Maybe it was understandable. She’d had a hard hat on then, and jeans, not a parka and mittens. And she hadn’t been in a squat, claustrophobic wormhole, but in an arched, rounded cavern so colossal that it resembled a cathedral more than the transit tunnel it actually was. She hadn’t been frightened and alone; she’d been surrounded by welders and drillers and engineers working round-the-clock shifts. The city had been pushing for completion—constant pressure rained down from the mayor’s office, it was an election year, transportation was that season’s cause célèbre. Sparks flew at one end of a run while her team took measurements at the other.
Tight lips and flattened mouths spoke of mute disapproval, but no one had the brass to stop the process. They were a tight, professional group—a rarity in city government—and they prided themselves on never being the bottleneck in a project, doing their work on time and under budget. The unrelenting pressure had given all of them a fever, though, and they’d scrambled over pipes and scribbled in their notebooks at a pace they’d never allowed before. They made the numbers work, and when they didn’t work, they made them right. Boxes were checked, lines were signed, and assurances given. There’d been much patting on backs and handshakes all around, until five months later when those same hands were being wrung in agony or covering their faces in horror.
A noise somewhere ahead brought both her feet and her memory to a halt. A clacking noise, followed by a thump, but having heard it through three layers of clothing, she couldn’t be sure. The only sound she’d been hearing for long minutes had been her own breathing and the silvery whisper of her mitten’s synthetic fabric against the slick insulation.
She hesitated, then pulled her hood back and loosened the scarf over her face. She wouldn’t last long in the cold without both, but it was the only way she’d be able to hear anything louder than her own heartbeat.
There it was again. Click-click-click, thump . The bottom of her stomach dropped to the floor. Willing herself to move, she shook off a mitten and slid a hand down to her belt where she kept a multi-tool in a nylon sheath. Working fast, she ran a thumb along each tool, fumbling in the dark to find the one with the blade, cursing softly when the edge sliced into her thumb as she unlocked it.
With her left hand on the pipe and her right holding the knife, Cass resumed her tentative steps. If she was right about the distance, she should be near the door to the main artery. But was the person who killed the lights on her side or the other?
Her face and hand prickled with the bite of subzero temperatures. With her hood and scarf pulled down to hear and her right hand exposed while it held the knife, her skin was directly exposed, but she needed to hear.
And there it was again. A clacking, followed by a thump. Then she heard a soft, whisking sound, like a cornstalk broom being brushed across a hardwood floor. Cass strained to hear. Slowly, the whisking noises became a whisper, and the whisper became a word.
“Cass .”
Sweat stung the punctures caused by the bursting of the wooden beam. She squeezed the knife, unsure what to do. After a long wait, crouching slightly and leading with the knife, she pressed forward. Five steps. Then ten.
“Cass .”
The sound was barely there and seemed swallowed by the ice around her. Was it farther away? Or so close she could feel someone’s breath? She recoiled.
After a moment, the whisking sound began again . . . and this time she realized what it was.
Laughter.
White rage flooded her from somewhere deep inside. Screaming something incoherent, she dashed forward, swinging the knife back and forth like a flyswatter . . . but the blade made no contact, encountered nothing. The cold whisking sound faded. Cass stumbled forward, stabbing and punching and slashing at whoever had tried to turn her fears and memories against her. Even in the complete darkness, she felt like she could sense the other person so well that she could actually see them. Hysterical, she swung for the imagined face.
But there was nothing there. Staggering forward from the swing, her foot kicked something hard and unyielding—the door frame?—and she pitched forward with a yell. The knife flew from her hand; her breath was nearly knocked out of her body. Pain tore through her ankle.
She pulled herself off the ground and crouched in the dark, whimpering, terrified, ready for someone to attack. When nothing happened, she listened intently, hoping to catch a telltale sound. But all she could hear was her own tattered breathing.
After an infinite minute, she put a hand to the wall for support once again and pulled herself to her feet. Limping, cursing, and crying, she made her way blindly through the darkness.
CHAPTER SEVENTEEN
“And then you walked back to base.” Hanratty’s face was as blank and unreadable as a stone. “But didn’t tell anyone.”