She looked awful. Her brown and curly hair was longer, the matted clumps showing several small bald spots on her greasy scalp. Part of her left earlobe was missing and she stood before us practically naked. Only a torn pair of boy shorts and a men's ribbed tank top covered her pallid skin. At one point, her meager clothing might have been white in color, but in the dark employee room, the stretched out material was dirt-grey and bloodied.

In an attempt to defy gravity by sliding out of Drake's grasp, I stepped toward her with my bleeding hand out in a non-threatening way again. Without another word, she ran into my arms, knocking me into Drake. Hot tears flowed from my eyes as we pressed against each other, the chill of her flesh absorbing what was left of my body heat. I gave it freely, since it was the only thing I had left to give. Her frail and frozen limbs sucked my heated life-force dry, draining me until I was empty.

At first, the cool ground was inviting. As I slumped against the concrete wall where Drake leaned me just before pa.s.sing out, I fingered a crack between the bricks gingerly, as if a story was tucked deep inside the mortar waiting to be discovered by the right set of hands. The only story they told though was one of death - one of immorality and injustice. It was written out in bloodstains along the half-dozen dirty twin mattresses. It was a nightmarish story about l.u.s.t and desire and pain. It was Mariah's story.

Her feet stood a few steps away, ash-black heels tucked close together, stubby toes curled down into the linoleum with her arms entwined out before her in a braid. As I blinked in the sight of her, I marveled at how slender her figure had become - almost starved to oblivion. She was all skin and bones, so thin her b.r.e.a.s.t.s were barely nubs. Over the last year, my own soul had been gutted again and again, yet life had continued anyway. But Mariah had lost all signs of life. Except for the basics - sleep, eat, breathe and repeat again in the morning. Perhaps we weren't as different as we looked. What was left of either of us?

"We should go. Can you walk?" Drake asked tenderly, sending a cautious sideways glance at Mariah.

After a quick nod, he hoisted me back to my feet and helped me locate my fallen shoe. There was nothing, no items of clothing to cover Mariah with, so Drake zipped her into his thick canvas coat and pushed us out of the rank room with an urgency I didn't need to question. Her feet padded in unison with the scuffing of my shoes as we rushed from one aisle to the next, Drake searching in the darkness for someone or something.

"Are they all...dead?" I asked just above a whisper.

"No, shush...keep moving," he snapped.

We escaped the way we had entered, through the side door that was still propped open from my embarra.s.sing entrance not even ten minutes before. Drake clasped my hand and tugged me behind him, and I pulled tightly on Mariah's hand - the same one that dug into the flesh of my neck moments before. I shivered at the thought of my skin embedded beneath her nails, but of course, she didn't know it was me. That's what I told myself - she didn't know.

The sunlight felt alien; an orb of light so bright after being in the dark warehouse that it didn't seem real. My pack swayed violently from one shoulder as we ran to the sidewalk, taking cover behind the expertly planted rows of shade trees that had grown up and over the power lines. It was hard to tell which of us was bleeding the most. Drake had oozing wounds on both arms and though he tried to hide it, I saw him clutch at his waist more than once.

"What is it?" I asked, trying to lift his shirt off his abdomen, "What's wrong? Are you hurt?" What a stupid question. Of course he was; we all were. In response, he impatiently swatted my hand away and looked up and down the street as if it simply wasn't the right time to bleed to death.

"I don't know where he went," he said, using his hand to block the sunlight from his eyes.

"Who?"

"A guy took off but I couldn't follow him," he paused to glance down at me before scanning the street again, "I heard you screaming."

"Oh."

I didn't remember screaming as Mariah tried to tear my head off, but it didn't surprise me. She scared the s.h.i.t out of me. Silently and with no objection or complaint, she ran down the streets with us, Drake in the lead with me pulling her behind like a toddler. We ran most of the way back to the house after making unnecessary turns every other block, stopping only to gasp in breath and for Drake to scan our path for any followers.

By the time our feet stumbled over the front stoop of the house, it wasn't even noon yet. Drake was the only one of us that stayed alert, watching from the front windows for nearly half an hour to make sure we hadn't been followed. Mariah and I were collapsed on the living room floor on our backs, uncaring about what kind of grimy stains we left on the expensive beige carpet.

When he finally stood over us, one leg in between mine with a Glock still clutched in his maroon-streaked hand, I started to giggle. It was the only emotion I had left: insanity.

Drake shook his head, allowing just the hint of a smile to tug at his mouth. "You are one crazy woman, you know that?" I giggled harder, letting the shakes take over my entire body in waves. "You did it. You actually found what you came for," he said breathlessly.

