Page 53 of Girl, Reborn

Unless someone made her disappear.

‘Rafe,’ she managed. ‘I need you to listencarefully. Call the local PD. Report her missing. Then call our office, tellthem... tell them Agent Ripley is MIA and potentially in danger. Use thoseexact words, you got it?’

‘Y-yeah, of course. But what's going on?Is Mia in some kind of trouble?’

‘Trouble doesn't begin to cover it. Justcall and report her missing, and be careful. The guy who might have her... he'sdangerous. Ex-military, ex-Fed. Don't try to play hero, you hear me?’

She ended the call before he couldrespond, her mind already racing five steps ahead. Mia was missing. Mia was indanger. And here she was, stuck in the ass-end of nowhere, chasing a killer wholiked to play splash park with his victims.

For a split second, Ella considereddropping everything. Hopping in the car and tearing ass back to D.C., come hellor high water. But the cop in her, the part that lived and breathed the job,knew she couldn't. Not with a spree killer on the loose and bodies piling uplike cordwood.

She was well and truly fucked. Caughtbetween a rock and a hard place, with a psycho on one side and a potential deadbest friend on the other.

Luca's voice cut through the fog of panic.‘Ell? What's wrong? You look like you've seen a ghost.’

She turned to him, seeing the concernetched in the lines around his eyes. In that moment, she made a decision. Comehell or high water, she was going to catch this drowning-happy son of a bitch.And then she was going to tear the world apart brick by brick until she foundMia.

‘Nothing’s wrong, Hawkins. Now, let’s findthis son of a bitch.’

CHAPTER TWENTY EIGHT

Consciousness seeped back into FrankHollister's brain like water through cracked concrete. Slow. Inexorable.Bringing with it a tidal wave of confusion and pain that threatened to drag himback under.

His head throbbed with the fury of athousand hangovers. Each heartbeat was a sledgehammer to his temples. He triedto open his eyes, but his lids felt welded shut, gummed up with what felt likea mixture of salt and sand.

Where the hell was he?

The last clear memory he had was standingat the control panel of the Bristol Dam, same as he'd done nearly every day forthe past year. Adjusting flow rates, monitoring pressure gauges, keeping thelifeblood of the region flowing smooth as silk. It was a job he took pride in,even if most folks didn't give a damn about the man behind the faucet.

Now – this?

Slowly, agonizingly, his senses began totune in. Cold. So damn cold it felt like his bones were made of ice. And wet.Not the clean, crisp wetness of fresh snowmelt, but something fouler. Stagnant.Like he'd been dumped in a swamp and left to pickle.

The smell hit him next. Chlorine, burninghis nostrils. But underneath that chemical tang lurked something worse. Thereek of standing water gone bad, of algae and rot and things best leftundisturbed.

Frank's stomach roiled. He swallowed hard,fighting the urge to vomit. Bad enough to be... wherever the hell this was.Puking would only make it worse.

He forced his eyes open, blinking away thecrust of unconsciousness. At first, all he saw was darkness. But as his visionadjusted, shapes began to emerge from the gloom. Curved walls. A dim, waterylight filtering from somewhere above.

‘What the f...?’ The words came out as acroak, his throat raw as if he'd been gargling gravel.

Frank had worked in water control for aquarter century. He knew water like some men knew their wives. Knew its moods,its temperament, the way it could be both life-giver and destroyer. And rightnow, every instinct honed over those long years was screaming that somethingwas very, very wrong.

He tried to move, to walk, but his legswouldn't cooperate. It was like they were encased in lead, dead weight dragginghim down.

Then he looked down and saw it beneath thepool of water at his knees.

Concrete. Solid blocks of it, encasing hisfeet and ankles like some twisted parody of oversized shoes. He reached down,fingers scrabbling at the rough surface, but it was no use. Whatever bound theconcrete to his legs was tight as a noose.

‘Hello?’ His voice came out as a croak.Marcus cleared his throat and tried again. ‘Is anyone there? What the hell isgoing on?’

Only silence answered him. Well, silenceand the steady drip, drip, drip of water from somewhere above.

As his eyes continued to adjust, Marcusbegan to make out more details of his prison. It was like no place he'd everseen before, and yet there was something maddeningly familiar about it. Thecurved walls, the way the water flowed. The walls were featureless – except forone thing.

Numbers.

Etched into the wall before him like somekind of measuring stick. One through twelve, as regular as the face of a clock.His head was level with the eight. Above, more numbers stretching upward intodarkness.

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