Deadly Little Lessons (24 page)

I
TYPE THE ADDRESS
of Strappley Farm into Wes’s GPS and then I start out. It’s drizzling. The streets are wet. The windshield wipers paint streaks across the glass, making it hard to see.

Why didn’t I bring a weapon of some sort? Why don’t I have a flashlight, for when it gets dark? I glance in the rearview mirror, checking to see what kind of spy gear Wes has stashed in the backseat. But surprisingly, it’s empty.

My cell phone still clenched in my hand, I call Wes.

“We’ve hit the abductor’s jackpot,” he declares, his voice cranked up on adrenaline.

“Did you make it inside the sewing factory?”

“Better than that, my friend. We found a locked room in the basement of said factory. It’s hidden beneath a stairway, behind an old soda machine.”

I turn past the Blue Raven Pub, noting that it’s on Farm Road. I must be close. “I need help,” I tell him. The GPS orders me to take the next right and then a sharp left. The area is becoming more remote. The streets aren’t fully paved; I’m practically driving on gravel now.

“What’s that?” he asks. “You’re breaking up. Are you getting some rest? I was going to call you, but—” He cuts out.

“I need help,” I insist, louder this time. Woods surround me on both sides of the road, but it seems I’m driving to Nowhere—just farther and farther away from town, away from everyone.

“I did call for help,” he assures me. “Detective Tanner is on her way.”

“No!” I shout. “
I
need help. I think I know where Sasha is.”

“Camelia?” he asks. I can hear the panic in his voice. “Where are—?”

He cuts out again. The phone goes blank. I scream his name, but the call’s been dropped.

A second later, I see it. At the end of the road. The house I envisioned. It’s on fire.

I drop the phone and pull up in front. I tear out of the car, race up the stairs onto the porch, and run to the door. The knob scorches my hand. The surface of the door is almost too hot to touch. But I try anyway, using the fabric of my shirt as a buffer.

The door is locked. I pound at it, kick it, and slam against it with my shoulder.

The next thing I know, someone grabs me from behind.

I turn to look, startled to find a girl there: blond hair, pale face, maybe twenty years old. The letter
t
is tattooed on her neck.

I pull my arm away, noticing the tears welling up in her eyes.

“Are you one of them?” she asks.

I open my mouth, unsure how to respond, but there’s no time to hear her out. I go for the window closest to the door, just a few feet away. But the girl grabs me by the arm and yanks me down the stairs. I fall backward against the pavement.

“I’m talking to you!” she shouts. Standing right over me, her mouth is puckered in disgust. “You’re one of them, aren’t you?” she asks. Drops of rain or tears stream down her cheeks.

Glass breaks somewhere above, somewhere inside. It’s followed by a cracking sound that cuts through my core—the sound of floorboards splitting or beams coming down. More glass shatters. The house is bursting open from the inside.

“Listen to me!” she shouts.

I try to get up, but she kicks me back down. The heel of her boot plunges deep into my gut.

“You’re one of them,” she says, shaking her head, standing right over me. “Are you looking for his secret place?”

“Yes.” I manage to nod.

“Bitch!” she screams, kicking my side.

A screech tears out of my throat.

“Somebody already broke in to his secret place,” she continues, looking away toward the back of the house.

At the same moment, I get back up, climb the stairs, and try the window, but all I see is fire. Its brightness stings my eyes. “Where is he?” I ask her.

“It’s too late,” she says. “He’s already gone.”

The word is a mystery inside my head.
Gone
as in, he left? As in, I missed him? “Did he go to get some help?” I ask.

“He’s dead,” she explains. “I saw to it myself. I stayed inside too long. See, I got burned.”

She shows me her arm: there’s a patch of red skin. I stumble back, unable to grasp her words. There’s a blurry haze all around me, and my mouth fills with bile. Still, I try to get past her, keeping an eye on Wes’s car.

But she grabs me again. Her cold, wet fingers wrap themselves around my forearm. “You’re not going anywhere,” she says through clenched teeth. She starts to drag me back toward the house.

At first, I feel weak. But Sasha’s crying inside my head grows deeper, louder, infusing me with strength. Finally, I’m able to pull away.

The girl gazes toward the fence; there’s a shovel propped up against it. She starts moving in that direction, but I push her from behind—hard. Her head hits the corner of a barbecue grill, and she slips forward against the wet pavement, letting out a piercing shriek.

I hurry toward Wes’s car, tears nearly blinding me. I fling the door open and grab my phone to dial 911, but I still don’t have reception.

