The Winter Over(41)

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.”

Cass matched his stare. “I’m telling you.”

It had been a day since her harrowing journey through the tunnels. The tiny wounds she’d received from the exploding timber shoring weren’t serious, but the resin or the preservative in the wood had caused a reaction and her normally clear skin blazed like she had the measles. After staggering back to her quarters, she’d spent an hour picking out splinters, debating what she should do about her experience in the tunnels. Report it or keep the whole thing to herself? Expose herself to questions and potential ridicule, or act like it hadn’t occurred? She went back and forth with herself until, exhausted, she’d simply crawled into her bunk, giving herself permission to sleep on the issue.

The next morning, she’d decided there was no way she could simply ignore what had happened; her only choice was to tell either Hanratty or Taylor. Of the two of them, and despite her innate dislike of the man, her instinct told her Hanratty would handle the situation more professionally. But now looking at him across his desk, faced with his icy indifference, she had her doubts.

His gaze slid off her and over her shoulder. “Jennings, some of the infrastructure down there is nearly seventy years old. It’s not beyond comprehension that the lights might stop working.”

“What about the sewer pipe? The vertical split? That’s not natural.”

He shrugged. “Says who? I respect the fact that, of the two of us, you’re the one with the degree in mechanical engineering. But strange things happen at the Pole, and just because a pipe broke in a different direction than you expected doesn’t mean there’s a grand conspiracy.”

She gritted her teeth. “And the person in the tunnel? The one who turned the lights out? The one who I almost knifed ?”

“But didn’t.” Hanratty ran his hands wide along the lip of his desk, like he was smoothing a wrinkle in a tablecloth. “You said you returned later.”

“Yes.” With three flashlights and a crowbar .

“You found evidence of this other person? Blood, maybe, or a footprint?”

Cass paused. “No.”

“Was the . . . assailant a man or a woman?”

She swallowed. “I don’t know.”

He nodded, as if expecting the answer. “And the voice . . . no help there?”