Still giggling, I turned my head to the side to face Mariah, but as she stared up at the ceiling I knew I hadn't found her soon enough. How did one come back from the h.e.l.l she had endured over the last year? Was it even possible? Could Mariah come back?

But Drake was right. I did find what I came for. My giggling fit stopped - cut short in my throat. Yes, yes, Mariah was saved but at what cost? I lost Connor and Kris. Darkness bubbled up inside me. I sat up and stared between Drake and Mariah as my stomach acid churned and toiled. It was right there, clear as day. And the expression on Drake's face as he stepped around me to collapse into one of the heavily cushioned armchairs said it all.

Would Mariah be worth it? Was finding her worth losing the others?

That sick feeling in my stomach rushed up my throat and I clamped my mouth shut in an effort to keep the water inside me down. The realization hit me then - what was left of me would never recover from the guilt of s.c.r.e.w.i.n.g up. Never. The difference this time around was that there were others waiting for me - depending on me. I only hoped they wouldn't miss me too much.

For hours we showered and took turns tending to each other's wounds. Drake had several bullet grazes on his arms, and a shallow stab wound just to the right of his belly b.u.t.ton that I had no clue how to treat other than to st.i.tch it up. For the first time since leaving the lodge, I missed Win so much I wanted to cry. After being patched up the lot of us looked like Frankenstein experiments. Mariah seemed to be in the best shape with just one sc.r.a.pe along the side of her head and the two deep, purple bruises below each eye from my head-b.u.t.t to her face. She was d.a.m.n lucky her nose was still on straight.

"Is it okay...I mean, can I clean myself?" Mariah was fingering the edge of her filthy worn out boy shorts while Drake knotted a st.i.tch in the two-inch gash on my shoulder.

"Of course, you don't have to ask. There's an extra bedroom upstairs, the bathroom is across the hall and the shower works...last door on the left." I winced as Drake poked the needle through my skin again. "I'll leave out something clean for you to wear, okay?"

She nodded at me and quietly retreated up the stairs. When her dirty feet were out of sight, and the bathroom door closed above us with a soft click, I said over my shoulder, "Poor girl. Think she'll be okay?"

With a soft brush of his thumb against my cheek, Drake looked up the stairs with a sigh, "Riley, only time will tell that."

"And that's all we have left, right? Time?" I asked bitterly.

"It is what it is, I guess. Are you taking her back to San Diego? To be with the others?"

"Where else can she go?" I avoided looking at him, not ready to divulge the part about me shooting Mariah's brother to death. I hoped she never mentioned Matt.

Another tug of the needle made me jerk slightly as he threaded it through my skin. "Sorry, this is the last one."

"How many?"

"I hope you don't mean total?" he laughed.

"Never mind. No point in counting, I guess." His fingers moved gracefully along the thread, pulling it tight into a knot before he clipped the ends off and patted my arm. "All done. For now," he smiled.

"I promise not to tear open any more parts of my body, at least not tonight."

"Good. Because my fingers are tired of tying all those little knots."

Leaning forward, I lifted his shirt up to look at the one-inch line on his stomach, running my fingers gently across the st.i.tches. "Are you sure you're okay here?"

He made no effort to remove my hand. "Yeah, I'll be fine. Might take tomorrow off from fighting bad guys though...if you don't mind?"

"You've earned the break," I laughed. After removing my hand, his shirt fell back into place, hiding the spot where a small pocketknife had sliced into him. "Thank you."

"No need to thank me," he smiled, staring at the carpet, "I told you I had my reasons."

The room felt hot and humid and the fact that I was covered in blood and things I never, ever wanted to identify, I pushed up from the carpet and stood up with a groan. "I'm going to get cleaned up," I told him.

"Save me some hot water, will ya?"

"I'll do my best." I started up the stairs, holding onto the railing to keep from falling backwards. "I make no promises, though. Oh, and Drake?"

"Yeah?"

I waited until he looked up at me, the skin around his hazel eyes crinkled just slightly from age. "Thanks again...you know, for everything."

With a smile big enough to melt my heart, if only mine wasn't broken beyond repair, he said with a nod, "Anytime, kiddo."

The only sound in the room was the whooshwumpwhoosh sound of the fan as the blades rotated slowly above my head. I was tired, more tired than I had ever been in my life and even more so uncomfortable. No matter which side I rested on, my body protested. Vehemently. I was st.i.tched up in several places, making it nearly impossible to lay in a way that didn't irritate one of my numerous, fresh wounds. Maybe I could do what the Conehead family did, throw the mattress against the wall and sleep standing up. But, that wouldn't work because even my feet hurt.