The house is completely engulfed in flames now, like something you’d see in a movie. I scream until my throat burns raw, knowing that I’m far too late—that Ben is already gone.

I
T TAKES ME A MOMENT
to realize that my head is pressing against the steering wheel and that the horn is sounding. I’m still sitting there, in front of the house—still crying, screaming, seething.

I fish my key ring from my pocket and try to start the car. It won’t turn over. I try again. Still no go. I look at the keys, realizing they’re for my room. Wes’s aren’t in my pockets, nor are they on the seat or under the floor mat. What did I do with them after I parked?

Sasha’s cries seem to grow louder by the minute, reminding me that she’s still out there, still missing. And I’m still determined to find her.

I reach into the glove compartment. Thankfully, there’s a flashlight and some rope. I stuff both into the waistband of my jeans, then hurry back outside. I can feel the heat from the fire on my skin. I move around to the side of the house, passing through the driveway.

The girl is no longer lying there. I grab the shovel and hold it like a bat, ready to strike if I have to. I cut through the forest behind the burning house, remembering my premonition, remembering the view from above. The farm was on the other side of a wooded lot.

I cut through the forest. The rain has dissipated. The sun peeks through the trees, making the woods look almost enchanting, like nothing ugly could ever come out of this place.

Running now, I use the shovel to push branches and brush from in front of my eyes, remembering the entry in the Neal Moche blog, where Ben tried to navigate here in the dark. It must’ve been nearly impossible.

A stick breaks, and I hear something fall; that’s followed by a swishing sound. I stop. I turn back. “Who’s there?” I shout, clicking on the flashlight.

No one answers and I don’t see anything.

My heart pounding, I wait a few more seconds before beginning forward again. I quicken my pace and take a wrong turn, ending up in the thick of some bushes. At first, I think I can get through them, but they’re taller than I am, bigger than I am, and I get trapped among their branches.

I start to backtrack, my pulse racing. A broken branch with a jagged tip rips through my skin. I touch the spot and feel blood.

Breathing hard, I maneuver out of the bushes entirely. Back on the path, I continue forward, coming to the end of the woods.

The farm is sprawled out in front of me. I close my eyes, conjuring up my premonition, able to picture the trapdoor that led underground. It didn’t seem far from the garage. I move in that direction, past the tractor to the door at the rear of the garage.

And that’s when I see it: the pile of debris. Broken sticks and mangled cornstalks are collected around a wooden slab. The pile’s been kicked away, revealing the trapdoor.

I look behind me again to make sure I’m still alone. The sky is black with smoke. Burning embers fly into the sky, making the clouds appear to be ablaze, too. As I stand right over the slab now, my whole body’s shaking. I want to be sick.

The metal handle is just like what I pictured: black and rusty. Keeping a firm grip on the shovel, I reach for the handle. The door is heavy and opens with a
thwack
against the ground.

A wooden stairway leads underground. I grab the edge of the trapdoor and pull it closed behind me as I descend the set of stairs.

My flashlight still on, I proceed downward, noticing another door at the bottom of the stairs. It’s only slightly taller than I am, and there’s a series of locks around the knob.

With jittery fingers, I push the door open. It’s like stepping inside my hallucination: the dirt floors and the cinder-block walls. The entire space is probably about as big as my dorm room. This was probably once a root cellar, used for storing food.

A steel wall faces me, dividing the room in half. It almost reminds me of a prison cell with a steel frame attached to concrete walls. A solid door—with no bars—is secured with a padlock.

I scoot down for a better look, spotting a hole cut into the bottom of the door, a little bigger than a cantaloupe. “Sasha?” I call, still able to hear her crying.

The flashlight beam travels toward the hole. “Who’s there?” she asks.

“Are you Sasha Beckerman?”

“Yes.” Her voice trembles. “Who are you?”

“My name’s Camelia, and I’m here to help you. I’m going to get you out of here.”

“Is he coming back? Do you know where he is?”

“I’m going to get you out of here,” I repeat, not wanting to tell her the truth: that I have no idea where Tommy is.

I pull at the padlock, but it’s definitely secure.

“He’s going to come back,” she cries out.

I nod to myself, knowing she’s right. Why else would the doors be open? Why else would this have been so easy? Maybe it’s a trap.

I place my flashlight on the ground, angling it so that I can see, and then, holding the shovel above my head, I strike downward with the blade, smashing it against the lock.

But the lock doesn’t break.

I try again—harder this time—using all of my weight. For an instant, I think the lock gives. There’s a deep
plunk
sound and my arms ache from the impact, but still the lock remains intact.

