Chapter Forty Rory

The first thing I notice is Caro’s door open an inch. My mind tumbles over why. A couple filters down the hall, black suiting and a swingy pink dress, bowled over laughing, almost impossibly carefree. Gripped by foreboding, I manage to step back, allow them berth to pass. They do, stumbling down the hall, eventually disappearing from sight.

Then I burst into Caro’s room. I don’t know what I’m expecting to find but it’s decidedly not this. Nothing neat and orderly; it’s all in peak disarray. Suitcase upturned, clothes exploded around. A pink lace thong is caught on a lampshade. The sheets are rumpled, the covers a heap on the parquet, a toothpaste glob melded to the porcelain sink. It even smells musty, like a sealed space where a sick person has convalesced.

“Caro?” I call, but it’s immediately obvious she’s not here. It’s not my first rodeo; I know there’s nowhere in this tiny space a person could hide.

I spin around slowly in the room, my mind whirling but not gripping on to anything substantial. Spinning stories, though—Caro on the Colosseum wall, appearing poised to jump. And now she’s disappeared, in the middle of the night.

Where could she possibly be?

Suddenly, the train jolts, and I stagger, nearly tip over. We’re twisting around the mountains, it looks like, as I watch the countryside whoosh by, the moonlight an eerie spotlight on the abandoned industrial buildings we’re streaming past. My heart drums my ears, my brain working frantically—surfacing with diddly squat—when I hear a strange noise.

At first, I think it’s the air conditioner, or generator. Except it’s not a steady rumble, but a faint sort of bashing. Then I hear—I think—a screeching noise.

I hold my breath. Listen again, hard. Nothing.

I walk the length of the room, squatting on the floor, staring up at the ceiling. Then I walk back again, the journey completed in a couple of terse steps.

What in…?

I hear the screeching again, and suddenly, buoyed by instinct alone, I press my face against the window. Something flashes in my vision. An arm.

It’s gone as fast as it came, but I swear it was an arm.

I fumble with the window, manage to shove it open. When I peer to the left, in the direction of what I think I saw, I am greeted by a sight more horrifying, more incomprehensible, than anything I’ve ever witnessed.

It’s Caro, propped halfway out of the window next door, her eyes wild, pooling sheer terror, her fingers propping a silver whistle in her mouth, as she blows on it wildly.

Her eyes register me—surprise, relief? The whistle detaches from her mouth.

“Caro, hang on! Just hang on!”

I anchor my lower half against the wall and reach out to grab her. But our hands barely brush, fail to connect. She’s thrashing—thrashing against something.

Against someone.

When her eyes connect with mine, I am staggered that inside them isn’t simply a plea. She mumbles something, but I can only read her lips.

I’m sorry.

That’s what, incomprehensibly, I think she says.

And then she’s gone, writhing, back partway into the neighboring cabin.

Max’s cabin.

I retreat inside, panting, adrenaline and fear surging through me.

Max is trying to kill her.

It hits me with a thud; the whole world collapses on my chest. There’s no other explanation for what I just witnessed. Maybe it has to do with Hippoheal… or… there isn’t time to sift for the why.

My eyes dart around. Without much thought, operating on cold, clear instinct, I grab the hefty crystal ice bucket from the bar. Then I spot a key on the floor by the door. I grab it and read the insignia: The Istanbul Suite.

Right. I remember. Earlier, Max gave Caro his key. In case she needed him…

I duck out the door, feeling almost robotic. But strangely, scarily alert.

I slowly turn the key to my brother’s suite, aware only of my racing heartbeat and the frozen, eerie silence.

Then a scream cuts the stillness.

No. No, no, no, no. no. NO.

The lock gives itself to my key. I open the door. Step inside.