“My sister,” Rose says plainly. “After all she’s done for us? I can’t leave her to be alone.”
“Of course,” I say, despondent. In Ulrich Corridor, I’d thought for a brief moment that I might have an ally in Rose. But she has made her loyalties clear.
“Like it or not, Leila’s the only one of us who is willing to acceptherself fully,” Rose says, as if it’s an explanation. “To do the dirty work of crisis management. For all of us. Julian’s told you about Claire. Did he tell you that while he was wallowing in grief, Leila was the one to track down and eliminate the men who killed her? And that’s far from the only time we’ve been exposed. Hunted.” She folds her thin arms over a chest that had once been full and plush and is now prepubescent. “The work of enrapturing multiple targets is dangerous. There’s a window in the process during which the bond is at times tenuous, when our infiltration of the subconscious inspires as much alarm as lust. Our targets…they can become obsessive. Violent. You saw what happened to me.”
A memory comes to me in a flash: the security guard in our hospital who’d taken to following Leila into the parking garage. I’d written him off as a creep. But the way he’d looked at her hadn’t been simply amorous, it had been desperate.
“Are you hoping that I’ll be understanding?” I say. “That I’ll tell you it’s totally fine that she’s putting me and my family in danger, because she’s trying to protect yours?”
“No,” Rose sighs. “I wasn’t lying when I told you that I was happy for you and Julian. I want to help you get out of this. I’ll do what I can to protect your family. Especially this one,” she adds, scratching behind Onix’s ear. Then she looks back up at me. “But not at her expense, Sean. I can’t.”
What can I do but nod? My head feels heavy as a corpse.
She nods back. From the living room, I hear Sophie call for her. Rose gives me one last lingering look, then throws open the door and runs to her.
Finally, I’m alone. I crumple to the floor. Onix trots to me and collapses into my lap, his tail thumping happily on the floor. I lift his head and press it to mine.
“I missed you, baby,” I tell him, and he groans his agreement.
I begin to inspect my new space, pulling the drawers open to find all my potential necessities: satin pillowcases for my hair, clean towels, socks and underwear, pajamas, a single change of clothing. The adjoining bathroom is clean, and fresh eucalyptus hangs from the showerhead. I search for cameras and find none, but that doesn’t settle my nerves; if Leila is paranoid enough to strip me to search for tracking devices, there’s no guarantee that I’m not being watched.
It doesn’t escape my notice that the room is completely bereft of any objects I could use for self-defense. The lamps are glued to the tables, and the furniture is too heavy to use as a barricade. I have a window, but it’s bolted shut. For all its niceties, I am still in a prison.
There’s a clock on the wall. My exploration has taken ten minutes, and I fold onto the floor, trying not to dwell on how many I have left. In the cath lab, we learn to prepare for the unexpected, for a worst-case scenario. We work based on inference with limited information, using injected contrast and X-rays to get the closest we can to the lay of the land in which we work, but we don’t have the full picture that a surgeon might. When shit hits the fan, we have to be ready for a bailout, and that requires preparation, but also creativity and quick thinking. And when that doesn’t work, the humility to call for backup.
I’m trapped in a cabin in the middle of nowhere with an armed man who has most certainly killed before and who is magically devoted to the mastermind of my kidnapping, with my entire found family unknowingly held hostage. Right now, I can’t find a bailout, and my backup is currently halfway across the country.
Frustrated, I flop backward onto the floor. Onix is on my chest immediately, lavishing my chin with kisses, and I’m squirming at hisloving assault when I turn my head and a metallic glint catches my eye.
A floorboard under the bed, one of the nails just barely sticking out from the wood.
Leila is right that I probably won’t be able to overpower Robbie. But I have an excellent grasp on anatomy, and she’s also correct that I can find a vein, or an artery, in record time. Enough force, and I’ll have her. And while Robbie will almost assuredly kill me for it, it might buy Winona and Sophie some time to run.
Suddenly I don’t care if there’s a camera trained on me. I turn off the lights, wedge my hand as far under the bed as I can manage. I can feel the ridge of the loose nail, but can’t quite get my fingers underneath the head. Frenzied, I try the thin edge of my press-ons, avoiding the thumb because if I lose that, I lose my backup too—
Someone opens the door, and the light flickers on. I sit up so quickly that I bang my head hard on the bed frame.
“Dinner’s ready,” Winona says, looking down at me with consternation. “Why are you rolling around on the floor in the dark?”
“Winny,” I breathe, so relieved that I have to fight back laughter.
Winona slips inside my room and shuts the door.
“Something’s off,” she whispers. “I’m not wrong, am I? Leila wouldn’t tell us exactly where she was bringing us, and I still don’t understand how she was able to find you. She said she talked to Julian, but I know for a fact that you two broke up in the worst way and that you’d rather lose your big toe than let him back in, and you’ve literally never gone on a trip without telling me, and I don’t care what she says, there’s no way you’d do that while everything was going on with Brandon. Plus, the vibes between Leila and this cook are weird, like they’retogetheror something, andwhathappened to your wrists—”
I suck in a breath, not quite expecting this confrontation so soon.To be known is to be loved, I think. This is my best friend; she can read me like an open book, and my split second of silence is answer enough.
“What is goingon, Sulley?” she says.
I don’t think, just hug her close, force her head down so that her lips are obscured by my shoulder, mine by her hair.
“I’m so happy to see you,” I say out loud.
Winona stiffens, but to my relief, she doesn’t pull away.
“Should I be worried?” she whispers. When I don’t respond, “Sean?”
I’m torn. On one hand, if I tell her that she’s in danger, she’ll want to know more, and her survival is contingent on her ignorance. On the other, she and Sophie are the only people in this cabin who don’t understand that they’re in a death trap.
