Page 72 of Shattered Hearts

“What’s upstairs? The movie theatre?” he asks, trying to joke.

“Not sure. I’ve never been.”

“Do you want to go up and check it out?”

“No. There’s a basement. I swear to God, there’s a basement.”

“There probably is, Zarah. The furnace room and water heaters are down there. Circuit breakers in an electrical room. Maybe a generator in case a blizzard wiped the power out.”

My heart starts hammering, but in a good way, now. I’m on to something, I can feel it.

I push the call button, and I tingle with apprehension and excitement as the guts of the elevator start to churn. When the doors bump open, I’m the first inside, but the only directions to go are up or to return to this floor, and I wilt. There’s a keypad above the button panel and the red emergency knob all elevators have. A beige phone sits in a glass box. Just a regular elevator the doctors used to go upstairs.

Crap.

The red light on the keypad blinks.

“Maybe the maintenance staff have a back way to go downstairs,” Gabe says gently, rubbing my shoulder. “Like a stairwell, or a service elevator near the delivery bays.”

Baby sits and waits, looking at us.

“Yeah, but the thing is, I think I remember being in this elevator. But I’m sitting. Because I’m in a wheelchair.”

I brace against the wall, and bending my knees, I slide down into a sitting position. I close my eyes and think.

There are two doctors near my chair wearing white lab coats, one holding a clipboard, the other a tablet. Both are older men, one has glasses and the glare hides his eyes. Dr. Pederson? I don’t know. Not the doctor who would come into my room and adjust my medication. I would know his face, and Ash was never far behind. I never knew any of their names—theynever bothered to introduce themselves to the patients. We were beneath them, to need this place.

Strong cologne wafts into the air and it turns my stomach. It smells too much like what Ash wears, and it reminds me of him. I clench my robe in my fists. I’m dressed, kind of, in my lounging pants and a matching top, a silk robe tied around me. I’m wearing socks but no shoes.

The doors drag closed, and the doctor nearest me punches in the code. I’ve watched him do it a million times since Zane admitted me, since they started poisoning me. His finger, quickly jabbing at the numbers.

What are they?

They’re always the same, never changing. The motion of his hand, always the same, never changing.

My legs start to cramp, and it distracts me. Have I been sitting too long? In the wheelchair? Or am I confused now? Where am I? I’m free. Stella came for me. I’m crouching now, and my legs hurt. Okay.

Gage is quiet, watching me, and I feel his eyes boring into my brain. He’s tense...he doesn’t know what I’m remembering.

Grounded, I let myself slip into the past. Sweat beads along my forehead, but I don’t break my concentration to wipe it away.

The action. I push my mind back to the movement of his hand. He reaches toward the keypad, and the cuff of his shirt rides up his arm. A gold watch glints on his wrist.

The numbers are always the same.

The motion of his hand is always the same.

Start at the top. Seven, eight, nine.

Move to the bottom. One, two, three.

Move back to the top. Seven, eight, nine.

One number in the middle. Four, five, six.

“Seven,” I mumble, watching his hand in my mind. “Three. Eight. Four.”

Can I be sure? It’s been a year and a half since I’ve been free of Quiet Meadows, and I’m confused and lost more often than not. In my memories, I watch his hand again, his buffed fingernails shining in the sickly yellow fluorescent lights.

---