The Writing Retreat(74)

“Alex.” Her voice lowered, became even more determined. “You need to leave. Find the car keys and drive until you get service or until you reach the convent. Call the police. You have to—” Her eyes, intently focused on mine, flickered to my left shoulder.

“Watch out!” she cried but it was already too late.

Something lodged in the back of my neck, painful as a bee sting.

Instantly, without ceremony, everything went black.





Chapter 28




I awoke with a start.

This wasn’t right. I wasn’t in my bed, sunk into the plush mattress, ensconced in silken sheets. I was lying on top of a camping pallet, so thin I could feel the cold radiating up from the cement floor. I blinked against bright fluorescent lights. Slowly I sat up, a headache prodding behind my right eye.

The cloud started to clear. The last hour poured back in: Roza’s room, the wardrobe, the passageway…

The dungeon.

Zoe was curled up on a yellow-stained duvet a few feet away.

“Hey.” I cleared my throat. “Zoe?” She didn’t move: Had she been drugged too? Slowly I dragged myself to my feet—the cold air was bracing, I could say that—and walked around the perimeter of the rectangular cell. The concrete ceiling was low and I had to stoop slightly. In the back corner was a camping toilet, emanating a sharp urine scent.

On the other side of the barred door, there was a small space where people could come in and hang out with those interned, a nice little foyer. In the upper corner of this area, the lens of the camera gleamed. Below was a square white speaker. Near the door there was an electrical outlet sticking out of the cement wall. At the far end of the space, across from the control room, another metal door was set into the wall. It had to be the hidden door that opened the basement.

“Alex.” Zoe was sitting up. “Are you okay?”

“I think so.” I didn’t know if it was the aftereffects of whatever drug had been spit into my system, or if I was just in shock, but I felt completely numb. “I’m just… I’m taking it in. Did someone seriously knock me out with a syringe? Who did it?”

“I don’t know.” She rubbed her face, leaving a dirty smear. “They always wear a ski mask. I don’t know if it’s one person or more than one person. They’re similar in size.”

I pushed the horrifying image away. If I allowed my mind to linger, I would fall to the ground and curl up into a ball. I took a few deep breaths.

“Did they drug you too?” I sat gingerly on the duvet next to her.

“No, I just passed out. It’s been happening more and more.” She swept her greasy hair back. “Time has no meaning down here—they don’t turn off the lights—so I’ve just been randomly falling asleep. I don’t even know how many days I’ve been down here.”

“Three,” I said.

She nodded. “I thought it was longer. Time drags when you have nothing to do.”

“Zoe.” I paused. “Your real name is Zoe, right?”

“Yeah.” She plopped her chin on her hand. The purple circles under her eyes verged on black. I had a flash of her the first day: animated, pretty, her voice taking up so much space. Now she looked pinched and thin.

“We thought you were dead,” I told her. “We thought you’d wandered outside, asleep or tripping. The door was open and there were footsteps.”

“Clever.” Zoe cocked her head. “But no. I didn’t go outside.” She studied me. “How’d you find me?”

“I found the keypad. We realized there must be a room here. I searched Roza’s room to see if there was a way down here…” I felt a flush of shame. “I thought you might actually be in on it, though. That it was some kind of game.”

She snorted. “It might be a game to Roza, but it’s sure as fuck not a game to me.” Dirty and enraged, she looked like Poppy’s profane twin sister.

“So who are you really?” I asked. “We found your ID. And the book you were copying.”

She stared at me. “You didn’t call the police?”

“We tried,” I said. “Keira and I tried to use the radio, but it was broken. We realized there were cameras and we talked about leaving, but we didn’t know how. Roza said the roads hadn’t been cleared yet. Whether or not that was true, the driveway is still covered in like three feet of snow.” The words rushed out like a confession. “And we found out there was a snowmobile, and we should’ve used it to get out, but again… we thought you might be in on it. We wanted to try to get into the secret room first. We didn’t think…” I waved my arm around.

“That makes sense.” She scratched at her bare leg, the anger and exasperation gone.

“So… what happened? Why did they lock you in here?”

Zoe tugged the duvet over her legs. “They caught me in the control room. I passed out in front of the monitors. I’m assuming they thought I knew too much.”

“About Roza watching us?”

“Yeah. I haven’t worked out if they know who I really am. If they do, there’s no way they’re letting me out. We have the same last name.”

“The same last name as who?”