CHAPTER THIRTY-SEVEN

MIRA

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The stench wakes me

It fills my lungs, coats my skin. I feel it burning my eyes as I pry them open to endless darkness.

My brain throbs in protest. My muscles ache and my stomach churns. I try to breathe but only inhale grime and decay.

Not dead.

Given the amount of raw agony pulsing through me, part of me wishes Dirk had finished the job.

Dirk!

It’s the memory, the creaks and groans from overhead that have me scrambling onto all fours. It’s the congealed blood sticking my shirt to my skin. I don’t look up but scramble across the dirt, clawing the stone, searching for the keys I’d dropped. I prayed they weren’t under Dirk and the small mountain of corpses. I prayed I could find the phones or the flashlight. Anything to help me navigate the yawning darkness.

I find the flashlight.

Dead. The batteries must have drained.

I chuck it aside and continue rifling until my fingers close into something cool and plastic.

The battery on the phone warns me of its approaching death, but it flares on.

I keep the light trained away from Dirk. Away from the girls. I survey the ground for any hint of metal and almost cry when I spot them in a small pool of dried blood. I scoop them up, duck my head and run for the hatch. My feet slip on the rotting planks, but I hit the top and pause. I turn back.

“I’m coming back for you,” I tell the girls in the dark. “And thank you.”

I will never tell anyone. I don’t think anyone will understand if I tried. I probably wouldn’t believe me either if I hadn’t experienced it.

The dead are dead.

They don’t come back. They don’t stay and linger.

I don’t believe in ghosts.

But I wasn’t alone in that cellar. Aside from the physical bodies, those girls helped me. I don’t care how anyone tries to justify it, but I’m going to get them home, or give them peace at the most.

Keys and phone clutched to my chest, I sprint on shaky legs across freezing blades of grass in the direction of the dirt path and the beat up, blue pickup. I undo the locks and crawl in behind the wheel. My shoulder screams, but I close myself in and hit all the locks just in case.

Then I just sit.

It’s stupid. In a horror movie, I would be screaming at the stupid bitch to get her shit together and break down after she’s gotten help.

But I don’t.

I stare at the unassuming pile of logs in the middle of nowhere harboring one of the worst secrets I will ever experience — hopefully — in my life. But how long? How long was Lucy bringing Dirk and Boyd girls and letting them rape, torture and kill them? Did she know about the bodies? Did she even ask what they did with them once they were done?

And why? Why would someone do that to another human being?

I suck in a breath as the first tear falls. Then the next. I cry for the girls. For myself. I cry because I can’t believe I actually survived. The adrenaline and horror are fading fast and hysteria is building up like a rising tide threatening to drown me.

No. No. NO!

I need to get home.

I need my boys.

I need a shower.

Then, I need to find Lucy and beat the fuck out of her.

Set on my new mission, I get the keys into the ignition, turn over the engine and freeze.

Dots of light bob over the horizon behind me, streaks of yellow splintering across the rear view mirror as a small caravan rumbles up.

My fingers tighten around the wheel. My foot twitches over the gas. I’m ready to run down anyone who tries to stop me from getting home.

No less than ten vehicles pull up behind me, blocking my escape. My heart thumps as I wonder if Lucy has brought friends to have their fun.

“Mira!”

The familiar bellow of my name spikes through my gut. It slams into my chest, a flutter of both panic and excitement when twin figures tumble out of a big, white truck.

Their names pulse out of me, broken with elation as I kick open the door and practically fall out onto the grass.

I’m running before I even straighten. I’m closing the distance, I think. It’s like running in a dream. My legs may be doing it, but I don’t feel it until I’ve collided with a rock hard chest.

I don’t know who catches me. I don’t know whose neck I’m squeezing or whose hips my legs are locked around.

I don’t care as the horror I’d been bottling back finally shatters and I break into a million pieces in their arms.