"Cain? How long has Poppet been gone?"
Chapter Sixty-Two
Do the Things I Cannot
Cain lifts his head and glances toward the curtained window. I can see his mind ticking, calculating the time since she left. He hesitates too long, and my stomach churns. I tap his side and he rolls away from me, gets to his feet.
Cain pulls on his shirt, and I step into my jeans. We're frantic as we dress, and silent.
She's fine, I tell myself. She's just giving us space because that's the kind of friend she is. Thoughtful, kind.
Still, I bolt through the front door and search the parking lot. The morning sun casts a harsh glare across the pavement. I rush toward the concrete stairs and hurry down, Cain right behind me. Poppet said she was going to the front for coffee, but she isn't there when we go inside. She isn't anywhere.
Not in the lobby bathroom.
Not at the gated, drained pool.
Not back in our motel room because we might have missed her.
My ears pound and my breathing accelerates until the world spins.
"She probably went for a walk," Cain says. "She'll be back any minute."
I can't hear his words. I can't think past anything besides what my eyes have spotted in the parking lot. Near the front tire of a Dodge Ram truck is a flash of pink. Long elephant trunk, sewed on eyelashes, a belly stuffed with cotton.
"Cain … " I point toward Poppet's pink elephant, and a sob breaks in my throat.
He rushes toward the parking lot and, as I stand on the second story walkway-Cain frantically searching for our friend-my fear and horror transform into something else. I was so close to happiness. There it was, cupped in my palm, shivering with excitement. A future so bright and bold it could color a canvas.
I held it in my mind for a moment. All that joy. All that potential. Cain and Poppet and me and laughter and fresh starts. No one getting hurt. No turning back.
Cain yells at me from the parking lot, but I can't hear what he's saying. I'm comatose. Lost in the fog of something that could have been. But they took a crucial piece of my plan, didn't they? They took my friend.
I descend the stairs slowly, robotic. When my feet touch the ground, I stride past Cain and over to Poppet's lost toy. I crouch down and take the pink elephant. Think how silly it is that she took it with her to get coffee. I hand it to Cain and tell him to pull it apart. He does-and there it is. The small, intricate tracking device that told them exactly where to go should we escape.
Madam Karina practically handed Poppet the stuffed animal. But not quite. To do so would have given her away. She's much too sly for that.
"Do you think they took her?" Cain asks. "I didn't hear anything."
My head snaps up. "It doesn't matter."
"How does it not matter?" Cain runs his hand over his shorn head, and paces. "We have to get her back. We have to tell someone." He glances around like he's just now realizing something. "We have to get out of here. They could be close by."
"We're going to get her back ourselves," I say evenly. "I can't risk waiting for someone else to help." Besides, there's a reason they didn't wait to find us, too. Madam Karina loves that I'm forced to return on my own or leave my friend behind.
"Domino, if we go back there, we won't stand a chance of leaving again. Madam Karina, Mr. Hodge, the Pox police, the girls at the house … We're outnumbered."
Anger courses through me, a thousand ravenous suns drinking every last drop of thick, red blood. My veins run with fire and sulfur, with vengeance and rage. My happiness was waiting in a field of tall grass, but they burned it down around me. They've taken and manipulated and hurt. They've done wrong, and there's nothing I do better than enacting punishment on those my mother deems unworthy.
And if my mother were here, she would find these people unworthy.
"We won't get Poppet back," I say, standing. "But I know someone who will."
"Who?" Cain holds the elephant's smiling, glassy-eyed head in his right hand.
"Wilson."
Wilson snaps to attention. You mean it? Do you really mean it?
Can you get her back? I ask.
I can get her back. Wilson licks his lips, tries to control his excitement. I'll need complete control though. No sharing.
"Domino?" Cain touches my elbow. "Who is Wilson?"
My hands cradle my head. I'm so tired, Wilson.
I know you are. Let me finish this for you.
The fire in my veins beats in time with my heart. The pulsing reminds me of what I've lost. So close to freedom. So close to the dreams I had.