Page 61 of The Whisper Place
“Let’s revisit that one later, because I’m planning to sample every square inch of you.” I moved to her wrist and felt her pulse quicken. “It might take a while.”
“Good.”
I sat on the foot of the bed, pulling that criminal jumpsuit zipper open to her waist and tasting each slice of skin on the way down. When she shrugged the whole thing off, my brain whited out.
The rest of our clothes scattered. She ordered my shirt and pants off, told me where to kiss her, where to bite, moaning when she lost the words and showing me with her hands instead, taking my request for instructions to heart. When I had us both panting on the bed, we paused, eye to eye, a breath apart. An ocean of need churned between us and I couldn’t separate which was hers and which was mine. It didn’t feel like the escape I’d always sought. It felt like home.
Kate
The darkness had shape. Lines spiraled through it, indigo on black, swirling and disappearing before they took form. I wanted to believe it was nothing, a blank dreamscape that couldn’t hurt me, but everything inside knew better.
My heart thudded painfully in my ears. My throat was hoarse and cracked from screaming. The tips of my fingers were jagged and bleeding from clawing at the walls. My shoulder ached from slamming it against the door, trying to break free.
I was locked in the darkness again.
It was every nightmare I’d had since I was seventeen. In the dreams I would rock back and forth as bugs crawled over my skin, knowing absolutely that what was happening was real. I was trapped again. I always knew, no matter how far I ran, that somehow it would never be far enough. That the darkness would find me. And it did. I knew it in my bones. Then, when I woke up from the nightmares soaked in sweat with the blankets and sheets clawed off the bed, I had to lie on the damp, bare mattress and tell myself it was a dream, over and over again. I would pinch my unbitten skin, drag myself outside, and breathe in the light and air until the nightmare faded.
At Charlie’s house, the nightmares still came but they receded quicker. I would wake up to his solid warmth, his adorable, oblivious snoring, and hug every inch of myself to him, using his body like an anchor to reality. When my heartbeat settled, I would pull on a sports bra and running shoes and slip out of the house. I ran into the fields, chasing the endless horizon until the blood pumping through my limbs expelled the last of the panic and fear. There was no one anywhere in those mornings. The world distilled to open, rolling land and a perfect blue arch of sky. I could feel myself on the maps, tracing the lines of roads leading everywhere, the endless green stretching from ocean to ocean, possibilities whispering in every direction. I was bound by nothing, trapped by no one. I ran until I believed it again.
Now, everything was inside out. I rocked in the darkness, dizzy with the déjà vu of years of nightmares telling me it wasn’t real. I wasn’t actually here. And that’s how I knew itwasreal. Because the nightmares felt true. And the truth felt like a nightmare.
I don’t know how much time passed. I think I slept at one point. The smell of urine mixed with dirt and dust, clogging my nose. I tried to think about Charlie, tried to pull every detail of his face into focus. The texture of his beard, the span of his hands around my waist. I thought about my mother, Milk Duds swapped for Junior Mints in the flickering light of the movie theater. I recited recipes. “Nine cups flour. One tablespoon baking soda. Half tablespoon baking powder. One tablespoon sea salt. Salt quality is key.” Blake, winking as she dumped chocolate chips into the mixer. “Never let a recipe tell you how many chocolate chips to use. You measure that shit with your heart.”
The room I was locked in felt like a tomb. I’d already traced every inch of it, testing each cinderblock and board, looking for weaknesses. I think I broke something in my shoulder ramming it into the door. It hurt when I breathed too hard.
I was in the middle of the maple cinnamon scone recipe—Ceylon cinnamon, it has to be Ceylon combined with the Grade A dark maple syrup—when footsteps came from outside. He was back. He came every night. I froze at the sound of metal on metal as the door swung open.
White, blinding light shone directly into my eyes. I covered my face and jerked away, skittering as far into the corner as possible.
Something landed on my leg. I yelped and shoved at it before realizing it was a bag.
“Dinnertime.”
The word came from nowhere and everywhere, low and menacing.
I lowered my hand and tried opening my eyes. Tears streamed down my face. It was impossible to see around the beam of the flashlight. “You don’t have to do this.”
I couldn’t see anything, couldn’t tell if he was even listening or not. There was only a presence, impossibly tall behind the light, the shadow of a skull, the uneven rasp of his breathing.
“No, I don’t.” The light drifted down to my running leggings, the fabric torn and filthy. Then it flashed to my face again, and the white light stung through my eyes into every corner of my head.
“I don’thaveto do this, Kate, even though you deserve it. You deserve this and worse. And no matter how many questions they ask, no one’s gonna find you.” The door creaked as he pulled it shut, cutting off the light and leaving me in pulsing darkness.
“I’m doing this because I can. And because I want to.”
Metal slapped against the door, the padlock clicked, and I threw myself against it, shoving it open and rolling suddenly free of the room. I dropped, falling to a hard surface. The room had opened, expanded, and I scrambled along the floor until I hit a railing. Where had a railing come from? Bugs crawled over me, biting into my flesh. I swatted at them, slapping my skin until hands covered and trapped mine. I jerked away, hitting my head on the railing.
“Where’s the door?”
I twisted toward the light, grabbing the railing like prison bars, and blinked my surroundings into focus. One world superimposed itself onto another. Bedroom over prison. Light onto darkness. Dawn filtered in through the two-story living room windows, the beginning of sunrise over the bluff. I was in my house. I could see it, even as the blackness of the space clawed at my head. My hands gripped the railing, even as broken and bleeding fingers ached at the ends of my arms. Someone was behind me. Kate. Not Kate. I didn’t know. I needed fresh air, open skies. Now.
Pushing away from the body behind me, I stumbled down the loft stairs, across the living room, and out to the deck.
It wasn’t far enough. I was still trapped. The urge to run tugged at me, to find open land and race for the horizon, but I also knew if I moved any farther right now I would vomit.
Leaning over the deck railing like a life raft, I watched the slide of the Mississippi at the base of the bluff, the dark water always moving, slow and inexorable, to the sea. It was shrouded with pockets of fog. My breathing gradually began to settle and I realized there was a voice murmuring behind me.
“Danica Chase. Angela Garcia.” The names of people I’d found. Names that kept the torment of the lost at bay. “Kit Freeman. George Marcus Morrow.”
