Page 75 of Breaking the Dark

The woman smiles with relief and says, “Can I do anything else for you, Miss Allan?”

“No, thank you, that’s all for now.”

Jessica walks to her room and flops heavily onto her bed. She stares around herself in numb surprise. Where has she been? What has happened to her? She fingers the hem of the crop top she’s wearing. She tugs it down, but it won’t cover her flesh. She gets to her feet again and strips off the clothes, sees herself in the mirror, and recoils slightly at the normality of her reflected self. Dark circles under her eyes, limp hair, dry lips, cellulite at the tops of her thighs, a three-day stubble on her shins. She pulls on jeans and a T-shirt and tries to repel the feelings of disgust that an image of her normal self now evokes. She forces herself to stare at her real image, stare and stare until she likes what she sees, until it feels like her again. What, she wonders, did that woman do to her? What trick did she play? Has she left something in her? Is she implanted with something? A chip?

She opens up her phone and goes to the video that Malcolm has forwarded to her. She sees herself standing outside the farmhouse in the stupid clothes, her hair gleaming and shining, her skin dewy, her eyes wide and bright, teeth madly white, beaming up at the lens of the drone, thumbs in the air, like a sick, twisted doll. It grosses her out, makes her stomach churn.

Jessica shivers and shudders, climbs into bed, and pulls the covers tight around her. She wonders what’s happening at the house. She wonders how Grace Partridge is doing. And the other two, Audrey and Amina? Have they found them? Are they arresting Debra, at this very moment?

They will come to her soon, and what will she tell them when she can’t remember anything except watching Pretty in Pink in a crop top?

She closes her eyes, and she waits for them to come.

The police knock on the door to her room an hour later, their arrival breaking into a weirdly liminal, half-formed dream from which Jessica awakens with a start. She kicks off the covers, jumps to her feet, and straightens her hair in the mirror. Then she opens the door. She recognizes the female officer from Debra’s house. The other officer, a young Asian man, is new.

“Miss Jones,” says the female officer. “I’m DC Rowena Lord. This is PC Robert Zhang. Could we take a few minutes just to go over your story again?”

“Sure.” She opens the door to allow them in. “How is she?” Jessica asks. “Is she okay?”

“Yes,” says the woman. “She’s okay. She’s been formally identified as Grace Partridge and is on her way to the hospital.”

Jessica feels a swell of relief pass through her. “Was she okay about it?”

The police officers exchange a look. “I can’t say that she was,” says the woman. “She seemed very confused. She’ll be undergoing medical tests to see what’s happened to her. We think there might have been some kind of mind control, maybe drug dependence. We’re not sure.”

“What about the other two? Audrey and Amina?”

“No sign of them as yet,” says the man.

“And Debra. Where is she?”

“She’s been taken in for questioning. We’re just waiting for her to get a lawyer and then we are going to begin our interview.”

“Did she go easy?”

“Yes,” says the woman. “She did, actually. Surprisingly so. Almost as if she was relieved. What were your observations in her home?”

Jessica knows she should tell the cops about her experiences at Debra’s house, but she can’t risk being held here and made to undergo a medical examination. She has given them all she is going to give them. She needs to sleep. And then she needs to get the hell home. So she tells them all about her experiences with Belle: her weird hazy memories, asking Jessica if she was real, her claims of agoraphobia, and the tight control she saw Debra exert over her. Then she tells them about the twins displaying similar behavior back in New York and she gives the officers Amber’s details and one of her business cards and then finally the officers thank her for her time and leave.

After they’ve gone, Jessica collapses against the door and sinks to her haunches. She came so close to being broken at Debra’s house, and maybe she is. Maybe, like a virus, she won’t really know what damage has been done to her until a long time from now. What did that woman leave inside her? Inside her unborn child? What did she take from her? What did she do to her?

She has one last thing she needs to do before she can finally slide into sleep. She picks up her phone and calls Amber.

“Hi, Jessica. How’s it going?”

“Oh, yeah, kinda crazy. How are the kids?”

“You know, amazing as it sounds, they seem to be getting better. It seems like whatever it was is wearing off.”

“It is?”

“Yeah. Uh-huh. They’ve picked up their old habits. Their skin looks more natural. They use their phones more.”

Jessica feels a flicker of surprise. Is it possible, she wonders, that Debra’s current state of incarceration has somehow diminished her powers? Weakened her hold over the children? “That sounds great,” she says, not sharing her thoughts with Amber.

“Yes. It is. Although I still want to know what happened out there. Are you any closer?”

“In some ways, yes. But listen, I need you to get me back home now. Like literally, the first feasible flight. Please.”

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