Still shaking, I stuffed clothes back into the bag, then tucked the gun unnaturally underneath my arm. When I stood up, my head filled with hot air, and I had to wait three Mississippis for the feeling to pass.
The world around me was sharp and dreamlike all at once. I unchained the lock and slipped back out onto the balcony. Still no sign of Adam. In the parking lot, a blue truck was parked next to my car. It looked empty, but the motor was running. I caught a silhouette of my own reflection in the truck’s window as I passed by.
I threaded my way through the space in between and popped open the door to my car. From the center cup holder, the screen of my phone flashed blue. I leaned over, maneuvering my knee onto the seat so I could pull out the phone. I recognized Meg’s area code on the missed-call notification. My heart jumped. Finally.
I was entering the phone’s password when I felt a shadow cross me. A whiff of tobacco. Then a brush of hair on my cheek. I didn’t have time to scream before a coarse rag was shoved over my mouth and nose. The grip of strong arms hugged me to a stranger’s chest. Something sweet filled my nostrils, and a wave of nausea rushed up my throat just before the world disappeared.
THIRTY-SEVEN
A half-life will grow shorter the more energy that is released. Therefore, a vast quantity of energy is needed as a starting point to sustain Adam for a greater length of time. It would need to be a supersource.
*
Pressure filled the space between my temples in waves. I lay still as a possum and counted to five, then to ten, then to five again to see if the last surge had left me. When the pressure faded, I dragged my forehead from a hard wooden surface to a world where everything was blurry. Tilted. Unrecognizable. I tried to sit up. Somewhere outside dogs barked, and I briefly thought of Einstein. My arms scraped the wood. Splinters flaked off and stuck in my skin. I groaned. The back of my throat burned like it’d been seared with acid. My hands, I realized, wouldn’t budge. They were paralyzed. Stuck together. My feet felt as if needles were attacking them. They tingled, dead asleep. How long had I been lying here? I squinted through my eyelashes. An intricate knot looped around my wrists and ankles.
I jerked. My cheek scraped what I now understood was the floor, and I felt the fresh sting of raw skin. Panic seized hold of my lungs. I spent several long seconds writhing on the floor, trying to break my hands free. It was no use. The rope wore into my wrists, and the prickle of welts spread underneath it. Trying a new tactic, I dug my elbows into the ground and pushed myself into a sitting position. I was breathing heavy. Strands of hair fell over my eyes.
I made myself tick through the things I knew for certain. At some time before now, I’d been at the Queen’s Inn. Someone had drugged me. That someone must have brought me here. I swallowed back tears. It wasn’t much to go on. I glanced down at my clothes. My jeans were buttoned. My shirt appeared untouched. I didn’t feel like anything … indecent had happened. At least not yet, anyway. I thought of lost girls on national news programs and tried to imagine myself as one of them. My pulse pounded in my ears. I sucked in uneven breaths. Shallow. What was going to happen to me? The answer formed instantly.
The Hunter.
The words shot through me, igniting a fresh rush of horror. I yanked against my ties, using every muscle in my body to slide my hands out of the trap. My wrists screamed with pain, and I curled in on myself. “No,” I whimpered. “No, no, no.”
Slowly, I sat back up. Tears streaked my cheeks, and my hair stuck to them. Breathe, I commanded. Focus. It wasn’t doing anyone any good to dive into hysterics. I steadied my lower lip and forced myself to take in the surroundings. I was in a dim room, one that looked like it hadn’t been used for years. Dust covered the floor. A twin bed had been shoved against the wall. Moths had eaten through spots on the thin green quilt that dripped off the brass bed frame. A yellowing crocheted blanket covered the nightstand beside it.
The room smelled like the inner pages of an old, forgotten book laced with something else, something I couldn’t place but that felt unmistakably out of context.
At the foot of the bed, I noticed a curious trunk that appeared to be made of glass and filled with a pus-colored liquid that might account for the smell. I couldn’t imagine what could be inside, but whatever it was it seemed foreign to the haunting nostalgia of the rest of the room’s untouched decor.
“You see him now,” said a voice coming from a far corner.
I gasped and cast my gaze around, searching through the dust-speckled air between us. “Who’s there?” I said. I scrambled, driving my heels into the floor, until my back met the wall behind me.