Whooshwumpwhoosh. Whooshwumpwhoosh. The sound might soon drive me crazy if I didn't pa.s.s out. Was I going mad? Was the whooshing and wumping actually coming from my head? I tried so hard not to focus on the day before but the madness was swallowing me, a giant black hole inside just gobbling me up - feet first. It found its way to my throat, sucking the life out of me, making it hard to breathe. With my eyes closed, I struggled with my body's instinct to fight and stayed as rigid - as still as possible.

Let it take me. Let the nothingness consume me and end the suffering, the pain, the guilt. Please, please take me away from this place.

There were hands on my throat again. My eyes flew open, heavy from sleep and dreams about spinning fans and dark places. Fingers tightened, greedily digging into my already sore and bruised skin. I sure as h.e.l.l wasn't dreaming anymore.

There was a flash of a colorless male face. The feel of scratchy flannel rubbed against my chest. Pressure from two knees dug into my hips and abdomen. The smell of nicotine and sweet liquor filled the room. The taste of blood on my tongue after biting down on it made me gag. A ringing in my ears threatened to blow my eardrums. And I couldn't breathe.

The man sitting on top of me with his icy hands around my throat was not Drake. I kicked; a pathetic sort of movement that did nothing to dislodge my attacker and an even more pathetic sort of whine came out of my mouth.

This was it? This was really how I was going to die? After everything I'd been through, everything I'd seen? I was going to be killed in my bed, in the middle of the night with the fan spinning noisily above singing 'whooshwumpwhoosh' over and over?

Dark spots began to explode around me and I panicked, feeling consciousness fade away as my vision clouded over. Another glance of the man's face and I saw a strong jaw with a mouth pulled back in a sinister grin. He was enjoying it - taking my life. Releasing my frantic grip on his hands, I jabbed a thumb into his left eyeball and then pinched the inside of his right arm as hard as I could. With a painful grunt quickly followed by a startled cry, the man's hands were gone and my lungs inflated, sucking air in with ravenous need.

I was so wrong. In that moment, as I lay gasping for air, I knew I was wrong - maybe my life was worth fighting for. And fight I did.

For just a second I was worried I had swallowed my tongue - I couldn't feel it, my mouth was swollen and doing a bang up job of sucking oxygen in as fast as I needed it, so I snorted air in and out of my nose instead, sounding not too different from an excited pig. The pressure on my hips eased slightly and I launched my torso forward, slapping my hands at anything and everything I could find. That's how it went for a minute or two - like children play fighting we slapped at each other. Eventually my brain remembered how to form a fist and I balled up a hand and nearly pulled my shoulder out of socket with a right hook to his jaw. It knocked the man off of me and I rolled away, slithering over the side of the bed onto the floor like a snake, taking a pillow and the bedside lamp with me.

Hoping Drake would hear the commotion, I pulled the small table down as well, and grabbed for the gla.s.s I used before bed. Nearly slicing the tip of my finger off, I found the broken base of the drinking cup and hurled it at the dark figure still hunched over on the bed. With a satisfying thunk, it struck the side of his head and for a second I saw nothing from my bedroom floor view. And then he was up and off the bed, rushing out of the room and into the hallway in a drunken stagger.

The fan was still making its whooshing-wumping droll as I sat stunned and gasping on the carpet, unable to scream, unsure of what to do. And then Drake's words came back to me, "There was a guy that took off..." and I knew what was going on. He was there. In the house. The man Drake saw run away from the warehouse. Seemed we were followed after all.

"Mariah," I wheezed.

My limbs shook as I crawled around the foot of the bed, seeing no sign of any movement in the hall. Like a dog, I moved on all fours toward the door, noting the dark smear along the wooden frame left by someone's hand. Good. I had drawn blood.

The hallway was empty. And quiet. It was the kind of quiet where you know something bad is lurking nearby just waiting for the right moment to strike, just as quiet as Mariah's prison was. My ankles popped as I used the wall to stand, my slight frame suddenly feeling like the weight of a car.

"Drake...Mariah?" The words were scratchy in my throat, like broken gla.s.s lined my larynx. There was no answer, just the same no-sound response from the empty sh.e.l.l house.

Drake's room was closer, so I slid against the wall, upsetting picture frames from a family long dead until I reached his room. The door was wide open but there was no sign of him in the messy bed. The night allowed the slightest amount of light in through one of the windows, and along the ban of white that reached out like a finger toward me was a small pool of blood. Not enough to be fatal, but possibly enough to be missed.

