She twisted away from Vin, whirling, her eyes darting around the room, seeking the source of the voice. There was nothing there,no onethere, no one sitting or standing or crouching. No one there who could have uttered the chilly white words, yet she had heard them all the same.
Vin sneered, turning his ire to an unoccupied dark corner.
“Yougot something to say now?”
“He means you’re acting like a fucking idiot again,” his uncle thundered, turning the corner into the room from an unseen hallway, a bright light illuminating the room at his back before he entered the dim space where they all stood. “You want to go off half cocked every time the moon is almost full, you go do it on your own time, buddy boy. This is what got you into this mess in the first place. We’re done here. Let the girl settle in.”
He turned to Jude, his expression dark. “You. You keep your ass here, understand? We’ll be back in a few days. You wanna go wandering around the streets at night? Be my fuckin’ guest.There’s a little apartment back there, you can unpack your shit and get comfortable. There’s a gas station on the corner, and a food market on the next block. You gave her cash already?”
Vin nodded, seeming unable to make eye contact with anyone, agitation seeping out of him. “It’s in the bag.”
She watched as his uncle produced a card from his wallet, holding it out to her before raising a finger in warning.
“You don’t have free reign to go shopping with this. You want to blow through all your dough on stupid shit, you’ll be fighting with the mice for crumbs on the floor.”
The bankcard had her name on it, she realized, a small bubble of giddy anticipation rising within her.They were leaving her there.
“You,” he jabbed a finger into the same dark corner of the room where no one stood, “keep an eye on things.”
Her stomach dropped, the bubble of elation popping nearly as quickly as it had formed. They were leaving her alone . . . with the voice in the corner. The heavy darkness of the SUV’s interior, the old man’s penchant for talking to empty corners . . . several things clicked into place as she gaped at the empty wall, realizing she wasn’t being left alone at all. There was something there, something she couldn’t see, but it could clearly see her. They were hiding her away with whatever unseen presence was there, an invisible jailer.
“I don’t want her disappearing, understand? She wants to get herself banged up out there? That’s on her. She disappears? That’s on you.”
And that, Jude realized, was that.
Vin and his uncle turned out the door without preamble, the hydraulicclickof it sealing out the light from outside, leaving her in the dark room with whatever was lurking in the shadows.
Chapter 3
The first week of her imprisonment was strangely enjoyable. Or, perhaps, after the treatment of the previous few months, it wasn’t that strange at all.
Jude was discomfited knowing there was someone — something!— out there in the darkness, and she was able to feel its presence beyond the shelter of her door. The weight of observance would press against the back of her neck every time she left the small apartment at the rear of the building, unseen eyes following her from the dark corners of the main room, filling her with a gut-churning anxiety. She didn’t know where they were. She didn’t knowwhatthey were. All she knew was there wassomethingthere, someone watching her, and the knowledge would send her scurrying back to her little prison cell, sliding the lock in place behind her.
Even still — she was still confined and there was an invisible someone watching her, but Jude felt lighter than she had since before she and her father had arrived at that little trattoria. The dark presence watching over her did not follow to her apartmentand had not prevented her from going outside on the night of the full moon to stand in the center of the otherwise black parking lot, bathed in white light. She didn’t know how she would get away, where she might go and how she would survive once she arrived there, but for the moment, she was as free as she’d been in months.
The big SUV rumbled back into the gravel parking lot the following week, tires crunching on gravel and broken glass. Jude straightened up from where she sat on the battered loveseat, instantly on alert.
It was several days after the full moon, nearly a week since they’d dumped her there. The apartment consisted of a small living room and a closet of a bedroom, but the abandoned desk in the corner held a three-year-old calendar, and the single drawer had yielded a ball-point pen. She didn’t care what the date was, but marking the days and tracking the passage of time seemed to be of the utmost importance. Otherwise, she feared she’d lose track and let reality slip away. She would count the days from full moon to full moon, and make her own calendar.
Perhaps this is a conversation best had in a week. Let cooler heads do the talking.She gulped, remembering the disembodied words.This is it.They had listened to him, and now they were back to finish the job.
It wasn’t worth making a run for it, and there was nowhere in the tiny apartment she could hide.You’re a wolf, not a rat. You’re not running from anyone. Rising slowly, she decided to stay put in her little apartment.Make them come to you. She would not go to them with her head bowed, would not meekly present herself . . . but those early days in the enclave had made her an expert in listening at doors.
“No problems, I take it?”
She recognized the uncle’s voice; heard Vin’s voice in a one-sided conversation, likely on his phone, as he always was.
“There were no issues.” The voice had that same silky white glide, the voice of the shadow, whoever had been watching her. “She barely even left the apartment. She’s a tiny little thing, I frankly don’t understand what all the fuss is about.”
“It’s a good thing we’re not paying you to understand anything,” Vin cut in sharply. “All you gotta do is watch her. That’s all you need to understand.”
A pregnant pause and then a low chuckle, one that seemed to settle around her shoulders even from the next room.
“Thatis an interesting assertion. Big pronouncements considering the meter is running. Care to revisit your wording? I’d hate to see more of your hasty actions get you into an even bigger pickle.”
She listened to Vin sputter in outrage, the uncle’s voice cutting him off angrily.
“Don’t listen tohim, he’s an idiot. You take your orders from me, understand? Not the rest of these clowns. Let’s settle up, and then I’ve got another job for you.”
