Release Me (Stark Trilogy, #1)(125)
He stands as still as the lamppost beside him and she feels certain that any second now he will turn on his heel and observe her framed in the window and reach into his coat and withdraw a pistol and from it bullets will blast and trace through the black air with lines of light like gold wires.
Instead he reaches down and scoops up a handful of snow and packs it into a snowball. But instead of throwing it, he takes a bite of it, as if it were the peeled white pulp of an apple. Then continues along the path toward central campus.
She blinks and breathes for the first time in a long time. Maybe he is not here for her after all. Maybe he is here for all of them—like some black-hooded specter shredding a scythe through wheat. Either way, she should run.
She retreats to the washer and lays her hand on it for support and feels its shushing and whispering work its way up her arm and all through her, the whispering of her parents ripped through by bullets, the whispering of Miriam, who holds out a mangled hand absent two fingers, and of Jeremy, who paces in his cell, ready to take a needle full of poison, the whispering of everyone who huddled in the central quad and stared into the cameras and dared the government to crack down on their rights. She hears the whispering and it tells her to chase the Tall Man down and knife his spine or neck. Open him up and spread him around.
But he is twice her size and she knows his breast bulges with a nylon holster.
Still, she cannot stay here, cannot simply hide. Every nerve in her body says no, but she ignores good sense. She needs to know why he has come. If for her, and that must be the reason, then at least she will know. She will know where he is and she will know what he wants. Knowing will make her more powerful than cowering in her room.
She leaves the laundry and pushes out the door, where she loses her breath to the cold and almost turns back for her coat upstairs. She doesn’t have the time, she knows, so she hurries forward in sneakers and sweatpants and a hoodie, pulling the hoodie over her head for warmth and camouflage. She keeps her face down, pretending to look at her feet, though her eyes strain upward, tracking him, waiting for him to sense her and swivel on his heel. She imagines him pointing at her, his mouth widening, an alarm blaring from it—and from all around campus droves of men in black Kevlar will swarm toward her.
No stars. The sky churns with big-bellied clouds that look as if they might snow soot. It is early evening and the walkways are busy with students heading to dinner. When he threads between them, Claire expects them to turn and look at the Tall Man, recognize the enemy among them, but they seem not to notice. A suited adult on a college campus is nearly invisible—a professor, an administrator, an irrelevance.
She isn’t sure, but he might be whistling. The farther they walk, the more she regrets following him. The more she feels as if she is underwater. She feels as if she is underwater in a dark river and a current is muscling her deeper and deeper, an undertow that will press her against the muddy bottom and hold her there until she dies. What can she possibly accomplish—an unarmed girl in sweatpants?
There is a windmill stabbed into the hillside over campus. She can see it now, its red light blinking through the snow. It belongs to William Archer and she remembers during orientation hearing something about how it supplied six million kilowatt-hours of energy, nearly a third of what the campus needs every year. She walked up there once, just for the sake of walking, and at its base she could hear the electricity coursing through the stanchion.
She slows her pace when he takes a sharp right onto the walkway that leads into the administrative building, Skinsheer Hall, a limestone rectangle with a domed rotunda. He climbs the stairs two at a time and swings open the heavy oaken door, which sends the snow whirling and thunks closed.
She approaches the short stone stairs that lead into the building. In the snow she can see his footsteps leading to the door and stands where he did a moment ago. The tip of his toe reaches another five inches beyond hers. She pauses here, uncertain how far she is willing to go, when one of the windows darkens briefly with a silhouette.
She makes certain the walkways are empty, then climbs past the hedges and tries to ignore the snow that bites and numbs her ankles. She creeps up to the window that glows with orange light. She is just tall enough to peer in between the two rich red curtains that frame the glass.
She sees a tall wooden bookshelf neatly arranged with leather-bound volumes and curiosities such as an antique train and a shiny brass clock and a magnifying glass with what looks like a polished bone handle. And then a face appears before her so suddenly she almost screams.
It is Francis, the blond boy from her class. She is about to run when she realizes that he cannot see her, that the light inside reflects off the window, making it into a mirror. He is studying his reflection. She stands perfectly still when he leans into the glass and picks at a pimple on his chin. He stubbornly works at it until it bursts and bleeds. With a look of contentment on his face, he wipes at it, smearing the blood.
Then he startles and turns. He has heard something, a knock at a door she cannot see. He vanishes from his place at the window and now she can take in the rest of the room, a wide wooden desk squatting at the far end of it and facing outward. Here sits a man—one of the deans, she realizes, a short, white-haired man who always wears brown suits that bunch at the ankles and billow loosely around his middle—and he stands now to hold out his hand.
The Tall Man steps into view and the two of them do not shake hands so much as they grip each other forcefully. Then the dean pulls his hand away and tucks it into his pocket. They begin to talk. She is not certain what they say, but she can guess, from their stonelike expressions, from the way the dean seems to shrink inside his own skin, that it is nothing good.