Careful not to let it touch my soiled skin, I held the material up to my nose, inhaling deeply. Marc’s smell made my heart pound and my blood rush, not all of it to my head. For the first time, I realized that there was a chance, a teeny speck of a possibility—microscopic, really—that sleeping with him might not have been a complete mistake. Because while a mistake might be fun, might even be worth repeating a couple of times, people don’t have physiological responses to a reminder of said mistake thirty-two hours later. That just didn’t happen. Did it?
I rolled my clothes up and carried them to the bathroom under the stairs. “What are you doing?” Abby asked, still clutching her bars.
“Cleaning up. Then I’m going to get dressed and go find your key. Or a hammer. If I go up there without cleaning off the blood, Ryan will smell me the minute I open the door.”
“What are you going to do about him?”
Grinning, I shrugged. “I could take him as a kid, and I’m a lot stronger now.”
She smiled hesitantly, clearly skeptical. I nodded toward Eric, as a reminder, then closed myself into the restroom beneath the stairs.
The bathroom was nothing but a toilet and a low sink, crammed into a space too small to hold two people. A damp hand towel sat on the back of the toilet, and it looked clean. I put down the toilet lid and set my bundle of clothes on it, then turned on the faucet.
I ran as little water as possible, afraid Ryan might hear it and know something was wrong. But I was determined to wash away all of the blood, in spite of the risk. There was no mirror, so I did the best I could without one. I lathered my hands with the vanilla-scented soap and scrubbed my face over and over, until my hands came away clean. My body was easier, because I could see the blood.
When I was finished, and smelled overwhelmingly of vanilla, I blotted myself dry with the hand towel and got dressed. Abby was staring at me when I opened the door. I could almost taste her anxiety.
“What’s wrong?” I asked, glancing around for the source of her concern. Eric still lay dead in my open cell, which was good, because I don’t do walking corpses. There was no one else in the basement.
“Don’t leave me,” she begged. “Please.”
I reached through the bars to hug her. “I wouldn’t leave you here for anything in the world, Abby. I’m just going to find the other key, and a phone, so I can call my dad. I’ll be right back.”
She clutched me, clasping her hands at my back. “Promise?”
“I swear.”
“Okay.” She let me go, and I stroked her hair, pushing it back from her face.
“Give me a few minutes, and I’ll have you out of there.”
She nodded, and I headed for the stairs. I took them two at a time, with a cat’s easy gait and stealth. I was still tired and hungry, but adrenaline kept me going. It was even better than caffeine.
On the top step, I flipped the light switch up and glanced at Abby one last time. She gave me a hesitant smile and a thumbs-up. I turned the knob, my heart pounding so hard in my ears that I couldn’t tell whether or not the hinges squealed as I pushed the door open. I paused, waiting for Ryan’s footsteps, but they didn’t come.My palm damp on the doorknob, I stepped onto faded linoleum and eased the door shut behind me. Beneath my feet, a flowering-vine pattern crept across the floor and under a cluttered pressboard table before disappearing beneath a wall of kitchen cabinets. Above the sink, directly across from the basement door, was a window, its thin lace drapes open to expose an eerily perfect residential street, complete with sidewalks, yard gnomes, and mailboxes in cute shapes like birdhouses and barns.
I crept silently around the table, leaning over a stack of dirty dishes to stare out the window. As I watched, enthralled by an ordinary scene of suburban serenity, a car drove by, bobbing for a moment as it went over a yellow speed bump before passing the driveway out front. The empty driveway.
My pulse jumped. The van was gone. Sean and Miguel had already left.
Staring out the window, I looked freedom in the face, but my eyes were drawn back to the basement door. I’d promised Abby I wouldn’t leave her, and I never broke my promises. But even without a promise I could no more have left her than I could have let Eric hurt her.
To my left was an arched doorway, leading into what had once been a formal dining room. It was empty now, and beyond it lay a small, tiled foyer and the front door. To my right stood an identical arch, leading into the living room. The couch faced away from me and the television was on, tuned to a morning-news talk show. Ryan was nowhere in sight.
