Page 25 of Lost and Bound
“The Oregon-Washington border,” I said, since that was all I knew. I looked up to find Calder leaning against the kitchen sink, massive arms crossed over his bare chest and his face as skeptical as before. I gestured at him, in aCome on, give me somethingsort of way. He pushed off the sink and left the room again. Okay, thanks a fucking bundle. “In…some kind of…house.”
“Some kind of house.” Ian sounded like he wanted to reach through the phone and throttle me. “Could you be a little less specific, maybe? Because it’s going to be way too easy to find you, and I like a fucking challenge.”
I heard something in the background, a voice, raised in some kind of strident protest. Not clear enough for me to make out the words, but the tones made me grip the phone so hard the plastic creaked.
Nate. That sounded like fuckingNate.
“Who’s there with you?” I whispered, through lips gone dry and numb. I didn’t know whether I wanted to laugh in relief that he was okay, after all I’d done to make that less likely, and after what his father had put him through…or cry a little.
Or a lot. I’d been imprisoned, suffering and experimented on and tortured and alone, for fucking years. And Nate and Ian were…my mind whirled, and I leaned my elbow on the table and my head in my hand.
“None of your fucking business,” Ian said briskly. “Where the fuck are you? I’m hanging up in five seconds if you don’t give me something, here. Five. Four. Three. Two—”
A stack of papers flopped down on the table in front of me, and I jumped enough to rattle the chair and knock my knee into the table. “Ow, fuck! Ian, wait, hang on, fuck—” I scrabbled frantically at the papers. They were advertising mailers, sent to the ‘current resident.’ And addressed to the house we were in, presumably. I read off the address quickly, stumbling over the words, hoping Ian hadn’t already hung up. “Ian? Did you get that?”
“I got that,” he said grimly, and repeated it back, adding, “Map that for me?” to whoever was there. Nate. To Nate, probably.
I nodded, and realized how fucking stupid that was. “Yes,” I said, sounding pathetically eager. “Yes, that’s right. That’s where I am. Ian, please don’t hang—”
“It’s about nine hours,” he said. “We’ll be there early tomorrow. Don’t go anywhere. And no tricks. Whoever this is, you will fucking regret it.”
And he hung up.
Chapter 6
You’ll Never Be Hurt
After a couple of years of wiping down in a tiny sink and occasionally being allowed to stand under a cold spray for a few minutes, watched by colder-eyed guards, the vacation house’s criminally-acquired shower felt like…well, heaven, and not reality at all.
Even with those awful little seashells on the shower curtain. Hell, after ten minutes of hot water flowing in luxurious, unthinkable quantities through my hair and down my back and around my legs, I could’ve kissed the fucking seashells. And whoever had hung the shower curtain. And whoever had built the shower.
I’d set the phone down, stood up, and gone straight to the bathroom, ignoring Calder’s glare and mentally telling the rest of the world to fuck off.
I needed some space.
I needed some time.
I needed to feel clean for the first time in years, washing off whatever residue was left of my prison and also the knowledge that Calder had already washed me.
More than anything, I needed to have a little breakdown where no one could see or hear me.
Tomorrow morning, probably, I’d be seeing my cousin. The chicken clock had told me it was about three in the afternoon, although on what day, I couldn’t even hazard a guess.
So eighteen hours, maybe?
I leaned my forehead against the tiled shower wall, letting the water keep rushing down for as long as the water heater could keep up.
Everything around me felt unreal. I hadn’t even seen the outdoors yet, and part of me suspected that if I tried to walk out the front door of this place, it wouldn’t be there. I’d find myself back in my cell, or in some kind of blasted hellscape out of a nightmare, or in an endless void.
Anything but normal sunshine, trees, the wide blue sky.
I wasn’t sure I could handle any of those options—starting with the sunshine.
At last I climbed out of the shower, a little shaky but a lot calmer.
I could do this, dammit. The real world. I could do it. First thing, I’d find some actual clothes and open an exterior door. Maybe I wouldn’t step out right away, but I’d open it. Just to prove it wasn’t locked and wasn’t a trick.
Calder wasn’t anywhere in sight when I stepped out, but I could hear him moving around in the kitchen. I dug through the dresser, finding another pair of sweatpants and an ancient t-shirt bearing the logo of a seafood restaurant. I stared at it for a long few moments, contemplating a world in which people went to restaurants.
