Page 119 of Valor

Tears continue to slide down my cheeks. I have no idea how long I’ve been in here. I know that I’m hungry and my lips are chapped. I haven’t been given any water, but there’s a saline drip in my arm. Has it been a day? More? I know it can’t have been much past that, since I haven’t used the bathroom.

Or it has, and it’s not just sweat I’m lying on. The thought makes my stomach churn.

“‘But the Lord is my fortress; my God is the mighty rock where I hide.’” I throw force behind the words, hitting the most powerful lines of the Psalm. “‘God will turn the sins of evil people back on them. He will destroy them for their sins. The Lord our God will destroy them.’” I yank at the unyielding restraints again, then throw my head back and scream as loud as I can when they remain strong.

A door slams in the distance.

I go silent and try to keep my breathing steady. Maybe they didn’t hear me. And if I can trick them into thinking the drugs are still working, then I might stand a chance at them not injecting me again. If I can come fully out of the effects, then I can get enough strength to find a way to get free.

The knob turns, so I close my eyes.

Light bathes my face, and footsteps carry the stranger toward me. It’s all I can do to remain calm when just the sound of my pulse is deafening.

“Eat.” The voice is distorted. “Eat,” they say again, this time shaking me with their free hand.

Knowing they realize I’m awake, I open my eyes. Once again, they’re wearing a ski mask and sunglasses, and in their hands is a sandwich. My vision is so blurry from the darkness, that I can’t make out anything behind them.

“Can you remove a restraint so I can?”

“Eat.” They shove it against my lips.

“I need to use the bathroom.”

“Eat.”

“I need to use the bathroom,” I say again.

The person stares at me—or at least I think they are—and then turns to leave the room. Since the door is open, I try to memorize where I am. It’s a small room, barely large enough for the bed I’m strapped in.

Just outside, there’s not much to see. A tattered old couch and boarded-up windows.

The stranger returns, blocking my view, a syringe in their hand.

“What is that?” I demand. “You can’t keep injecting me with stuff. Look, you want me to be alive, right? Otherwise, you would have killed me already. Just tell me what it is. I can give you the correct dosage.”

They completely ignore me as they clean the line, then insert the needle. Medication floods my system, dulling my senses within seconds.

“Please. Tell. Me. Why,” I say, every word labored. “Why—” Heaviness overtakes me again, and I can’t keep my eyes open any longer.

My last thought—as it’s been every time—is of Gibson and just how close I was to getting everything I wanted.

GIBSON

“Anything new?”

I glance up as Deputy Brown sets a paper cup of coffee onto my desk. She looks as exhausted as I feel, and I know she’s taking this one hard too. Even if she didn’t know Lani well, when someone in a small town suffers, the entire community feels it.

“Nothing. It’s as though she vanished.” I spent all night combing over every inch of the hospital, talking to anyone and everyone I found.

Then I went back to her apartment and combed it again.

I checked her car.

Ran her phone records.

Checked bank records to make sure her cards haven’t been used anywhere.

Her clinic.

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