The Retribution of Mara Dyer (Mara Dyer, #3)(48)

“I can’t tell how deep the cut is. She keeps moving her hands to cover it, but there’s a lot of blood and she’s pale and shaking.”

“Believe me,” I whispered.

“What did you— Oh my God.” Jamie’s eyes went wide.

“Don’t talk, Mara.” A hand on the back of my neck, cradling my head. “Jamie?” Stella asked.

“There’s something in the house,” he said, backing away.

“What? Jamie, I need you. She looks really . . .”

“It was just sitting by the door to the garden apartment,” he said. “It said ‘perishable’ on it, and so I opened it, but it was just this leather bag inside with a note.”

“What are you talking about?” Stella’s voice was shrill.

“I thought it was for my aunt, but the note said—the note said—”

“What?”

“?‘Believe her.’?”

Stella looked at me, then at Jamie. “What are you—”

“Someone knows we’re here. That note—that bag—it’s for us.”

“Did you look in it?”

“I thought it was for my aunt. I’m going to get it.”

“No, Jamie. I need you to stay—shit.”

Some of the weight lifted from my stomach. My eyelids fluttered, and I heard footsteps recede. Then they came back. Something thumped on the floor.

Get them out

“She keeps saying—she keeps saying that,” Jamie said.

“She doesn’t know what she’s saying.”

“The note, though. It says believe her, Stella. What does that mean?”

“I don’t know! I don’t f*cking know. I’m just as lost as you.”

“What if—what if there is something inside her?” I heard something unclasp, and then, “Oh my God. Stella. Stella, look.”

“What—”

“It’s a bunch of—doctor shit. Gloves, thread, gauze, scalpels. Jesus, who left this?”

“Any drugs?” I felt pressure on my stomach again. Stella was trying to pry my hands away.

“No. Wait, maybe—yes.”

“Can you get another towel? She’s bleeding through this one.”

A few seconds passed before Jamie said, “Got them.”

“Switch with me so I can look in the bag?”

The pressure lifted on my stomach for a second, and I gasped.

“Press down hard,” Stella said.

“I am.”

“Harder.”

“Are you going to call 911?” Jamie asked.

Stella paused before answering. “We might not need to.”

“Meaning?”

“Let me see for a second.”

The pressure lifted. “She’s still bleeding but not as much, and it’s not superdeep. I could maybe close it on my own, but—”

“She’s saying that there’s something in there.”

There is there is

“Can you—can you hold her hands down so I can really look?” Stella asked.

There was pressure around my wrists, radiating through my arms and shoulders.

“Mara.” Jamie’s voice. “You’ve gotta let us look, okay?”

Jamie held me, pinned me down, as Stella prodded me with something sharp. My entire body winced.

“What—?”

“She’s right. She’s f*cking right,” Stella said.

“How did she know?”

“How did she know?”

Another stab of pain. I screamed, I think, because one of them moved to cover my mouth with something.

“Mara, you have to be quiet. Jamie, what’s in the bag, drug-wise?”

“I can’t look while I’m holding her down.”

Stella’s shadow lifted, and I heard the sound of metal against metal as she rummaged. “I’m going to give her this so she stops moving.”

“No hospital?”

“She really didn’t cut that deep. I can do this, I think. Okay, Mara—Mara? Can you hear me?”

Yes

“I’m going to close your—uh, incision. It might feel like you can’t breathe, but you can breathe, okay? And you’re going to be fine.”

Get them out

“We will,” she said, and I felt the bite of a needle in my shoulder as she plunged a syringe into my arm.





31


BEFORE


London, England


THE FIRST THING I NOTICED when I woke was that our marriage bed was soaked with blood.

I lit a tallow candle, and the smoke and sulfur filled my nostrils as a tiny flicker of light showed me Charles, my husband. He was painted in shadow; the line of his back, exposed to the waist, was smooth and still. It did not rise and fall with his breath, because he was not breathing. He lay on his stomach, his head tilted to the side, a pool of blood puddled beneath his face. His eyes were open, but they did not see.

I heard nothing but the rush of blood in my ears, the harshness of my own ragged breath in the air. I threw off the blankets that covered him, and he did not move. I watched a bead of blood drip from his nose, and he did not wipe it away. I choked on a sob, covered his body back up, wound my fingers in my hair, and pulled it to try to wake myself. It did not work, because I was not sleeping.