Page 5 of A Light in the Darkness
I take center point, trying to ignore the dread that doubles with each step I take. But the dread doesn’t do a fair job of warning us what we’re about to walk in on.
Last time I was here, everything was clean and sterile… cold, immaculate, clinical. And it had been horrifying enough then. But now? It’s absolute carnage.
The walls and floor are painted red with the blood that spilled out from the bodies on the ground. Bodies that used to be human, blood that used to be in their veins.
“Oh, God. This—” Michael mutters, the rest of his words swallowed in a wave of vomit as he turns and falls to his knees, retching.
From behind me, I hear someone muttering the lord’s prayer. Most likely Rook. I don’t bother to inform him that God has no place here. This is the devil’s doing.
Rich and Kent press on as if this isn’t the most horrific thing they’ve ever seen, but I’m suddenly rooted to the spot. All the sound seems to have been sucked out of the room; I can see mouths moving, see my crew flipping bodies over, their boots barely leaving tracks in the dried blood as they look for anything that will make this entire mission worth something.
I’m not entirely surprised Davos is gone, honestly. He’d have to be stupid to stay here after the threats I made to him. Even if he didn’t take me seriously, staying here waiting for me to come get him would be a touch on the nose. And I knew he left the country, at least for a little while, when I thought he was coming to get his son. Now, I can’t help but wonder if he did this when he left Zurich that time… almost seven months ago.
I also don’t know if I’m more disturbed about when he did this orwhy? He told me years ago that he could turn a body into cash in no less than a dozen ways, so why would he slaughter his prisoners? If he fled the country because of my threat, why wouldn’t he take them with him? I know this isn’t his only storehouse. They keep the children somewhere else, and I am also certain that they have facilities in other countries, though maybe not quite as established as this one. It can’t have been hard to move them. He has his own private jet, and he has a couple for business, too. These women didn’t waltz in here to be chained up, so why didn’t he bother to take them back the way he brought them? They were worth more alive than dead.
I jump when I notice the hands on my arms, the person shaking me. Dom.
When did he get here?
“No survivors, Boudreaux.” Kent says quietly, waiting for my command.
My mouth is dry, my chest heavy with the breaths I’m trying not to take. I wonder how many of these women were here the day I was brought here. How many of them lived in constant terror, an endless nightmare, just waiting for the day they could be put out of their misery?
“What’s the call, Rem?” Dom asks, glancing from me to the bodies littering the floor.
Not much is left of them. Even the maggots had to move on, with nothing but bones and hair left to litter the floor. I’d worry they’d all starved to death if it weren’t for the blood everywhere.
“We swept the entire place.” Dom offers, realizing I must not have heard anything he said. “The tech is all gone. No computers, no hard drives. It’s empty.”
It takes a minute to tear my eyes away from the skeleton at my feet. Her red hair is sprawled neatly around her in a halo effect. My gut twists, and my heart hammers as I try to remember the last time I heard anything about Genevieve.
“Rook.”
It takes a moment, but Rook draws up to my side. When he sees the direction I’m staring, his eyes follow mine to the pile of bones… and the hair around it. Even with all the blood dried dark and muddy around her, that hair is starkly different. “When was the last time you talked to Gen?”
“Gen?” Rook sounds puzzled a minute, and then understanding takes hold. “That’s not her, Rem. Get that out of your head.”
“How do we know that?” I demand, pulling my gaze from her just long enough to meet his. “How can we tell that he didn’t find her and bring her back? He told me she was one of his favorites.”
“Because the world thought she wasdead.” Rook reasons, shaking his head. “He had no reason to look for her. Finding her again would be like lightning striking twice. That’s not her.”
I can feel everyone’s confusion, can hear the quiet murmurs behind me as everyone tries to figure out what the hell is going on with me.Idon’t even know what’s going on with me. There’s a small part of me that’s screaming that the thought in my head is irrational, baseless, and ridiculous. But that screaming sounds more like a whisper.
“Who’s Genevieve?” Michael asks someone.
No one answers, because only two people here know the answer to that. Dimitri wasn’t around when Genevieve was; she was before his time. Rook’s eyes flit behind me and he shakes his head, like he’s telling everyone not to ask anything else.
But my brain feels loose in my skull, and my tongue is loose in my mouth, and I can’t shake the feeling that I fucked up somewhere. The problem is, I don’t know where I fucked up. Was it when I told Davos I’d come for him, or when I told him I’d killed her myself? Was it when I didn’t even try to go to the police, the news station, the FBI after getting home from my first visit here? Was it in thinking that I could outsmart a man like Alexandre Davos?
“Genevieve,” It’s the first time I’ve said her name like this in years. It’s a whisper, because I can’t even make myself call her by her full name after seeing it inscribed on a tombstone next to my son’s. “Was my wife.”
Chapter four
Claire
Moose has barely put the car in park before I throw my door open and barrel out. I have been, quite literally, tied up and at the wrong end of a blade, but I’m not sure if that was worse than Moose’s company. At least that had been fleeting in the grand scheme of things.
I’m halfway across the parking garage when he catches up to me, walking at my side and taking joy in knowing that his mere presence makes me want to scream. As short as I am, I’m a fast walker, but his long legs carry him far without any effort. Honestly, I think the only thing he puts effort into is trying to annoy me.
