Page 2 of Collapse

Then his head disappeared from my view. Didn’t matter who he got. They would not be able to help.

I continued staring at the ceiling. What else was there to do? I wondered how much time had gone by. It couldn’t be much. I knew that. The rational part of me knew it. Minutes at the most. But it felt like hours. That was the threatening panic’s thoughts. Hours.

The bastard. Why was he going around doing this to people? It would be better to be killed outright. I’d thought that the first time Evans had brought me to this room, seeing Michael trapped like I was now. And now…despite being like this for only a little while, I was convinced. Doing this to people was only a way to kill them slowly. Probably turn them insane first. Whatever good Thomás thought he was doing by not killing his victims outright, he was wrong. I clenched my fists in anger. What kind of warped sense of justice was tumbling around inside Thomás’ head? My nails dug into my palms, startling me.

What the hell?

I heard Dr. Morris gasp as I looked down at my hands. Moving my hands. My head.

I sat up so quick I heard Michael cry out in shock at the sudden movement in the room. I knew he was all right, though. I moved over to Dr. Morris instead, who was slowly sitting up.

“You all right, Doctor?” Nothing wrong with my voice, though I hadn’t been out as long as any of the kids.

Dr. Morris nodded, then grabbed my arm. “You need to go after them,” she said, squeezing for emphasis.

“You got this?” I asked as I got to my feet. I barely looked around the messy room, saw her nod before I ran out the door and headed down the stairs.

Thomás had kept to his bargain with Evans, but she was still with him. He could do the same to her at any time. How close were they? Did he have to be close to let us go? He didn’t need eye contact to reverse the condition. That had not been the case when Evans drowned him, either. No, eye contact was only required when trapping people.

I barged through the last door, jumping down the few steps of the stairs, and to my amazement, saw Evans’ blue Beetle where she’d parked it earlier.

I stared at it a moment before I became aware of an engine. I ran past the Beetle and barely managed to get a glimpse of a clunker of a station wagon driving away from the hospice. That was them. I knew it as sure as I knew the sky was blue. Thomás had let us go, keeping to his agreement with her, but she was still trapped with him.

Two

“You should put your seatbelt on,”Thomás said. He spoke loudly to be heard over the rattling engine that made the whole car shake. I saw Hansen running past the Beetle before we drove around the large hospice building and turned onto the road.

They were free from Thomás’ bond.

I exhaled in relief and turned around in the seat. Seatbelt? Odd thing to tell your prisoner. Though I knew they wanted me alive. I wasn’t worth much dead. Couldn’t do anything for them. That was me. A damn tool.

Fuck the seatbelt, I thought as the wreck we were in shook violently, but kept going. Nope. Fuck that. I grabbed the seatbelt and fastened it.

“Should you even be driving?” I asked Thomás. He was still clutching at his chest. So far, he’d been beaten, drowned, and resuscitated all in a short time. A normal person would be lying down at this point.

“Since you’re the one who just drowned me,” he said, pausing to draw a deep breath, “I don’t really buy your concern for me.”

“I’m not concerned for you. I’m concerned about the people you trap with that nasty ability of yours.” The smell of old tobacco and the air freshener that hung from the rearview mirror was sickening. The little yellow tree dangled around, dancing to the car’s uneven movements.

“I kept up my end,” Thomás said. “I let them go.”

I knew that was true. I had, after all, seen Hansen on his feet. Thomás had waited until he’d hotwired the old rust bucket we were in now, before keeping up his end. Making sure Hansen couldn’t catch up.

I wasn’t even sure he would try to. He had not liked my actions in the hospice. I couldn’t get the look of pity out of my head. It would have been better if he’d yelled at me, at least looked a little angry. That, I would have understood. That, I could have argued against. But pity? That was worse. I watched the streets of Ashport pass by. This nice little town, so clean and tidy. A perfect little tourist place by the coast. I shook my head. I actually did like it when things weren’t as bad as this. Not like any other place was better or worse.

Thomás drove not only out of town, but in a northeastern direction. Nothing much out there except farmland and coastland. Was that where they kept Andrea? Or was he tricking me? I would not have to wait long to find out. There were still a few houses around, though, as the grasslands and a few trees waited for us farther ahead. The car sputtered and protested against the speed Thomás was forcing on it. No wonder its owner had parked it behind the hospice. I wouldn’t want to show off this thing, either.

“Why do you entrap people like that in the first place?” I asked him after a while. Too curious to keep quiet. There was something off about the whole thing. Yorov didn’t operate like this. They simply got hold of those they wanted and let everyone else be. If someone posed a threat, they were outright killed. Entangling them in some elaborate physical trap? Not so much.

“Have you not been listening?” he barked back at me, coughing severely and then calming down. “They have horrible abilities. They are capable of such harm.”

“So are you, you idiot,” I protested, realizing immediately that calling my kidnapper an idiot might not be the best way to go.

“I don’t cause harm, Ms. Evans, I stop it from happening,” he said, making me stare at him in disbelief. Had he really said that?

“Those kids haven’t done a thing. You tried to trap an eight-year-old girl.” I was shouting at him. Couldn’t help it.

“Sooner or later they will hurt someone,” Thomás insisted. There came a loud scraping sound from the car, but he ignored it and pressed on.

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