CHAPTER THIRTY-THREE
He’d been there before me. Of course he had. In the pit of my gut, I was starting to know that so far we had always been a step too slow, waiting to see what he’d left behind. This time it was Nina.
She lay on the floor of the nursery, where she’d been undressing to go to bed. There was blood on her temple, as if she’d been struck, but her face was flushed and I could see the rise and fall of her chest. For good measure, Creeton had taken a stocking from her drawer and tied her wrists to the foot of the brass bedstead.
“Nina.” I fell to my knees, pressed my hand to her forehead and her temple. She didn’t move, didn’t groan. She was out cold. I had no idea what to do, of course, if there was anything to be done. But the stocking I could take care of. I lunged for my own bed and felt under the mattress.
My knife wasn’t there.
Cold steel touched my throat. “Looking for this?”
I froze.
“Interesting,” said Creeton. “One of our own nurses was armed. I guess you were a little bit suspicious of us.”
I glanced over my bed. All of my things had been rifled through, my bedding disturbed. Martha’s and Nina’s things had been searched as well, their undergarments taken from the drawers. Practical Nursing lay facedown on the floor as if someone had shaken and dropped it. I’d noticed none of this when I’d come in; I’d seen only Nina.
“What do you want?” I managed.
I was still crouched beside my bed, my hands on the mattress. Creeton shifted behind me, and I could hear his heavy breath. “You know what I want. I wrote a little note and put it on Yates’s pillow. You’ve all found it by now.”
“‘Eliminate the weak,’” I quoted.
“Do you hear it?” said Creeton. “He’s telling me. I can hear it in my head. Only at night at first, but lately it’s been stronger and stronger. There. I can hear him now. Can you?”
I heard nothing but the pounding of my own heart. “He isn’t real. It’s this place, Creeton. I told you.”
“In my mind, he’s real. But then, I’m mad, aren’t I?” The knife drew tighter against my throat. “I’d like to try killing you. You’ve never liked me and I’ve never liked you. But you aren’t the assignment. You’re a means to an end. So was the other nurse.”
“What end?” I choked out. “For God’s sake, what do you want?”
“The key to the west wing,” said Creeton. “I’ve tried to get in there but all the doors are barred. Just one is locked. I want the key, and I want my Luger. I want the combination to the safe where it’s kept.”
“I don’t know of any safe.”
“That’s a nice lie,” he said. “But I already questioned the other nurse, and she told me that’s where it is. But she didn’t have the combination. I was finished with her.” He leaned closer, exhaling in my ear as he spoke. “I think you have it. I think you have both.”
I thought frantically. There was no point in stalling him; everyone was busy with the patients two floors down, and no one was coming this way. If I screamed, how quickly would they come? And would he kill me before they got here?
Creeton pressed the tip of the knife harder into my throat. “Don’t scream. I can see you thinking about it. If you try, I’ll cut you with this, and then I’ll cut her. I swear it.”
“Jack Yates has the combination to the safe,” I choked. “He has your gun.”
“Another lie.” His face grew red, and then he sneered. “Oh, perfect Jack, your little lover. Snuck into his room at night, did you? I know all about it. Has he had you yet? Does he know what you are?”
I was blinded by white-hot anger. “You can stick it, you disgusting pig.”
He laughed at that. “You’re not one of the weak. Not you. I’ll get my gun from him; never worry. Now give me the key to the west wing.”
Again, I could have put him off. Only the orderlies had the keys to the west wing, but I still had the ring of keys I’d taken off Paulus’s belt the night before. At least, if I gave Creeton the key, I’d be able to tell Jack where we could find him. “It’s in the pocket of my apron,” I said.
“Don’t reach,” he said. “Keep your hands on the bed where I can see them. I’ll get it myself.”
He took his time about it, putting his beefy hands into my pockets, making sure his fingers grabbed and pinched me through the layers of fabric. He finally found the right key ring and held it out in front of me. “Is this it?”
“Yes,” I said.
“Good girl.” He laughed low and put his hand down again, this time grabbing my backside the way he had the first day. “Very nice.”
Tears stung my eyes. “You can’t hurt me,” I said to him. “I’ve been hurt by worse than you, and he’s dead now, or dying.”