Like an idiot, I had left my room without my gun. I had nothing to fight with but my two hands. Peering down the hall, I was able to see that Mariah's door was still closed so I pushed off the wall with a soft grunt and swayed back to my own room, being careful to step around the broken gla.s.s that sat pointy side up on the carpet.

The gun wasn't in the nightstand. Resisting the urge to rip my hair out in giant fistfuls, I s.n.a.t.c.hed the broken gla.s.s up and padded back out into the hall, the air hot and dry in my throat. The fabric of my white shirt tightened around my chest as I heaved in and out, still struggling to get a full breath into my lungs. My cheeks flamed with heat as anger coursed through me; I was d.a.m.n tired of people trying to choke me to death.

Something thumped from Mariah's room and I inched closer to her door, stepping carefully, the gla.s.s gripped so tight in my bleeding hand that I couldn't feel the cut on my finger any longer. My pulse raced, my heart thudded wildly and my stomach cramped nervously. With my hand on the bra.s.s doork.n.o.b, I put my ear to the wood, listening to the sounds within the room.

It was as if someone was repeatedly pounding on something soft. With a sharp inhale, I realized what it was. A beating. Turn the k.n.o.b slowly, I kicked open the door and raised my hand above my head, ready to throw the gla.s.s at the first person who rushed me.

Drake was kneeling next to Mariah's bed, his face bleeding profusely, his arms secured behind his back. The man from my room stood over him, his arm frozen in the air while Mariah rocked herself on the bed.

"Well, look who decided to join the party," he said before bringing his fist down on Drake's face again. Blood sprayed the side of the bedspread.

"Stop!" I pleaded. My voice was shrill and damaged.

Mariah's rocking motion slowed when I spoke, but she stayed in the fetal position with her head tucked down tight. She wouldn't look up. Inside the room, the man stood up tall, turning to face me with an unwelcoming smile. His hair was shaved down almost to the scalp, making the sharp angles of his thin face stand out. He showed off a defined brow, high cheekbones and a jutting chin. His sculpted jaw line was bloodied on one side where the busted gla.s.s. .h.i.t his temple. If it wasn't for the injuries and wicked glint in his eye, he could have pa.s.sed for handsome.

"Come on in, have a seat," he gestured to the bed and I continued to only stare at him with my hand still ready to throw the gla.s.s. With a theatric sigh, he stepped around Drake and sat down on the edge of the bed, patting the place beside him. Still I only looked at him. "Now, now. Didn't your parents tell you in was rude to stare at people?"

With an exhale, I cleared my throat before speaking, "Who the h.e.l.l are you? What do you want?"

The man laughed. It was an almost genuine laugh for someone. My eyes squinted into the darkness as the twenty-something year old shifted on the blankets, crossing his legs and patting at the mattress again.

"Come sit down and I'll fill you in," he said with a grin. White teeth glinted back at me as he tilted his head to the side, catching the starlight from beyond the open window.

"I have a better idea," I said, tightening my grip on the broken gla.s.s, "I think you should get the f.u.c.k out of my house before I split your face open."

He laughed hollowly. "Your house? I don't recall seeing your face smiling back at me from all those expensive picture frames on the wall."

"It's my place now. And you need to get out," I hissed. My arm was getting tired.

"You know," he stood up and turned his back to me, "I think we got off on the wrong foot. Let's start over, shall we? My name's Hunter and it seems I'm in need of a new crew thanks to you guys."

"Get out!" I screamed. At least, I tried to. My voice sounded strangled.

When he turned around with a gun in his hand, I threw the gla.s.s with all my might, which wasn't much. It struck his mouth before landing on the floor, splitting his upper lip. Stumbling into the room, I flailed at the wall until my hand found the light switch. When the room lit up, we were all temporary dazed from the glow but he was faster on his feet. With a grunt, he had his arms around my waist and lifted me off the ground effortlessly. My body bounced onto the bed and his fist pounded into the side of my head three times before all went black.

CHAPTER twenty-three.

The faintest trace of carpet deodorizer was the first conscious thing I noticed. That and the throbbing ache that came from the side of my head. It was hard to straighten my legs for some reason and moving my hands sent pain up my arms. Something scratchy tightened around my wrists every time I moved a centimeter.

"Riley."

"Mmm."

"Riley. Open your eyes."

"Connor...?"

I followed the gentle sound of his voice with my head, opening my eyes as prompted, even though the sunlight amplified the painful humming in my brain. Drake's battered face stared back at me. He wasn't my Connor. It was impossible to see what his expression was buried beneath the b.l.o.o.d.y cuts and bruises but his eyes said enough. There was sadness and pain there.

"Drake?" I struggled to right myself but my body wouldn't cooperate.

"You okay?"