No one follows me, and I don’t look back.
I’m done being patient. I’m done waiting for Warner to realize I’m not some inexperienced, emotional child. All the people I care about think I’m some broken, helpless kid who still wakes up screaming every night. Maybe I’m still broken, but I’m not helpless anymore, and while the nightmares keep coming, I stopped screaming years ago.
Warner wants to be an asshole and ice me out?
No problem.
There’s only one way to fix this situation now. If they won’t give me respect, I have to demand it. I’ll force his hand, piss him off, and prove him wrong by doing what he can’t do on his own—not because he’s incapable, but because he’s got his head shoved so far up his own ass he can’t see that I’m useful.
And I’m really fucking useful.
Maybe, if he’d asked politely, I’d have told him exactly where to start looking for Rosabelle.
6
Rosabelle
I duck instinctively between buildings as shadows shift in my periphery, holding my breath until I’m convinced the movement was caused by nothing more than a rearrangement of the clouds. I was caught in a brief, intense downpour as I crossed the city on foot, and I stifle the impulse to shudder as a frigid gust barrels into the narrow alley, sealing cold into the damp, ill-fitting polyester of my outfit. Of all the variables beyond my control, the weather is the most unpredictable at the moment, and I’m running out of time.
I need to identify a bolt-hole, and fast.
A snippet of conversation carries on the wind, which then delivers a rush of incoming footsteps, and I stiffen, retreating into the deepest shadows, pressing my body flush against the wall. Only when I’m certain I’m alone do I dart around the corner.
I run silently along a low fence toward a nondescript warehouse that I know has only two cameras, both of which are directed toward the northwest side of the building. I did several earlier scans of the area and identified limited gaps in surveillance here, which—
Well, at least it’s not poorly secured, for once.
I take a steadying breath, glancing quickly betweenbuildings, then take cover behind a maintenance truck, its rugged wheels half as tall as I am. I crouch low beside the chassis, then assess the undercarriage of the vehicle, deciding it might prove a decent hiding spot should I need to take cover again. The sky rumbles in the distance.
The air smells like rain.
I peer up at the clouds, watching them move at an unnerving pace that indicates the winds are getting worse. The only real benefit to the weather is that this private airfield is nearly deserted. A preliminary analysis of the scattered aircraft and their insignias indicate that this is a military outpost, which was what I’d been hoping to find.
Still, there’s nothing to celebrate.
Nine days I spent trying not to break under the emotional sledgehammer of my father’s face. Nine days I spent being tortured in ways no training exercise ever prepared me for. Nine days of endless, unceasing nightmares.
My father.
Not now.
I glance up at the silent red lights still flashing in the windows of the central office in the distance, the insistent strobe reminding me, without warning, of the familiar blue light of surveillance—
Of home.
I brace myself as a wave of disorientation moves through me. I remind myself to be here, where my feet are; here, where the cold pavement is hard under my hands; here, where the air is crisp; here, where my heart hardens against my ribs.
Only criminals need privacy, Rosa.
Only criminals need—
I’m here.
Here, where the wind pushes through the grassy field in the distance, where damp, synthetic fabric is suctioned uncomfortably to my skin, where water droplets still cling to my eyelashes. Here and not there, on Ark Island, where my sister, Clara, still rots in an asylum. Here and not there, in prison, where my father, Hugo, grew straight out of the grave of my memories, limbs pushing up like maggots from the earth to form a man I hadn’t seen in ten years. Of all things, it’s his voice that haunts me most.
Rosa—ROSA—
No.
