The Missing

see. The room itself was large, nearly the same size as the other room that served as both kitchen and bedroom. The cot where Jillian lay was tucked up against a wall. The tiles were a bright, blinding white—almost everything was white. Everything but the cot itself, the sink and shower fixtures, and the shiny drain cover in the middle of the floor.

    The floor sloped down in the middle.

    The showerhead was the removable kind, the sort that came with a head that detached, but this thing looked industrial-grade, more like something used for power washing than personal hygiene. The hose itself was long, so long it could have spanned the entire width of the room.

    Her belly churned as she examined the room as closely as she could through the gray’s connection. Take me closer, she commanded, but it wasn’t the room itself she wanted to observe.

    She had to reach out, make a deeper connection.

    A warning voice screamed at her from inside her skull, but she pushed forward, reaching out, out, out . . . The warning voice was suddenly drowned out by screams of the damned. Young voices, older voices, all of them screaming and begging for help as pain rained down on them like water. She heard the harsh crack of something striking flesh, a voice garbled, an ugly voice that turned her blood to ice.

    Sliding farther and farther into that morass of pain, Taige panicked and jerked away, but it was too late. The screams forced themselves inside her head, echoing through her heart and soul.

    Who are you . . . ? Who did this . . . ?

    There was no voice, however, to answer. They were all long dead, and the man who had killed them had left nothing of himself behind for Taige to find.

    She heard a strange rattling sound and then Cullen, shouting her name. Hands squeezed her arms brutally, and she realized Cullen was shaking her hard. So hard it felt like her teeth were rattling around inside her skull.

    “Damn, Cullen,” she wheezed out. “Are you trying to shake my head off of my shoulders?”

    His arms came around her, and now, as hard as he had been shaking her, he was holding her, a big hand cradling the back of her head and holding her tight against him. “Damn it, what was that? You looked terrified.”

    Weak, she shoved against his chest, trying to get some air between them. He let go only to cup his hands around her face and stare at her. “What in the hell was that? Damn it, you started screaming, and you wouldn’t stop. I didn’t think you’d ever stop.”

    Taige swallowed, and her raw throat rebelled. She looked at the digital clock on the dash: 2:59.

    Her jaw dropped. “How long . . . ?”

    “You closed your eyes about thirty minutes ago. You started crying,” he said softly, reaching up to wipe away tears she hadn’t even been aware of. “And about ten minutes ago, you started screaming. You started screaming, and you didn’t stop.” He pushed her hair back from her face. “What happened to Jillian?”

    Taige shook her head, and he growled, “Don’t lie to me.”

    She reached up and covered his hand with hers. “I’m not. Jillian’s not hurt. He’s not even there.”

    HE would have driven right past the gravel road if Taige hadn’t tensed up, her back arching up off the leather seat. Her hand flew out and grabbed him. Short, neatly trimmed nails bit into his forearm. “Here.”

    He didn’t see anything. He slammed on the brakes in the middle of the road and looked around him. “Here where? There’s nothing here.”

    She pointed off the roadside, and through the high weeds, he saw the gravel road. He turned off the road and muttered, “Glad I didn’t go with that sedan.” The big Tundra ate up gas, but it took the rough, poor excuse for a road like a dream. As the road started to climb, he glanced over at Taige and saw she had worked forward, even with the seat belt on, so that she sat on the edge of the seat. She had her hands curled around the edge, knuckles gone white.

    “Turn,” she said, her eyes closed. She didn’t open her eyes as she pointed to the right. It was another sorry road, more of a trail than anything, and it climbed up, up, and up.

    There were no more turns, the road going up at such a high angle, it climbed up the side of the mountain. It kept going up until the ground leveled out. They were damned high. Cullen climbed out of the car and looked around, staring at the cabin in front of him. He noticed the generator, saw a huge water tank, an empty