I take a step back, adjusting my grip, aiming the point of the blade at the lock’s loop. But then I feel a yank on my hair from behind. I lose my footing, falling flat on my back. The shovel drops to the ground.

The girl with the tattoo on her neck is here. Holding a lantern, she keeps a firm grip on my hair, dragging me to the center of the room. I struggle to get away, reaching behind me, trying to swat at her hands.

Finally, she releases her grip, but it isn’t because of my efforts. As she stands over me, there’s an eerie grin playing across her lips. “Nobody replaces me,” she says, setting the lantern down.

“I don’t know what you’re talking about,” I tell her.

“Sure you do.” She pulls a rag from her pocket and folds it. “You want to steal him away from me. You think you’re so much better than me.”

“No,” I insist, shaking my head, remembering the rag from my premonition. It’d been doused with something that put me out.

“He didn’t even care that I knew he was cheating,” she continues, pouncing on my stomach, with her legs straddling my middle. I swipe at her face, but she leans back, avoiding my blows. Her grin broadens, as if she’s enjoying my efforts. I keep moving, my legs flailing as I try to knee her or knock her off me. But nothing seems to work.

“What’s happening?” I hear Sasha cry.

The girl looks away, reaching into her pocket again. At the same moment, I thrust my pelvis forward, gaining leverage with my hips. Finally, I’m able to sit up and push her back. The girl falls against the ground. A tiny bottle tumbles from her grip.

I try to retrieve the shovel, scrambling on the ground to reach it.

“No!” the girl shouts, coming at me with the rag.

I struggle to my feet and lift the shovel high, feeling the muscles in my forearms stiffen. When she gets too close, I smash the blade against the crown of her head, and the shovel falls from my hands.

She lets out a wail, but still she tries to force the rag toward my face. I kick her in the shin. She stumbles back, but then comes at me again. I’m able to rip the rag out of her hand, toss it to the ground, and then shove her away. She trips over her own feet and falls onto her back.

I grab the shovel again. The next thing I know, she’s got me in a headlock from behind. The rag is placed over my mouth, between my lips, against my tongue. I hold my breath and take a step back, digging my nails into the flesh of her forearms.

There’s a loud cracking sound. It’s followed by a high-pitched scream. The girl’s grip on my neck loosens. And the rag falls away. I turn around to see what happened.

Ben is there. He’s alive. It’s almost too much for my brain to process.

It appears that he hit the girl from behind with a long steel pipe. Lying in the corner, she’s definitely hurt but not out.

Ben motions to the rope sticking out of the waistband of my jeans. Still somewhat in shock, I toss it to him and then retrieve my flashlight, watching as he winds the rope around the girl’s wrists, behind her back. Naturally, she fights him, trying to kick him and wriggle her body free, but she’s no match for him.

Wearing gloves, Ben squeezes her legs together—tightly—securing the rope around her ankles.

I pick up the fallen bottle. “Chloroform,” I say, reading the label. To put someone out. To make someone sleep.

“It’s what I used on Tommy,” she says. “Right after I found out that people like you were trying to take him from me.”

“Where
is
he?” I ask her.

“By now, I’d have to say hell.” She smirks.

“He was in the fire,” I say, putting the pieces together. When she saw me trying to get into the burning house, she must’ve thought I was looking for him. He was the one she was referring to when she said that he was already dead. “Did you know about this?” I ask her, nodding toward the cell. “That he was keeping someone captive here?”

She looks up at the ceiling. The letter
t
on her neck moves up and down with her breath. “She’s no replacement for me,” she mutters. “And neither are you.”

Ben slips the pipe into the padlock’s loop and then pulls the pipe downward, breaking the lock entirely. He pulls the steel door open.

Sasha is there, crouched in the corner in a fetal position. Her skin looks sallow, and I can tell that she’s lost a lot of weight.

I approach her slowly, then scoot down. “My name’s Camelia,” I tell her again.

Sasha looks at me with haunted eyes. The tips of her fingers are cut up and bloody—most likely from picking at cement. And her wrist has a bandage on it. The skin around it is puffy and yellow. “It’s been burned,” she whispers, pulling the bandage back.

I try my best not to wince at the sight of it: the letter
t
, bright red and weeping with pus. Black, leathery skin curls up to frame it. Aside from the infection, it’s exactly like what I sculpted.

“You’re going to be okay,” I say, beyond relieved to have found her, and finally no longer able to hear her tears. I take her hand, feeling her fingers clasp my own, grateful for the power of touch.