Something familiar catches my eye. My gaze trails over the trash strewn in the shadows of the cavern, and I find it again. A backpack with a familiar white granola wrapper.
That’s from one of Madison’s granola bars. Is that Madison’s backpack?
I shuffle away from the wall, assessing the litter along the walls. There are piles of twigs and twine in various sizes. A stack of ratty sleeping bags in the shadows. Black and gray bits of plastic. A striped backpack strap.
My heart hurls sideways like a skipping rock. That’s my backpack strap. The sticks that made the dolls. I find more things. A crushed box of yogurts. The cap of a black marker that makes my fingers scratch at the letters on my arm.
It’s like bracing myself for a fall one second too late. I can’t save myself now. I’ve walked into my killer’s lair.
Chapter 30
I turn for the exit slowly. I think my heart is thundering in my ears, but it’s not. That’s real thunder, a low ripple that picks at my edges. I clench my fists to hold myself together. He’s not here. I found his hidey hole, his little backstage setup area, but Mr. Walker isn’t inside. He’s out looking for me.
Time to go.
I blink back furious tears and start toward the stairs. My feet stutter-stop after two steps. The small, boxy GPS device is sitting on the back wall, strapped in its bright holster with Walker printed neatly down the side in familiar permanent ink. My vision narrows until it is all I see.
He used this to keep help from coming. This is how he lied to our parents, to my father, clicking a few buttons and letting them sleep at night, believing we are OK.
We are not OK. And now I am going to tell them.
My heart grows strangely steady as I cross the cavern floor. I tuck the flare gun under my arm and reach for the GPS. He taught us how to call for emergencies. His one mistake, it seems. When my fingers graze the canvas holder, they are buzzing with anticipation. It’s easy to activate the emergency call. As easy as putting in my locker combination.
I check it again because I’m not sure I did it right, but the message is there.
Confirmed.
Help is coming. It feels like the tide rolling away. I step back on wooden limbs and look up the channel that will lead me back out to Lucas.
Something moves out of the corner of my eye. It’s just the sleeping bag.
No.
It’s something inside the sleeping bag. And it’s moving.
I can’t muster a scream, so I scramble for the tunnel as the mound shifts and twists in the shadows. Gun. I have a gun. Flare gun or not, it’s something. I raise my weapon and face the sleeping bag, trying to back my way up and out.
The bag bends. Folds. Someone is in there, trying to sit up. An awful gurgling cough comes from inside all that fabric. Then a bloody face emerges in the light.
Mr. Walker. My finger is on the trigger when he slumps sideways, shaking violently. I lower the gun an inch because Emily was right. He is sick. It wasn’t an act. Not before and not now. Something is very wrong with him.
He opens his mouth and closes it. I can almost see his lips forming around my name, and it makes me want to burn the Darling off my arm, but I don’t need to. I put in the distress call, so help will come now. They will find us and rescue us.
Mr. Walker lets out a breath that gurgles, and I really look at him. At the blood on his shirt. The blood around his mouth, like he’s been coughing it up. Spitting it out.
I think we’re already rescued. I didn’t rescue myself. Lucas didn’t do it either. We aren’t the heroes. Whatever is killing Mr. Walker, that fever burning him from the inside out? That’s the hero.
I force my shoulders down as his eyes find mine. I want him to look at me. I want him to face what he’s done and to know I’m not afraid anymore. He won’t get up and relive his little eighteen-year-old murder scene. He might not ever get up again.
My stomach knots as I look at him because he still doesn’t watch me like I’m a Darling. Or like I’m something he wants to destroy. It doesn’t matter. Getting out of here matters. I force myself forward, and Mr. Walker startles, another wet cough rattling in his throat as he tries to talk to me.
He works one arm out of the bag, and I can see a paper folded in his hand. I can’t read it from here, but I can see there’s a girl’s picture. Is that Hannah? From her funeral maybe?
Yeah, it’s her picture, her face under Mr. Walker’s smeared crimson fingerprints. He squirms, one arm still pinned in the sleeping bag. He’s a bloody, hacking worm, and looking at him clenches my stomach. And it makes me angry.
I lift the flare gun and take a step toward him. Because I want him to know I’m not the girl he thinks I am. For one sliver of a second, I think I might pull the trigger.
But I am not that girl either.
I lower the weapon, and he tries to say something. His breath is a sticky rattle, telling me he doesn’t have long. Finally, he shapes the words, pushes them out of his mouth with a croak of voice.