out of this box. I wonder if I’ve been dumped somewhere to die, a long and ghastly torture. But that isn’t Melvin’s style. If he can’t see it and can’t get his hands dirty, it won’t be good enough just to kill me. And I know this is his handiwork. If anyone intends to see me dead, it’s my ex.
I try bracing myself and pushing against the lid of the box, but I have no leverage the way I’ve been confined. I try working my feet up against the sides, but the box is just too small.
I try screaming. The best I can do is a broken, muffled cry that won’t be heard even a foot away, and I can hear engines and machinery.
Now that my head is clearing, I realize that I’m not near cars, though that’s my first guess.
I’m near airplanes. I’m at an airport.
I start shouting again, trying to make myself heard; I try rocking the box, but it’s heavy, and I don’t have much space in which to try to shift my weight.
My elbow bangs hard into the side of the box. It explodes a little stick of dynamite up my nerves and into my aching shoulder, but I do it again, harder. Maybe someone will hear me knocking.
Someone does. The top is pried off, and a flashlight glares in at me. I can’t see past it. I can only try to scream for help and struggle to get up . . .
And then I hear a male voice say, “Shut her up, and keep her out until we get there.”
“That’s a high dose.” Second voice. I don’t recognize either of them. “There’s a risk she could arrest, or stop breathing. If we kill her—”
“Shit. Yeah. Okay. Give her as much as you can. We can dose her once we land.”
No no no . . . My heart starts thudding faster, adrenaline kicks in, and I dig my shoulders back into the splintery wood and slither up, trying desperately to make it out of the box . . .
A Taser slams lightning through me, and I drop.
I barely feel the sting of the needle.
By the time the box closes again, I’m slipping away on a dark tide, and the last memories I hold on to, the only ones that matter, are faces.
My daughter. My son.
If they’re the last things I ever see, maybe that’s enough.
23
LANNY
I’m in the dark, and for a second when I wake up, I think I’m back in that cramped little cell in the basement of Officer Graham’s mountain cabin. I reach out for my brother.
Connor isn’t here.
My head is pounding, a sick, purple-red pulse that makes my stomach twist. I don’t remember what happened. I remember seeing Brady fighting with a man, and running to save him, and then . . .
Then what? I can’t grab the thought. It slips away. I remember the man shocking me, finally. And then hitting me because I kept trying to get up.
Brady! Is he okay? No, I remember, I can’t call him that. His name is Connor. Did I call him Brady when I was yelling for him? I think I remember that.
Someone else was there . . .
Kezia. I do remember that, all in a rush. The car jerking to a stop, me flinging open the door and running for my brother. Kezia—Kezia had her gun out.
I ran in front of Kezia’s gun. Mom’s going to kill me; she’s always taught me not to do something stupid like that. I realize with a sick surge that I want my mommy right now. I want her to hold me and tell me it’s okay, I’ll be okay.
Because I realize now that I’m inside of a big metal space that’s jolting and swaying back and forth. I can hear engine and road noise, and my head keeps banging painfully into metal. I try edging a hand forward to cushion it, but that hurts, too, when my skull crushes down into my knuckles. I’m afraid to le
t him—whoever he is—know that I’m awake, so I open my eyes just a little, just enough to see a vague, blurry outline of where I am.
I’m in the back of a van. There’s some carpet on the floor, and an old fleece blanket. There are also chains welded into the side. Every bump he hits—and there are a lot of them—the chains fly up and clank down with a rattle.
I’m not chained down. I test that by moving my arms and legs. Maybe he didn’t have time. Maybe he’s scared of getting caught.
I’m here. Connor isn’t. That means he got away. He’s safe. I’m scared—scared to death—but I’m fiercely proud that I fought for him. If anything happens to me, I didn’t let Connor down. Nobody can take that away from me.
I hear the man who’s driving, muttering. He’s talking to someone on a cell phone. “I’m telling you, it didn’t go the way you said! . . . Yeah, the dog was a goddamn problem! And then the kid didn’t want to go, not like you thought. And then the girl, and the cop—I didn’t sign up, you know. I’m just in the business of transport. That’s all. I’m not going down with this . . . No! You can fuck right off with your damn bonus!”
