First Girl Gone(100)

Even after her surroundings became just barely visible—everything shades of black on black—the bent corridors and narrowing walls played tricks on her.

She paused for a moment on the threshold of the Hall of Mirrors and held her breath, listening for him. But all of the outside sounds were muffled and stilled.

The mirrored walls gave the appearance of one long, endless hallway stretching out before her. Coupled with the utter quiet, Charlie felt her skin prickle with foreboding.

She crept forward into the dark, into the quiet. Moving slowly. With care. Looking for just the right place. No mistakes now.

She brought her face closer to one of the mirrored panels. Warped versions of herself stared back.

The hair on the back of her neck stood on end, a sudden preternatural feeling coming over her.

She wasn’t alone.

There was a presence here, and it wasn’t just the one hunting her either.

Something else. Something spectral but not altogether malignant occupying the space.

And Charlie knew that this was the place.

Just as she reached up to find the hidden latch, she caught sight of the faintest glow out of the corner of her eye. It came from just outside the Hall of Mirrors and slowly grew in intensity. A flashlight.

An icy feeling came over her. The bitter cold of adrenaline coursing through her hands, spreading up into her wrists. It pulled her skin taut as could be.

He was here.





Chapter Eighty-Six





Charlie huddled in the dark. Waiting. Squatting behind the false wall among the mirrors. Biding her time until he was close enough.

A sensation like cold fingertips prickled against the backs of her arms. Up her spine and down her neck. A chill like no other she’d felt in all her years, not even when Allie had disappeared.

Allie said nothing. But Charlie could feel her there now. Could feel that they would be together in this moment, for better or worse.

Charlie’s breathing had slowed, her body recovering some as she crouched here in the shadows. She could feel her heart pounding at her chest, at her ribcage. Firm now. A muscle once more. Not that fluttering, frightened hummingbird of a thing it had turned to out in the woods.

She adjusted her position, lowering her knees to rest on the concrete floor. The cement was like ice, but relief shrieked in her calves and ankles despite the cold. Euphoria expressed through a slowly dying soreness. The muscles giving thanks the only way they could.

She resisted the overwhelming urge to peer out from behind the pane of mirrored glass that concealed her. It was the only advantage she had. The optical illusion that made this wall look complete. Made someone unable to see the narrow gap in the mirrors unless they knew exactly where to look.

To peek her head out now would put her entire plan at risk. She couldn’t do it. Not even for a second.

She would hear him coming. If she stayed quiet, stayed focused, she would hear. She had to.

But Todd’s footsteps made no sound as he entered the corridor, creeping forward in slow motion like an assassin. His movements were smooth. Fluid. He was nothing more than a shadow.

Instead, she heard his breath. Loud panting, or so it seemed in this moment. Was the volume actually there, though, or were her senses heightened? Sharpened like the ears of an animal. That survival instinct helping her, guiding her.

She didn’t know. Maybe it didn’t matter.

He sounded more like a beast than a man now, and the visual part of her brain could not link this sound to the meek man who’d hung back to thank her in her office, to the nonchalant stepfather bragging about his chicken parmesan in the dining room of his home. Whatever he’d become, he was unrecognizable to her now.

She drew herself up, got her feet under her haunches again. Ready to strike.

The breath grew louder. Drew closer. Closer and closer still.

The reflection of the flashlight bouncing around came into view first, seemingly endless copies of itself rebounding from mirror to mirror, shooting everywhere like ricochets, shimmering a mess of partial beams back into her hidey hole, just for a second.

Charlie pounced.





Chapter Eighty-Seven





She tackled him at the waist, driving her shoulder into his gut. He grunted as the full weight of her struck him.

He stumbled backward, his shoes slipping beneath him as if he were on roller skates. She felt him struggling to remain upright, but she’d come on him too fast. Her momentum threw him off-balance, dragged him down, knocked him off his feet.

The pistol popped and flared and bucked in his hand, the sound of the gunshot impossibly loud in the confined space. One of the mirrored panels exploded into a thousand shards, tumbling down around them.

They hit the floor in one tangled heap with Todd taking the brunt. The impact tore the flashlight out of his hand, and the only source of light went spinning across the floor. Reeling.

Fifty versions of him and her struggled in the cracked mirrors. Endless reflections. Everything seeming to twirl along with the flashlight’s movement.

Two silhouettes locked in conflict. Wild things. Savage. Muscles trembling. Eyes flashing.

And she couldn’t tell somehow where he ended and she began. Their shadows seemed to weave into one another, connected like tendrils of smoke. Writhing with liquid smoothness in the strobe effect of the spinning flashlight.

She clawed at his hands, tried to peel his grip away from the gun.