The Gender Game 5 (The Gender Fall)(11)

I leaned heavily on the bedframe and took baby steps, examining the room more closely. It was definitely new. My heartrate increasing, I forced my eyes to check every corner for anything I could use as a weapon—and I needed to be sure that she wasn’t there. The muscled woman with the sadistic gleam in her eyes who haunted my dreams and nightmares. Panic bubbled up in my chest at the thought of being in her clutches again.

My eyes settled on a book. It wasn’t much, but if I slipped it in my pillowcase, then I could…

A sharp voice, distorted by distance and my deaf ear, caught my attention, and I paused in my scheming. There was something familiar about it. I swallowed, and slowly turned my eyes to the spot I had been carefully avoiding—the window—and the bright, shining beams of sunlight pouring in. The light blazed into my head, making me squint, but I pushed the pain back, letting my eyes adjust bit by bit. I took a cautious step toward it, then another, and another, until I had gone as far as I could without letting go of the bedframe.

Wobbling slightly, I released the bedframe and propelled myself forward. I stumbled, my equilibrium off, but managed not to fall. I reached for a desk that sat just left of the window and used it to steady myself, clutching it with weak, shaky fingers. I took a moment to collect myself—sweating, panting hard, and bone-weary. Then, I moved a few steps more, leaning on the desk.

At first the light outside was too intense, but eventually, shapes and colors began to form, slowly, and then faster.

The first thing I noticed was the trees. They seemed to stretch on forever, until I lost sight of the individuals in the enormity of their spread. The forest seemed to run along both sides of the house, thick and dappled. A worn dirt road cut through it across from me, and a wide yard stretched out before the house, with a small barn nestled at the opposite end. The ground was dark and wet, as if it had rained recently, and I noticed several tents along the edge of the woods, forming neat and tidy lines. Someone had cleared away an area at the edge of the tents, and I could see a hodgepodge of benches and chairs encircling the smoldering remains of a fire pit. People my beleaguered mind vaguely recognized were moving around the camp, some in and out of the tents, performing various tasks and chores around the yard.

I pressed my forehead against the glass, letting the cool from the panes seep into my forehead. It helped to push back the throbbing pain, numbing it slightly, as I continued searching for the owner of the familiar voice I’d heard.

I saw her standing by some stairs that probably led to a porch. She was with a young man, her brown hair bobbing as she listened intently. She said something, her voice calm and even, but even from this distance I could pick up the authority in it. I smiled as a memory of her sharp, no-nonsense voice, ordering me to keep my back straight and adjust the heel of my foot slightly, came over me.

Ms. Dale. She looked over her shoulder, back at the tents, for a moment, and then back to the man. Nodding at him once more, she pointed a finger toward the tents, and then the two parted ways. I watched her go, allowing relief to wash over me. If she was here, then I was safe.

I took a deep breath and then turned left toward the door, a new compulsion pulling my aching body forward. I was safe. Now I needed to see Viggo.

It must have taken me ten minutes to hobble over to the door, and when I finally reached it, I sagged against it for a moment, breathing hard, my hand barely resting on the handle. I just had to see him—I had to know he was all right. The doorknob felt odd under my left hand, but I managed to lean on it enough to push it open. The cast on my right made it impossible to grab anything, and my body was so damn weak.

The hall was dim, lit only by a single lantern that hung from a hook in the ceiling. Using the doorframe as a brace, I stepped out, the floorboards creaking under my bare feet.

Voices came at me from an open space just beyond the two other doors opening from the hall, so I moved toward them, grateful they seemed close, keeping my hand on the wall as I walked. I focused on one motion at a time. Take a step. Viggo. Another step—closer to Viggo.

As I moved, I once again became acutely aware of the absence of sound in my left ear. It felt as if someone had shoved a wad of cotton into it, and it ached fiercely. I still couldn’t remember how I had damaged it. I guessed I could ask Viggo… but as I thought that, I realized there was another host of worries pressing into the back of my skull, one more rising above the rest. There was something I had to ask first. The urgency spurred me to move my feet faster, but that only made me dizzier, and I was forced to maintain the slower pace.

It took too long, but I made my way down the hall. As I approached the open space beyond, I was surprised to see it was a dining room. The people in it seemed to spin before my eyes, and I blinked them into focus, searching single-mindedly.