We’re heading uphill, on a rough road. A mountain trail, I think. Something like that. We can’t be too far from Norton, but there are hundreds of miles of wilderness out here, and if he managed to slide out of Stillhouse Lake before they had roadblocks up . . .
He’s talking on a cell phone. That means something. My sluggish, hurting brain finally reminds me why that’s important: because I have one, too. I slowly slip my left hand down, down, all the way to the pocket of my coat.
My own phone is gone.
I try the right pocket, in case I’ve forgotten where I put it. No phone. He must have ditched it. That’s Abductor 101, I remind myself. I’ve studied all this stuff. I wanted to know it, in case Dad ever came for us. First, they ditch cell phones so we can’t be tracked. Next . . .
I try not to think about next.
Who’s he talking to? That’s a question that trickles in, and I realize that it’s important. What I find out now could matter a lot. This man isn’t my boogeyman father, he’s . . . just some random creeper. Strong, fast, but a creeper. Mom would outsmart him. Dad would chop his head off and not slow down. I am the child of two scary, scary people, and I have to remember that now. I have power.
I just have to figure out how to use it.
You’re a kid, something scoffs at the back of my head. You don’t have any power. You’re going to die. That voice. It’s the same one that tells me I’ll fail the next test, or that I’m not pretty enough, or that I’ll never be happy and I should just give up. I’ve listened to it sometimes. I sat in the bathtub with a bottle of pills one time, counting them out, thinking, It would be better if . . . but I knew it wouldn’t be. My life is worth something. I shut the voice up that day in the bathroom, and I’m shutting it up now.
I’m going to live.
“Listen, I’m not in this for your goddamn revenge, you owe me, and you’d better get these cops off my ass right now, because if they get me, I am going to tell them every goddamn thing, and you’d best believe that’s enough to—” He stops talking for a second. I feel the van slow down, as if he’s taken his foot off the gas a little. “Uh—no, no, Jesus, I don’t want her, what the hell would I do with her? I’m not one of those freaks, okay?”
I’m trying to file away everything he says. I wish he’d say a name. Any name.
And then he kind of does. “No way. I’m damn sure not taking the chance on driving her all the way to Atlanta, so she goes in the pit. I don’t care what the old bastard wants.”
He’s just hung up the phone. I hear him drop it on the seat next to him. There’s a thick metal screen separating me from the front of the van, so there’s no chance I can lean over and grab it. I’m going to have to get out and run for it.
The van’s still going uphill. I start sliding myself back, hoping that it looks like it’s just the vibration and momentum moving me. I keep my head down, turned sideways, in case he looks in the rearview mirror. He’s muttering under his breath, but I only catch one word in ten . . . stupid . . . prison . . . Atlanta. He wasn’t talking about my full name—Atlanta Proctor. He meant the city.
My boots touch something solid. I’m up against the back doors.
I let the bouncing of the van move me so that I can get a good look at the doors. There’s a simple grab-and-pull door latch on the inside. But is it unlocked, or did he use some kind of remote lock on it? The second he sees me go for it, he’ll know I’m not unconscious, and I don’t know what he’ll do then. He didn’t shoot or stab me back in front of Kezia, but Kezia’s not here anymore.
I can’t just wait for the situation to get worse. If the door’s locked, it’s still going to be locked when the van stops.
I lunge upright, grab the latch, and yank.
It’s not locked—I can hear the door move—but it’s stuck.
“Hey!” He yells it, and I know I’m out of time. I twist over on my back, pull my legs up to my chest, and kick out with all the power I’ve got. Once. Twice.
Both doors fly open.
The van’s stopping, but I throw myself forward and land on rough, muddy ruts. I don’t hesitate.
I run.
The old man gets out and tries to catch me, but I leave him behind. I run like my mom does, as if death is trying to catch me, and I don’t look back until the road curves and I can risk a quick glance.
He’s back behind the wheel, and he’s turning the van around.
