Page 129 of Shatter

"Put her in the back." He's already looking out the window at the water. "Somewhere cold. I want her docile when he gets here."

The freezer is at the end of the hall.

A steel door, thick as my arm, with a heavy chrome latch and a frosted window the size of a paperback.

Laurent drags me down the hall by the arm, and I fight him.

I kick and claw at his hand, and he doesn't even slow down.

Behind us, Pierce is saying my name, over and over, and nobody's listening.

The door swings open, and the cold slaps me in the face.

Laurent shoves me through it.

I stumble and hit the floor on my hands and knees. The concrete is so cold it burns.

The door swings shut behind me.

The latch clanks down, heavy and final.

Darkness, except for a thin blue light seeping through the frosted glass.

Racks of boxes around me, stacked to the ceiling, stamped with the Sawgrass Point logo.

Frost on everything, and my breath clouding white in the blue.

I crawl to the wall, put my back against it, and pull my knees up to my chest.

The cold's already in my fingers and the tips of my ears.

My teeth start chattering, and I can't stop them.

I think about the note on his pillow, and his face when he reads it.

Then Dag, handing him the real drive, and Desmond's voice saying they always come for the girl.

I press my forehead against my knees.

"Don't." I whisper it into the dark. "Please, Espen. Don't come."

The cold closes in.

And somewhere under the terror and the cold, a small, stubborn, traitorous part of me is praying he will.

CHAPTER SIXTEEN

Hakon

Kirkja smells like burnt coffee and sweat at seven in the morning.

Every chair at the long table is full.

Prospects don't sit in kirkja.

Tor held the door open for me anyway, because it's my woman who's gone.

All of my brothers have sleep creases on their faces and their cuts pulled on over T-shirts, and nobody's talking.