Benji nods. “This’ll do just fine.”
He wets a dry corner of the towel with alcohol and dabs the bruise on her neck, then uses the water to clean the mud from her face. She winces—it’s painful—but she’s awake. She’s okay.
As he works, I brush leaves from her hair with my fingers.
“What would they have injected her with?” I ask, terrified to know.
“It’s impossible to say for certain,” Benji tells us, still working. His voice is soft, soothing. I’ll bet he has excellent bedside manners as a nurse. “But there are a few injection sites here.” He sighs. “Based on her general drowsiness and what I’m looking at, it seems like someone has been keeping her sedated.”
Greta yelps when he slides a hand along the side of her head and his fingers tangle in her hair.
“Sorry.” He’s gentler then, checking around and inside her ears and mouth. “Do you feel dizzy?”
She shakes her head. “Not anymore. Everything’s really bright.”
“Numb? Can you feel your hands and feet? Wiggle your toes?”
As he assesses her, I realize Lewis disappeared while I was getting towels. I make my way down the hall, searching for him, and when I finally find him, he’s in Taylor’s room on her bed. Her new laptop is open on his lap.
His eyes flick up to meet mine, then back down.
“What are you doing?”
“Tracking her phone.”
My chest tightens. “Oh my god, why didn’t we think of that already?” This night has been chaotic, and the feature isn’t something we’ve used in the past, but we should’ve at least considered it by now. We’ve never logged on, never had any reason to, but I know it’s an option. I move to sit down on the bed next to him, watching as he navigates his way through our phone provider’s steps to log in.
His face is stone, unyielding. “No more games. I want to know where she is, and then I’m going to get her.”
“The road is blocked.”
He doesn’t look at me, just keeps working. “If the rain stops, I can take a chainsaw and clear it.”
“What if it doesn’t stop?”
He doesn’t answer. Not right away. Eventually, he puffs out a breath. “What the hell is happening, Corinne? Greta is at home. No, she’s here. She was attacked.Sedated.” It’s obvious that word feels as impossible to him as it does to me. “Taylor is missing. No, she’s with your mom. Wait, she’s not with your mom. This night is like… Jesus, it’s like we’ve stepped intoTheTwilight Zoneor something.”
“Tell me about it.”
He taps the button on the screen. “I just need to know where she is. I feel like I’m losing it. Like we’re…”
He stops himself from whatever he was going to say. And then…
I gasp, feeling him tense next to me.
“It’s impossible.”
He looks over, then up toward the ceiling. “She’s…she’s here.”
CHAPTER THIRTY-FOUR
CORINNE WILDE - PRESENT DAY
According to the screen in front of us, Taylor is here. At Foxglove, or at the very least near it. The house, the meadow, and parts of the woods are encompassed in a green circle. At the top of the screen, there’s a warning that our weak Wi-Fi signal may affect the accuracy, thanks to the storm, but this is more hope than we’ve had all evening.
At once, Lewis closes the laptop, and we dart out of her room. We barrel through the house, shouting her name.
“Taylor!”
