The Sanatorium(10)

Several tracks lead off the main one. Mountain bike paths in the summer.

She’ll divert, head onto one of them. Try to lose her attacker that way.

Adele runs up the path, adrenaline pumping, boots sloughing through the snow. Within minutes, her chest is heaving, her breathing fast, erratic, but she’s losing them, she can tell. She can’t hear them anymore.

Twenty yards on, she puts her plan into action. She darts left, tucks in behind a small cluster of firs, plunging into shadow. Sweat trickles down her back inside her coat. She hardly dares to breathe.

What if her attacker makes out her footprints in the snow? She might lead them directly to her. . . . She can only hope that the inconsistent snow cover, piled up in drifts around rocks and fallen branches, has acted as a foil.

Finally, she hears them go past, the soft, steady thuds of someone running, kicking up snow. She decides to double back on herself, and sprints across the path, diving onto the small track on the right. She glances behind her to try to see where her pursuer is, but her eyes just find more trees, snow. The forest is too dense.

Pushing aside branches with her arms, Adele moves slowly, carefully through the trees. She freezes. A sudden movement on the left. Her eyes flicker toward it.

Relief floods through her as a marmot springs out of a mound of snow. Twitching its fur, dislodging a few white flakes, it pauses, looking at her, then darts off between the trees.

Another movement. Another sound.

This time: a muffled cough.

Shit. They’ve found her.

Her mind races.

The hut . . . the one the hotel uses for storage. She’s sure it’s just below, parallel with this path. If she can make it a few yards farther, she could hide there. It might be locked, but there’s a chance.

More sounds. Breathing.

Keep calm, she tells herself. You’re close now.

Adele inches backward.

Silence.

She decides to make her move.

She walks slowly downhill, her eyes scouring the gaps between the trees for the hut, but there’s nothing there. Only more forest. More snow.

Adele curses softly under her breath. She’s come too high, hasn’t she? Too far up the first path. This is a different track entirely. . . .

Tears sting her eyes. It’s the snow. That’s why she’s made the mistake. It’s filled in all the usual landmarks; the familiar rocks, tree stumps, clearings. She’ll have to go back onto the main path. Back the way she came.

Hearing the dull crack of a twig snapping, Adele whirls around.

A figure is standing in front of her. A faceless figure.

She blinks, the tears in her eyes making her vision go in and out of focus. A dream, she thinks, wiping her eyes. Perhaps that’s all this is. Maybe she’d lain down on the bed in that last room, fallen asleep . . .

But when her sight clears, Adele realizes that this is no dream, no half-awake hallucination.

The reason the person is faceless is because he or she is wearing a mask.

From the side, it resembles a surgical mask; thin straps bisecting their cheek, pulled taut around the back of the head, but from the front, Adele realizes it’s more than that. A gas mask, she thinks, with a cold feeling of dread, taking in the wide, ribbed tube extending from the mouth to the nose. A kind of peculiar gas mask . . .

It’s huge, completely obscuring their face. She can’t make out any distinguishing features.

The figure is stepping forward now, moving toward her. Adele feels her knees give way.

No more running. She can’t run anymore.





8





Elin stiffens. This is wrong, she thinks. She shouldn’t have agreed to come.

Isaac takes a step forward, hesitating, then finally pulls her toward him.

A shock wave moves through her. His hair is against her face, longer, dark curls nearly past his jaw. He smells different, too, tobacco, an unfamiliar soap.

Elin closes her eyes. Too late. Images rush in.

A glimmering, white-capped sea. Water, thick with seaweed, sloshing inside red buckets. Seagulls caterwauling.

Withdrawing, Isaac meets her gaze, a strange mixture of emotions in his eyes.

Love? Fear? It’s impossible to tell. She can no longer read his face; time has blurred her sense of him. The idea stings—the only real family she’s got left, and part of him is strange to her.

As he clears his throat, his fingers come up to his eyelid, scratching into the corner, near the tear duct. A familiar gesture: he’s got eczema. Flare-ups throughout childhood. A variety of triggers: heat, synthetic clothing, stress.

“We saw people getting off the funicular. Laure was convinced you wouldn’t have made this one, but I wanted to check.”

“We ended up getting the earlier train.” Elin forces the words out. She looks past him. “Where’s Laure?”

“She had to go and see her boss about something for the party. She won’t be long.”

Isaac turns to Will. “Good to finally meet you, mate.” He vigorously pumps Will’s hand before leaning in—a half hug, which Isaac dominates, his left hand coming around to Will’s back. Two, three hearty pats. A blokey gesture, but a power move all the same. The subtle movement into his body space, the taking of control.

Will’s oblivious, his face open, smiling. “Good to meet you, too, and congrats. Big news . . .”