Page 102 of Strangers She Knows

“You want to make Rae into a copy of yourself!” The drug Mara had given Kellen swam in her blood, muddling her thinking and making her afraid of…everything. She’d been afraid Mara would kill Rae. But this was worse, and the horror of imagining Rae, helpless at the hands of this fiend, vanquished every other terror.

Before Kellen could move, Mara patted her shoulder, and with casual cruelty, tweaked the needle in her hand.

Through the explosion of pain, Kellen heard her say, “I realized—it’s not you who is my soul mate. It’s your daughter. I promise I won’t ever let her be alone.”

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Mara went to the door and turned off the lights. “Sweet dreams, former best friend of mine. Don’t hurt yourself trying to reach that water.”

Kellen sank back in the chair and cried. Cried tears of agony, tears of love, tears of failure, tears of hunger and thirst. The moon streamed in the window, white light that made stark and clear her dilemma. Suddenly, the light was extinguished. She looked out.

Clouds from the storm streamed past, darkened the moon.

The moon came out. The rain came down, drops of silver.

More clouds. More rain. More moon.

Somehow, she had to somehow free herself, nourish herself, find Mara and kill her.

Her mind tried to sort through the possibilities. How could she kill Mara? Only with Mara’s death could she save Rae.

At the thought of Rae, more tears rained down Kellen’s cheeks. She tried to shake them away, but she wasn’t in charge of her emotions, they had charge of her. She sobbed aloud, broken with the thought of her daughter and her husband, lost in the fathomless ocean…

No. No, they weren’t lost. She had faith in Max. He could handle every challenge.

Abruptly the tears dried, and she could think again.

She was pinned to the table. Again, with her atrophied hand, she grasped the protruding end of the needle. Her fingers were shaking. The metal was slick with blood. Mara had driven the point deep into the wood. Kellen couldn’t draw it out, yet every time she tried, every time the needle wiggled, the agony that couldn’t get worse—got worse.

She stopped, panting with effort and pain.

What had Mara said? That she had pulled the needle through her palm, like a stitch through a cloth.

If Mara could do it, so could Kellen.

Bracing herself, Kellen lifted her hand.

She screamed and passed out…

She lifted her head from the dresser.

Mara. The drug. Her hand. Max. Rae. They all mixed in her confused brain.

Mara had placed water on the edge of the dresser.

Water. Drugged water. But she desperately needed water. If she could reach it, that would give her the strength. She reached and strained. She touched the glass with her fingertips—and knocked it off the dresser.

She cried. Again.

She was a failure. She was a nobody. Less than a nobody. She was a woman who let a madwoman claim Rae as her own.

Consciousness vanished.

Consciousness returned.

With every fade and every return, she was aware the drug’s effect was finally, finally weakening. Which didn’t help, because what good was cognizance when she hadn’t the fortitude to pull her hand free? Yet she tried. And tried.

How long had she been here? The clock said one. 1:00 a.m.? Only that?

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