It’s dark down there. Jude lets out a breath when no one shoots up at me. My eyes adjust, revealing a thin set of steps leading down. I look back at River.
His jaw is sharper than I’ve ever seen it, his eyes dark, but he nods.
I pick up my gun, take the torch offered by the SWAT guy and slowly descend. The light from the torch cuts through the shadows as I scan the basement.
The beam catches on crimson blood. A body slumped against the wall.
I gasp but force myself to finish the sweep before coming back to the middle of the wall and the woman tied up there. I holster my gun and skid onto my knees in front of her. My fingers tremble as I ease the cloth gag from between her teeth. Her chest is cut up and her head lolls to the side. I press my fingers to her neck and a sob falls from my lips when I find a pulse.
“She’s alive,” I say as the others join me. “She’s alive.” Someone flicks a switch, and a bare bulb floods the space with light so bright it hurts my eyes. “Isabella? Isabella?” I gently shake her shoulders.
Her eyelids flutter. She cringes away from the light then seems to remember where she is. A whimper breaks from between her cracked lips and she scrambles away.
“It’s okay, it’s okay.” I point at the initials on my vest. “We’re FBI.” I hold out my hand.
She looks from my face to my vest and then all around the room at the other officers. Relief flashes in her eyes and she bursts into tears. Someone passes me a blanket and I draw it around her shoulders, covering her naked chest. I undo the rope around her wrists and she clings to the edges of the blanket.
“Can you walk?” I ask.
She nods and I help her to her feet. I guide her over to Oz. He’s the gentlest of the guys. It’s in his eyes, in the way he uses his hands. He’s who Isabella needs right now. I’d go with her myself, but my mind is still stuck in this basement, on what I saw on the wall behind her.
“This is Oz,” I say, softly. “He’s going to take you outside to an ambulance. Is that okay?”
Isabella nods.
I smile at her, trying to keep the inner panic off my face.
Oz shoots me a questioning look but I give a subtle shake of my head. I pass Isabella over to him and when she’s safely up the steps I turn back to the wall.
Jude’s the first one to notice what I’m looking at. He catches River and Eli’s attention and nods to the wall then he comes to stand by my side.
“What does it say?” he asks.
I decode the scribbles on the wall, my voice flat as I read the message out loud. “‘She looks like Eli’s mother don’t you think? What a shame you couldn’t save her too’”.
I hear Eli stop breathing from across the room. He doesn’t say anything, just climbs back upstairs. A crash sounds in the distance and I flinch.
“They’ve been watching us. How is he getting so close without anyone noticing?” Jude’s question is directed at River, but River doesn’t answer. He’s too busy watching me, his eyes narrowed.
“Freya, what is it?”
I still haven’t looked away from the wall. My body’s gone numb and even if my dad swanned back into the room right this second, I’m not sure I could do anything other than stare.
“Freya,” River snaps and it breaks me out of it a little. My heart kicks into overdrive. The panic rises inside of me and I look away from the wall to face River.
“He knew,” I choke out. “All this time he knew.”
River strides towards me. He grips me by the elbows, one hand coming up to guide my face back to his when I look towards the wall again. “Knew what?”
“The code. It was the one thing we had. The one thing that was just ours and not his. Something he couldn’t touch.” A sob wrenches from my chest. “But he knew, all this time, he knew exactly what we were saying to each other. Every word. Every message. He knew.” The words tumble from my mouth. Theymix with my sobs and stop making sense, just garbled sounds of suppressed pain. Even six years after I escaped, my father can still hurt me. I’ve spent so long trying to heal myself, but I’m still broken.
And now he’s gone. Again.
Free to keep on killing and killing. And every single death will be on my hands because I failed.
Again.
I failed to tell anyone when I was a child.
