Page 120 of Her Dark Lies
I recall the strange dream I had, and the sense that someone had touched my forehead. And that I was choking. It was her. It was Morgan.
“Come out, come out, wherever you are!” she trills, hunting me in the gloom. She knows where she’s going. Knows where this path leads. I don’t.
Come and get me, you crazy bitch.
I shudder and run faster. I’m going downhill now; we must be outside of the Villa walls. Where in the hell does this go? The grotto, clearly, but how far is it?
The tiny, rising thought—Is Jack alive?
Don’t. Don’t think about him right now. Whatever you do, you have to keep it together so you can stop her.
All I want to do is draw her away from the people I love. I have no plan.
“Claire? Where are you going? Are you lost?” Morgan calls with a laugh. She knows what I’m going to run into. “I wasn’t finished talking with you. We need to decide what you’re going to do now that Jack is dead. You need to get away from the Comptons, they are terrible, evil people. Stop, and let’s talk, just you and me. We’ll make a plan. My timing is off with the boat. That wasn’t supposed to happen until everyone was on it. But most of them were there. When it became clear the wedding was postponed, Brice and Harper decided to go ahead and have everyone move toThe Hebrides, start the party early. They’re all dead. Everyone who matters dead but you, and me. And that’s a good thing. We’ll make this work, together. I promise.”
That can’t be true.
And yet, it can. It totally can. Ana saw people on the funicular. There’s no telling how many were on the boat.
I feel sick.
Morgan is truly insane.
And she isn’t running. She’s walking steadily. Stalking me in the darkness. I can hear her voice wavering as it bounces off the earthen walls. There is flickering light in front of me and I put on a burst of speed to get ahead enough and find something to hide behind. She has a gun and the knowledge of the surroundings, but I have my wits and the element of surprise.
The declivity steepens; the air around me is getting fresher, cooler, saltier. Damper, too. I can hear the waves rushing outside, the insistent ebb and flow as old as life itself. This island, this sea, predates all of us.
How many women have felt terror in this darkness?
I burst into an opening, a good-sized sea cave. This is the grotto. The water is clearest cerulean, unlike the sea outside. There is a break in the rock that leads out to the sea, and I can see the orange fire ofThe Hebridesburning, smell the overwhelming, choking stench of fuel and the smoky scent of sulfur and gunpowder.
I realize this is where the photo on Harper’s Instagram was taken.
Big News Coming...
Morgan sent it. And all those horrid texts. How easily she’s hacked all of us.
She was trying to get me to come to her. If I had, would Jack and Ana still be alive?
Don’t, Claire. Don’t think about them yet.
“Claaaaire...”
The water is high, the tide must be in. There is no gentle slope, the basalt walls drop straight into the water. The light here is dim but I can see, across from me, indentations in the rock. Openings. Other paths. Escapes. One is lit up. If I can just get there, maybe I can circle back into the Villa...
But what if this is the only path that’s not walled off?
No, the light leads somewhere. I drop the robe and dive into the water. It is freezing cold, so cold my breath leaves me. I stroke across the grotto quickly, then scramble out of the water and run toward the light.
I’ve gone only twenty feet or so before I run into an iron gate. I pull on it, but it is locked tight. Damn it.
Back down to the path. I have to get out of here—I have to find my way back to the Villa.
Bracing myself for the freezing temperature, I dive in and swim across the cavern again, haul myself into the nearest depression. This one goes nowhere, there are the remnants of a stone block. A statue once stood here. That makes sense; the smaller indentations are statuary niches. There’s a metal bracket as well. They probably once held torches, a spot to leave offerings to the sea goddess or to Venus herself.
Back in again, to the next, and I can see from the water this one is no different. I feel the sea sucking at my legs, the current is pulling me hard, toward the small opening, toward the roiling sea. I have to get out of the water soon. Even if this one leads nowhere, I will be across the cavern from Morgan, and it’s better to try and face her from afar than be swept out to sea and drowned.
What symmetry. Was this how she felt, sheer panic colliding with the urgent need to live as she slipped away from the rocks, the waves forcing her into the bay?