He dropped his hand. “I would have done it, you know. That day. I could have saved everyone a lot of trouble. I’m one of the weak. My father knows it, and so do I. It would have been best if I’d gone that day, because it’s best if the weak are eliminated. But now I have an assignment to carry out. It’s the only reason he hasn’t had me kill myself already.”
“Then go do it,” I spat, “and leave me alone.”
“Business first. Put your wrists together.”
He pulled out another of Nina’s stockings. I couldn’t do it; it was foolish perhaps, but I’d given in too many times in my life, and all my instincts rose up. I fought him as he grabbed my wrists. I thrashed hard and I screamed. He swore and stuffed the stocking into my mouth, then grabbed another as I choked on it, and he yanked my wrists again.
Still I fought. It was a grim struggle, the two of us on the ground, I trying to kick him or jab him with my knees, Creeton using his big bulk to pin me down. I was bruised and straining by the end of it, the stocking thick and foul in my mouth, sweat running down my forehead and onto my temples, tears flowing down my face. But he won. He finally wound the stocking around both of my wrists and tied me to the leg of my bedstead, just as he had done to Nina.
He stood, panting, and looked down at me. “You’re lucky you’re one of the strong ones,” he said. “And you’re lucky I’m out of time. Otherwise I’d use these, just as I did on your friend.” He reached into his pocket and held up the bottle of Jack’s pills.
I screamed past the stocking, and it came out a pitiful, muffled sound. If he’d given those pills to Nina, she was as good as dead. I was so bloody helpless. I felt more tears on my face. I kicked my legs, but he stepped easily away.
“I only gave her three,” he said. “I made her take them. I didn’t want to kill her any more than I want to kill you, but she’ll sleep a good while, I think. She won’t be much use to anyone even when she wakes up. I was saving the others for you, but I can tell you won’t swallow them, even at knifepoint. And I don’t want to take that stocking out of your mouth and hear you scream again.”
He put the bottle in his pocket. He looked down at me, and in my haze I wasn’t sure whether he spoke again. And then he was gone, and I was tied up on the floor, alone.
Seconds ticked by like hours. Time blurred. The rain pattered on the window. No one else came. Nina was still.
I closed my eyes. Something was happening downstairs; I was sure of it. I hoped Jack and Mabry were ready for it. I hoped the patients had been moved. I thought, incongruously, of Syd, the way he’d looked on the day he came to see me, in his wool suit and new hat. The way he’d smelled. My own brother, who I’d thought dead, coming to get me. Hitting me. I lay back and felt the bitter sting of the stocking in my throat and wept, there on the floor. My anger had faded into black helplessness. It seemed I would always be fighting with men, always wondering when they’d pin me down to get their way. Only Jack touched me with gentleness. And why would Jack ever love someone as worthless as I was?
There was nothing but the sound of the rain on the window, the numbness in my hands, the tight pain in my wrists, and the ache in my arms. My lower back hurt, and my elbow from where I’d cracked it fighting Creeton, and my ribs and legs ached. After I stopped crying I was just this, a body, a collection of varying aches and pains, my heart pushing blood through me as I waited.
Then I heard a creak in the corridor, and a quiet footstep.
I stayed still at first, listening. If it was the shirtless ghost of Mikael Gersbach, I didn’t want to see it. I would stay still, and maybe he would go away.
Another footstep, closer this time. Someone had come through the door of the nursery and was crossing the floor toward me.
I didn’t feel a flash of cold, and I didn’t hear the pipes begin to moan in the walls. I opened my eyes and craned my neck, but the angle was wrong and I couldn’t see who was approaching. It was someone tentative, almost tiptoeing. That meant it couldn’t be Jack or Mabry. Creeton had finished with me and left. Who was tiptoeing around Portis House?
I heard a rustle of skirts, and gooseflesh broke out on my arms.
She came into my line of vision at last. She was wearing the same dress I’d seen her in before, though it was dusty and bedraggled. Her blond hair was pulled back into a simple braid. She was thin and pale, but she was real, and she was alive. It was the girl from the picture in Maisey’s locket. She came forward and knelt next to me.
“Hush,” she said. “We must be quiet.”
I blinked up at her, amazed.
The girl pulled out a pocketknife and motioned toward my ties. “I’m here to help you,” she said. “My name is Anna Gersbach.”
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