Page 101 of The Lost Girls of Willowbrook

He opened his fists. A red cylinder lay in one palm. It looked like a fat tube of lipstick. She raised her eyes to meet his, and the vicious gleam she saw there drained the blood from her veins. Then, horribly, he began to laugh.

She turned and pounded on the door. “Help!” she screamed. “Someone, please! Help me!”

He grabbed her arm and yanked her toward him. She fell to her knees, kicking and screaming and trying to get away. He yanked her up, dragged her over to the bed, and pushed her onto the mattress. “You’re making this harder than it has to be,” he snarled. He put a sweaty hand over her mouth, held up the lipstick tube, and popped off the cap with his thumb. A hawkbill blade shimmered in the light.

She tried to scream, but he pressed his hand harder over her mouth and climbed on top of her, straddling her like a horse. She bucked beneath him, but it was no use. He was too heavy, too strong. She tried to snatch the weapon from his fist, her arms flailing, her hands grabbing but finding only air. He moved the blade back and forth, slicing her skin and lifting the knife out of her reach. Then he held it up high.

“Not the color you expected?” he said.

In that second, while he taunted her, she opened her mouth wide and bit down as hard as she could, catching two of his fingers and not letting go. He yelped and she bit down harder, kicking and shaking her head like a mad dog until his flesh broke between her teeth. He bent forward in agony. She tried to grab the blade and he swiped at her arms, cutting her again.

She reached up and shoved her thumb into his eye. He tried to pull her thumb away with his free hand, but accidently cut his own temple, just missing his eye socket and gouging out a thick flap of bloody skin. He cussed and reached for his face, dropping the blade. It clattered to the floor. She pressed her thumb harder into his eye and dug her fingers into his wound. He finally tore her hand away and clutched his bloody head, his face contorting in pain. She unclenched her teeth from his fingers, then slammed both hands into his chest as hard as she could. He grunted in surprise and half fell, half stumbled off the bed, landing on his side.

She scrambled upright and frantically searched the floor for the blade but didn’t see it anywhere. Then she saw it, only a few feet behind him. He turned over and got to his feet, one hand over his bleeding temple, one eye squeezed shut. He was looking for the blade too, his uninjured eye gaping and bloodshot. Sage lunged forward, grabbed the knife, and plunged it into his side, grunting with the effort., He looked down and tried to pull it out with a blood-covered hand, staggering back and forth like a drunk. She yanked it out of his side and retreated with it in her fist, ready to stab him again if he got close.

Eddie lurched forward, his hands clawed and ready to grab her. She pulled back the blade and jammed it into his neck as hard as she could. He went rigid, blood instantly gushing out from below his ear. She stepped back, gasping for air and trying to stay upright.

He stared at her with a feral-looking mixture of desperation and rage until, finally, the fight left his eyes. He fell to his knees, one hand grasping his neck. Blood poured between his fingers, running down his arm and chest in red rivers. Then, in what seemed like slow motion, he fell face-first on the floor.

Sage backed up and leaned against the wall, a scream welling up in her throat. The warm, coppery tang of blood filled her mouth, and she spat several times to get rid of the taste. She wiped her mouth with the back of her hand, leaving a watery streak of saliva and blood on her skin. Streaks of blood striped her arms and clothes, dripping dark and heavy on the floor.

Feeling faint, she examined her injuries. Ragged slashes crisscrossed her forearms and wrists, along with several deep lacerations on her hands. She hadn’t felt a thing when it had happened, but now the wounds felt on fire. Pressing her forearms into her sides to slow the bleeding, she looked at Eddie.

He lay on his stomach in the middle of a growing puddle of blood, his face turned to one side, his legs and arms at odd angles. She stared at his back, straining her eyes to see if he was still breathing. His gore-splattered shirt lay flat and still. At least it seemed like it did. It was hard to tell when her heart was pounding so hard and so fast that the room throbbed with every beat.

She edged forward, trying not to step in his blood, and nudged his shoulder with one foot. He lay still as a stone. She searched the floor for the keys, looking under the bed and along his body, between his legs and in his hands, but didn’t see them anywhere.Damn it.The only place she hadn’t looked was in his pants pockets. Kneeling down, she reached into one pocket but couldn’t reach in far enough. She lifted his shoulder, put a hand under one of his thighs, and heaved him over, flopping him onto his back.

When his body hit the floor again, he exhaled, long and loud. She shrieked and scrambled backward. He was still alive! Then she realized the deep sigh was his last breath being expelled from his lungs. She closed her eyes for a second and tried to calm down, then sat up and moved toward him again, keeping her eyes off his face. Holding her breath, she reached into his right-hand pocket.Thank God.The keys were there, cold and hard on her fingers. She yanked them out, straightened, and started toward the door, praying it wouldn’t take long to find the right one.

Then she looked back at Eddie—she couldn’t stop herself. His eyes were open as if staring at her, his lips bloody and sagging, like the upside-down smile of a clown. With trembling fingers, she tried the keys one by one in the door, until at last she found the right one.

CHAPTER 25

Sitting up in the hospital bed, an IV in one hand, Sage stared at the tray of ground-up food in front of her. The nurse had begged her to eat, but the thought of eating one more bite of Willowbrook slop made her stomach turn. Just being in Willowbrook’s hospital was enough to make her sick. It might have helped if she could have washed the blood and the odor of Pine-Sol from her skin and hair, but the nurse said a shower had to wait. Seventy-six stitches crisscrossed her forearms and hands, and the bandages went up to her elbows. It would be twenty-four hours before she could get them wet.

And she could even live withthat, if they’d only let her out of there. She’d called for the nurse to ask when she’d be released so many times that they’d started ignoring her. She didn’t care. Maybe they’d throw her out. She pushed the tray of ground-up food away. If they would give her back her clothes, she could leave, but her pants and shirt were in the laundry. The laundry worker who had picked them up warned her that it might be hard to remove the bloodstains. She didn’t care about that either. She’d wear a grocery bag if she had to, as long as it meant she could leave. Of course she had no idea where she’d go, but it didn’t matter. She’d think about that on the other side of Willowbrook’s gate.

Someone knocked on the door, a quick, insistent rap. She looked up as the door opened.

It was Detective Nolan.

She dropped her eyes to her lap. He was supposed to help her. Instead, he’d gotten her committed again.

“How are you feeling?” he said.

She looked up at him. “How am Ifeeling? Dr. Baldwin locked me up again, and Eddie almost killed me. How do you think I’m feeling?”

“I know, and I’m sorry,” he said. “I should have listened to you.”

“You think?” She started to cross her arms, but the stitches pulled and stung.

“What can I do to make it up to you?”

“Get me out of here. They want to keep me overnight.”

He nodded. “I know. I just talked to the doctor who stitched you up. And I know you want to leave, but you’ve been through hell and they need to make sure you’re okay before they let you go.”

“I’m fine,” she said.

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