I’m on a broad, sloping hill. I can’t see anything but trees and the dirty ribbon of road, but that doesn’t matter now. If I stay here, the van’s going to catch up. I have to get off the road. I’m shaking, and my skin feels like it’s all ants and sunburn, maybe from the Taser, and I’m having trouble thinking, but I have to try, because nobody knows where I am, I’m all alone, and all I want to do is scream and run and find my mom . . .
Mom. I spent so much energy being angry at her, but she’s the first one I think of. The only one. And as if she’s there with me, standing next to me, I feel suddenly calmer. I hear her voice say, You have to run, baby. Get away from the road. Go now.
I pull in a gasp and stumble over the dry, cold ruts into winter grass. I run, and I stumble where the snarled, dead stalks catch at my feet. I can hear the van coming back down the road, but I don’t slow down, I can’t. I run like my life depends on it, because it does, and all of a sudden, I’m in the cold, dark shadows of the trees.
I go far enough that I’m covered, then crouch down. I’m still shaking, and I’m not sure if I can run in this forest very well; there’s not much light coming down through the stiff pines. I can’t afford to fall, smash my head, break my leg. I have to go carefully. I wish I had a flashlight, or even the pale light of a phone screen, but I’ve got nothing at all. I start to freak out; the tremors become real shakes, and I feel cold under my thick down coat. My red coat. Why did I wear the stupid red coat? I can’t take it off. I’ll freeze.
Mom, help me.
Her voice doesn’t come this time, but that warm feeling of being safe does. Mom doesn’t panic. She plans. She finds weapons and gets ready, and when the time comes to fight, she fights. I have to be her now.
I keep going, farther into the darkness, moving slowly. I come across a pretty good broken branch with about the heft and thickness of a baseball bat. Even better, the splintered end has sharp points on it. I keep a good grip on it and move on. I can’t tell the directions. It’s too cloudy. I start looking for moss—isn’t it always on the north side of trees?—and once I find some, I start angling in the direction that I think will take me toward Norton. All I need to do is get to a highway and flag somebody down.
The van keeps going. I hear it move down the road. It rattles and creaks, and the brakes squeal at the turn.
I stop when I realize I’m doing exactly what he expects me to do. I’m heading for Norton, for safety. Down the hill.<
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But from what I glimpsed of the road, that curve will take him cutting across that path. He’ll be able to find me. The trees are thick here, but I can already tell they’re getting thinner on the way down. My red coat will stand out like a torch.
I need to go up. He was taking me somewhere, wasn’t he? Maybe even where he lives. And if it’s a cabin or something, there could be a phone, a computer, even a ham radio.
I don’t want to do that. I feel sick, turning away from what looks like possible safety and into the cold, dark unknown. But I know it’s what he won’t expect.
I go a long way in the trees, but I keep watch on the road. The van hasn’t come back. Maybe he’s patrolling for me down the hill. I’m starting to feel better now; the shakes are wearing off, and though I’m still scared, at least I have a club, and I’m not staggering anymore.
If something happens, I’ll run. I’m fast. I can make it.
I glimpse something up ahead. Some metal, like a fence. My heart skips, then thuds harder, because a fence means something behind it. I was right. There is something up here.
I check down the road again. I can see, in the distance, a random glint of glass that I think is the van. He’s a long way down. I have to take the chance. If I go to the road, I can move faster.
I break cover. I run so hard I think my tendons might snap, but my body knows this, it’s trained for it, and it settles into the easy, efficient motions of distance running as I eat up ground. There’s a pretty sharp slope up, and my lungs burn before I’m halfway up it, but I round a broad, rising curve and see that the road is opening up into what looks like a turnaround.
End of the line.
There’s a thick fence of welded-together scrap metal, rusted almost paper thin in places. Ancient KEEP OUT and NO TRESPASSING signs, one of which is staying on by one fragile bolt that looks ready to give way. But I don’t see anything on the other side of the fence. I climb over it and listen for the sound of dogs. Dogs would give me away, and if they attacked, I’m not sure I could outrun them. I keep low and to the trees, which are still thick beyond the fence, and run parallel to the barely visible ruts in the road that leads right up to the barrier. I’m not sure this is what I should do, but I am sure of one thing: getting lost in the woods, in the dark, in this weather, means dying. When the snow starts to fall, I’ll be frozen for sure.