Loyalty in Death (In Death #9)(60)

Hands snatched at her ankles, some no more than bones. They tripped her up until she was falling, falling into a deep, black crater piled with still more bodies. Stacked like cordwood, ripped and torn like broken dolls. Something was pulling her in, pulling her down until she was drowning in that sea of dead.

Gasping, whimpering, she clawed her way back, crawled frantically up the slippery side of the pit until her fingers were raw and bloody.

She was back in the smoke, crawling still, fighting to breathe, to clear her mind of panic so that she could do something. Do what needed to be done.

Someone was crying. Softly, secretly. Eve stumbled forward through the stinking, blinding mist. She saw the child, the little girl huddled on the ground, balled up, rocking herself for comfort as she wept.

“It’s all right.” She coughed her throat clear, knelt down, and pulled the girl into her arms. “We’ll get out.”

“There’s no place to go.” The little girl whispered in her ear. “We’re already there.”

“We’re getting out.” They had to get out, was all Eve could think. Terror was crawling over her skin like ants, crab claws of ice were scraping the inside of her belly. She dragged the child up and began to carry her through the smoke.

Their hearts thudded against each other’s, hard and in unison. And the girl’s fingers gripped like thin wires when voices slithered through the mist.

“I need a goddamn fix. Why the hell isn’t there money for a goddamn fix?”

“Shut the f**k up.”

Eve stopped cold. She hadn’t recognized the woman’s voice, but the man’s, the one who’d answered with that sharp, sneering snap. It was one that lived in her dreams. In her terrors.

Her father’s voice.

“You shut the f**k up, you bastard. If you hadn’t got me knocked up in the first place, I wouldn’t be stuck in this hole with you and that whiny little brat.”

Breath shallow, the child like a stone doll in her arms, Eve crept forward. She saw figures, male, female, hardly more than smudges on the smoke. But she recognized him. The build, the set of his shoulders, the tilt of his head.

I killed you, was all she could think. I killed you, you son of a bitch. Why won’t you stay dead?

“They’re monsters,” the child whispered to Eve. “Monsters never die.”

But they did, Eve thought. If you stood up long enough, they did.

“Should’ve gotten rid of it while you had the chance,” the man who had been Eve’s father said with a careless shrug. “Too late now, sweetie-pie.”

“I wish to Christ I had. I never wanted the little bitch in the first place. Now you owe me, Rick. Give me the price of a corner fix, or — “

“You don’t want to threaten me.”

“Goddamn you, I’ve been in this hole all day with that sniveling kid. You f**king owe me.”

“Here’s what I owe you.” Eve cowered back at the sound of a fist smashing into bone. The sharp cry that followed.

“Here’s what I f**king owe both of you.”

She stood paralyzed as he beat the woman, as he raped her. And realizing the child she held tight in her arms was herself, she began to scream.

“Eve, stop. Come on now, wake up.” Roarke had bolted out of his chair at the first scream, had her up and into his arms by the second. And still she thrashed.

“It’s me.” She shoved at him, kicked. “It’s me, and I can’t get out.”

“Yes, you can. You’re out now. You’re with me now.” Shifting her, he pressed the mechanism on the wall and brought out the bed. “Come on, all the way back. You’re with me. Understand?”

“I’m all right. Let go. I’m okay.”

“Not a chance.” She was shaking even as he sat on the edge of the bed and cradled her in his lap. “Just relax. Just hold onto me and relax.”

“I fell asleep, that’s all. I nodded off for a minute.” He eased her back to study her face. It was the understanding in his eyes, those fabulous eyes, the patience there and the love that did her in. “Oh God.” Surrendering, she pressed her face to his shoulder. “Oh God, oh God. Just give me a minute.”

“All you need.”

“I guess I hadn’t let go of today. Everything. All those people — what was left of them. You can’t let it get in the way of the job, or you can’t do the job.”

“So it slices you up when you shut down.”

“Maybe. Sometimes.”

“Darling Eve.” He brushed his lips over her hair. “You suffer for all of them. And always have.”

“If they’re not people to me, what’s the point?”

“None. Not for you. I love who you are.” He drew back again to stroke her cheek. “And still, it worries me. How much can you give and still stand up to it?”

“As much as it takes. It wasn’t only that.” She drew a breath, then another, steadying herself. “I don’t know if it was a dream or a memory. I just don’t know.”

“Tell me.”

She did, because with him she could. She told him of finding the child, of the vague figures in the smoke. Of what she’d heard, and what she’d seen.

“You think it was your mother.”