I scanned the table, searching for the key among sticky dishes and abandoned food. It wasn’t there, but I did find a cell phone, fully charged and receiving a strong signal. Mine, now, I thought, slipping it into the front pocket of my shorts as I turned toward the living room.
The phone rang when I was inches from the doorway. A digital, polyphonic version of “Bad Boys.” Someone had a really cheesy sense of humor. I slapped my hand over the phone in my pocket, then dug for it desperately. I got it on the second ring and jammed my thumb down on the End Call button. Nothing happened. Shit, wrong phone.
In the living room, less than five feet away, Ryan moaned and sat up on the couch with his back to me. He rubbed his face with one hand while his other searched blindly on an end table for the ringing phone. I slid back from the door frame in case he turned around. And I listened, frozen in place.
The song stopped. “Hello?” Ryan asked, still half-asleep. Then, sharper, “Why the hell didn’t you write it down the first time? Or at least wait ’til you got closer to call for directions. I could have slept for several more hours.”
He paused, and I held my breath. It had to be Sean, because he wouldn’t talk to Miguel like that. Or Mom. And I was fairly certain no one else would call Ryan.
“Okay, okay. But find a fucking pen this time.” Another pause. “You ready? Okay, the town is called Oak Hill. It’s eighty-five miles southwest of Saint Louis. You’ll be on I–55 until…”
I quit listening; I’d heard all I needed. They were going after Carissa, but they wouldn’t be there for hours, so there was still time.
A minute later, Ryan hung up the phone with a curse and a grunt. Classy. He fell back on the arm of the couch and was snoring in seconds.
In a rush of relief, I released the breath I’d been holding for nearly two minutes. It was about time something went my way.
I tiptoed, literally, back to the basement door and eased it open long enough to slip through, then closed it soundlessly.
“Faythe?” Abby whispered.
“Yeah, it’s me. Just a sec.” From the top step, I checked the reception on the cell phone. Two bars. Still watching the screen, I took the steps one at a time. On the fourth step, I lost one bar, and by the sixth, I had no reception at all. I ran the rest of the way to the basement floor and straight to Abby’s cage.
“Did you find the key?” she asked, her face eager, eyes bright.
“Not yet, but I found this.” I held up the phone. “I think it’s Eric’s.”
She smiled. “Great. Call the council.”
“I can’t. It doesn’t get any reception down here, and Ryan’s still upstairs.”
Abby glared at me, accusation frosting her eyes. “So what?”
“He hasn’t exactly been helpful so far, has he? He may change his tune now that I’m out, but what if he doesn’t? What if he calls Miguel, and they get back before I can get you out?”
Panic spread across her face. “We can’t let him do that.”
“Exactly. But I can’t just kill him.”
She nodded, as if she understood. “Because he’s your brother.”
“There’s that.” Although I wasn’t exactly feeling the familial bond right then. “But also, we need him to cooperate.”
She frowned. “Why?”
“If Sean and Miguel call, and no one answers the phone, they’ll know something’s wrong. Either they’ll turn around and come back, possibly before I’ve found the key, or they’ll run. If they run, we may never catch them. Don’t you want them to pay for what they’ve done to you? And to Sara?”
She didn’t hesitate. “Hell, yeah. I want them to suffer like they made her suffer. And me.” The expression on her china-doll face was fierce enough to startle me. “So, what’s the plan?”
I grinned, relieved by her enthusiasm. I’d been afraid I’d have to talk her into it. “I say we let the punishment fit the crime.” I nodded toward my cage, still standing open.
Abby’s forehead wrinkled in distaste. “You’re gonna put him in there with Eric?”
I shrugged. “I’d rather put him in the empty cage, but the bait’s already waiting in mine, and I’m not moving the body.” I wrapped my hands around hers on the bars and squeezed gently. “If you can wait until I lock up Ryan, I can get us both out of here. And…” I paused for emphasis. “I know who Miguel’s after.”
“Who?”
“Carissa Taylor.”
She flinched, and I was sure I knew what she was thinking. It was creepy to know that Carissa was going about her life, shopping with friends and talking on the phone, with no idea that in a few hours she might be locked up, awaiting her new existence as the personal property of some sadistic Alpha in the middle of the rain forest, thousands of miles from home.