Page 42 of No Quarter

You’re not going to make it out of this, Valerie. You’ll never escape your mother’s sickness.

Valerie switched on a light. The sudden brightness made her blink, but it also chased away the shadows and the voices.

Standing up, Valerie pulled on her clothes and left the room behind. She couldn’t stare at those walls any longer. They were a reminder that one day, a room much worse and far starker could be her permanent home.

Valerie stood in the hallway and listened. The building was quiet. The occasional creak of a wooden beam setting or the heating system spitting out its warm air was all that occasionally broke that stillness.

She walked, feeling like a zombie, down the hallway until she reached the woman’s bathroom door.

Pushing open the bathroom door, Valerie stepped into the dimly lit room. She made her way to the mirror and looked at her reflection.

She was exhausted.

The dark circles under her eyes were a testament to that as well as the tension in her shoulders and back.

But she knew sleep wouldn’t come easily. There was too much on her mind. The killer. The victims. Tom. The engagement. Her father’s DNA test. Her mother’s sickness. Her own fragile mind.

It was a potent cocktail that would have knocked even the strongest of people off their feet. But somehow, Valerie had to hold on. People’s lives were at stake. She had to pull herself together.

Stepping over to the sink, Valerie splashed some water on her face, feeling its coolness against her skin. As she stared at herself in the mirror, wondering if the worry would become a permanent feature of her face, she saw something out of place in the reflection over her shoulder.

Behind her, one of the bathroom stalls had its door slightly ajar.

Instinct kicked in.

Something is wrong here, she thought.

Turning, she spoke, “Hello?”

But there was no answer. And yet, she was certain that someone was in the stall.

Her heart began beating faster as she approached the door, curiosity getting the better of her despite all of her best efforts to stifle it.

With caution still in her mind, Valerie grasped the handle and slowly turned it until it clicked open. There, half lying on the floor inside the stall and half draped on the toilet seat, was a woman’s lifeless body. The eyes stared back at Valerie, vacantand glassy. Her tongue protruded from her mouth, swollen and red. There was no pulse, and while the body was still warm, the neck had clearly been broken during the attack as it sat at an unnatural angle.

Valerie had found dead bodies before, but it was never any less shocking. She felt her heart thumping, and fear swelled up inside of her.

The body is fresh. The killer is still here, she thought.

Drawing her gun from its holster, Valerie slowly searched each stall one by one. She pushed on each door, waiting to see the eyes of the killer staring back at her from within the shadows. But they were empty.

A noise sounded from outside the bathroom. A door opened and shut. Footsteps followed.

Valerie pointed her gun at the door. There was no time for back up. She moved forward into the hallway.

Valerie’s heart was pounding as she followed the noise of footsteps through the hallways. She had no idea what she was going to find, but she knew she had to be careful. The killer could be anywhere, and if they found her before she found them, it would all be over.

She crept through the building, her gun held out in front of her, finger on the trigger. She tried to keep her breathing steady, but it was hard when her heart felt like it was about to burst out of her chest.

The footsteps led her down a flight of stairs and into the basement. The air was musty and damp down there, and Valerie’s shoes sank into the soft carpet with each step. There was now a banging noise coming from somewhere nearby.

The noise was coming from behind a door at the far end of the room. Valerie approached it slowly, listening for any movement from the other side. When she reached the door, she paused for a moment, gathering herself.

She took a deep breath.

She then kicked the door open and yelled, “Freeze! FBI!”

But all she found was an old storage room.

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