The Evolution of Mara Dyer (Mara Dyer #2)(86)

“What if there’s no chalk?” Claire asked. The light from her video camera swung wildly over the hallway. No focus. No direction.

Rachel smiled at Claire, and held something up in her glove. “I brought.”

Muffled footsteps kicked aside old insulation. Another light flashed—it was Rachel, taking a picture. My eyes brimmed with tears and I couldn’t look away.

“Wait—I think it’s this one.” Rachel smiled wide and a thousand needles pierced my chest. “This is so creepy.”

Oh God oh God oh God.

“I know.” Claire followed Rachel into the room, her light resting on an old, enormous chalkboard, covered in names and dates written by dozens of different hands.

“I told you,” Rachel said smugly. “Wait—where’s Mara? And Jude?”

The image on screen jostled. Claire must have shrugged.

I tried to scream but no sound came out.

“I should get her,” Rachel said, moving out of the frame.

I gagged. I gasped for air, pushed back the hair from my face, covered my mouth with my hands and kept trying to talk, to tell them, to warn them, to save them, but I was mute. Dumb. Silent.

“I’ll go—write my name, okay? Take the camera.”

Rachel winked. “You got it.”

I fell to my knees.

Then she took Claire’s video camera—I couldn’t see her anymore—and pointed it at the blackboard. Scanned all of the names. She began to whistle. Her breath was white steam.

The sound echoed off the cavernous walls and filled my ears and mind. I crouched on the floor and hugged my knees to my chest, unable to breathe or speak or scream. The scrape of the chalk on the filmy, worn blackboard mingled with Rachel’s whistle and my mind processed nothing else until footsteps approached. The shot swung back away from the board to face Claire.

“The lovebirds are enjoying some private time.”

“Really?” Rachel asked. The camera tilted away from Claire. More jostling and chaos, then it pointed at Rachel again. “Mara’s okay?”

“Mmm-hmm.”

“Bad girl,” Rachel said suggestively.

A laugh. Claire’s.

And then a crack, so loud I could feel it.

“What was—” A panicked whisper. Rachel’s.

There was a metallic groan. Then the ringing, successive slam of thousands of pounds of iron fitting into frames.

“Oh my—” Panting. Screaming.

Interference and dust clouded my vision and the hiss and rush of static filled my ears. White letters appeared in the darkness that arranged themselves into the words FILE CORRUPTED. Then silence. The image on the screen went black. The scene in my mind went dark.

But just when I thought the footage was over, I heard the soft lilt of laughter. Unmistakably mine.

I didn’t know how much time passed. All I knew was that when I screamed again, there was sound but it was muffled. I tried to force my eyes to see, but I was trapped in darkness; there was no floor beneath my feet, no ceiling above my head.

Because I was not in the asylum. I was not in my room at home.

I was bound and gagged and in the trunk of someone’s car.





51





I DON’T KNOW HOW I GOT THERE.

One second I was in my bedroom, watching footage from Claire’s camera, hearing myself laugh, struggling to stay grounded and not let the flashback wash me away. And the next, I was covered in shadow as rough fabric scraped against my cheek, as my lungs were stifled by heat.

But I did know this: Jude was the only person with any reason to want to hurt me, and he had tried before.

Which meant he must be driving.

When the car hit a pothole I bit my tongue. Blood filled my mouth. I tried to spit but my mouth was covered: by what, I didn’t know. I sent messages to my arms and legs, begging them to move, to struggle, but nothing happened. I imagined myself contorting my limbs, arching and twisting against whatever restrained me, but I was loose and limp. A doll tossed around in a bored child’s toy chest, powerless to move.

He must have taken me from my home—my room—while my family slept, unsuspecting.

What had happened to John?

Tears squeezed out of the corners of my eyes. The texture of the trunk’s interior made my skin itch and burn. The muscles in my arms and legs wouldn’t move, which meant I must be drugged.

But how? We ate at the restaurant, not at home. I rewound the past hour in my mind but my thoughts were blurry and I couldn’t remember. I couldn’t.

The car stopped. That was when my slow, sluggish heart finally charged to life. It beat against every inch of my skin. I was soaked in sweat.

A car door slammed. Footsteps crunched on gravel. I lay there, helpless and hopeless, slimy and miserable. Fear made me an animal and my primitive brain could do nothing but play dead.

The trunk opened; I heard it and felt it and then realized that I still couldn’t see, which meant that I was blindfolded. I listened—there was water around us. It lapped against something nearby.

I felt big, meaty hands on my body, which was completely limp. I was shackled by terror. I was lifted out of the trunk and I felt bulging, thick muscles against my flesh.

“Shame,” a voice whispered then. “It’s so much more fun when you fight.”