Pines

everything in his power to get the question out.
    “When...did...you...come...here?” he whispered, clinging to her words now like a life preserver that could keep him afloat, keep him awake, but still he was slipping under, seconds of consciousness remaining.
    She said, “I’ll never forget the day I arrived, because in some ways, it’s like the day I died. Since then, nothing’s been the same. It was a beautiful autumn morning. Sky a deep blue. The aspen turning. That was October third, 1985. In fact, next week is my anniversary. I’ll have been in Wayward Pines a whole year.”

CHAPTER 8
    She didn’t dare open the door, glanced instead through one of the missing panes in the stained-glass window. Found nothing to see through the midnight rainfall and nothing to hear above the sound of it on the weeds and the trees and the mausoleum roof.
    Ethan was gone, lost to the drug, and in some ways, she envied him.
    In sleep, the dreams came to her.
    Of her Life Before.
    Of a man whom in all likelihood she would have married.
    Of her home with him in Boise.
    All the plans they’d made together.
    The children they had one day hoped to bring into the world—sometimes, she even dreamed about their faces.
    Waking was Wayward Pines.
    This beautiful hell.
    When she’d first arrived, the surrounding cliffs had filled her with awe and wonder. Now, she hated them for what they were, what they’d become—prison bars surrounding this lovely town where no one could leave, and those few who tried...
    She still had nightmares about those nights.
    The sound of five hundred telephones ringing at once.
    The screaming.
    Not tonight...that is not going to happen tonight.
    Beverly pulled off her poncho and went to him, curled up under the blanket against the wall. When the pattern of his breathing finally slowed into long respirations, she crawled over to the duffel bag and fished the knife out of an exterior pocket.
    It was a folder, rusted and dull, but it was all she’d been able to find.
    She tugged the blanket away and pulled up Ethan’s hospital gown and ran her hand along his left leg until she felt the bump on the back of his thigh.
    Let her hand linger there a shade longer than she should have, hating herself for it, but God it’d been so long since she’d even touched or been touched by a man.
    She’d considered telling Ethan ahead of time, but his impaired state had prevented this, and maybe that was for the best. Regardless, he was lucky. She hadn’t had the benefit of anesthesia when she’d done this to herself.
    Beverly set the flashlight on the stone floor so it illuminated the backside of his left thigh.
    It was covered in scars.
    You couldn’t see the bump, only feel it—and just barely—if you knew exactly where to touch.
    She pried open the blade, which she’d sterilized two hours ago with cotton balls and alcohol, her stomach lurching at the thought of what she had to do, praying the pain wouldn’t break his sedation.

CHAPTER 9
    Ethan dreamed he’d been tied down and that something was eating his leg, taking small, probing bites that occasionally went deep enough for him to cry out in his sleep.
    * * *
    He slammed awake.
    Groaning.
    Darkness everywhere, and his left leg, high on the back of his thigh, burning with a pain he knew all too well—someone was cutting him.
    For a terrible moment, he was back in that torture room with black-hooded Aashif, hanging from the ceiling by his wrists, his ankles chained to the floor, and his body taut so he couldn’t struggle, so he couldn’t even move, no matter how awful the pain.
    Hands shook his shoulders.
    A woman’s voice said his name.
    “Ethan, you’re all right. It’s over.”
    “Please stop, oh God, please stop.”
    “You’re safe. I got it out.”
    He registered a splash of light, blinked several times until it sharpened into focus.
    A flashlight beam shone on the floor.
    In the indirect light, he glimpsed stone walls, two crypts, a stained-glass window, and then it all came roaring back.
    “You know where you are?” Beverly asked.
    His leg hurt so much he thought he was going to throw up.
    “My leg...something’s wrong—”
    “I know. I had to cut something out of it.”
    His head was clearing, the hospital, the sheriff, his attempt to leave town all coming back, the memories trying to reassemble themselves into a sequence that made sense. He thought he’d seen Kate as well, but wasn’t sure. That piece felt too much like a dream,