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Then, with a harsh, electric snap, she was back, and everything woke up.
Bryn’s body arched, and a scream raked its way up from her guts, out through her throat, and burst out of her mouth with so much force that she felt something tear inside of her. It didn’t even sound human, that scream: certainly nothing she could imagine coming out of her own body.
And then the pain drowned her in a thick, stinging wave, and she knew why she was screaming.
There was a murmur of voices, and she saw a glimpse of a face in the haloes of bright lights.
Joe Fideli. He looked grim and sad, and he was holding her hand. “Relax,” he said. “I know it hurts. Just relax now. You’ll be okay. ”
She reached out, but it was too hard, too far, and whatever liquid they were injecting into her arm made her fall very far, very fast, into a hot, airless darkness.
Waking up the second time was both easier and worse. Easier because she no longer felt all the pain and horror; worse because she didn’t know where she was. It was a featureless room, very clean. She was tucked in a narrow bed with rails, and there were portable medical monitors, cabinets—the usual hospital room accoutrements. Nothing else that she could see. She didn’t even have an IV in her arm, only an oxygen clamp on her fingertip. The place smelled of antiseptic.
As she sat up to get a better look around, the door at the far end opened, and Joe Fideli came in. He was followed by another man Bryn didn’t know—younger than Joe, with black hair and brown eyes and skin a few shades darker than Bryn‘s. He was wearing a tailored black suit and a sober-looking tie, and both he and Joe had ID badges clipped onto their pockets.
Joe’s face was very, very calm, blank, and bland, and from the first look at him, she knew she was in trouble.
She just had no idea why, or how.
“Hello,” Bryn said. The two men didn’t say a word. She wet her very dry lips. “Where am I? What happened?”
Joe exchanged a look with the unknown man, then said, “You’re in a safe place. ”
“Safe …” That didn’t seem to make sense to her. There was no safe place. Not anymore.
The other man, the one she didn’t know, walked forward, pulled up a single aluminum chair, and sat down next to her bedside. Close up, he was handsome in a quiet kind of way, and a little older than she’d thought—probably midthirties.
“Your name is Bryn Davis,” he said. She nodded, waiting for him to offer his own. He didn’t. “What do you remember about what happened to you?”
“I—” She stopped, because there was a black curtain between her and those memories, and she didn’t want to walk through it. She knew instinctively that it was there for a reason. “I’m not really sure. I remember going to work; there was a girl who killed herself—”
“Yes,” the man agreed, without any emotional weight on the word at all. “Go on. ”
“I worked late. I met Mr. Fideli…. ” Bryn looked past her inquisitor to Joe, who was leaning against the wall by the door, still looking neutral and distant. He nodded at her. “And then I tried to leave, but Mr. Fairview took me back inside…. ”
Her voice faded. Whatever had happened to her after that, before Joe Fideli had slapped her face to wake her up, she didn’t remember, or want to remember. It made her stomach churn with anxiety to think about it.
“Something bad happened,” she whispered. “Something …”
The man didn’t blink. “Yes,” he agreed again, exactly the way he’d agreed to her earlier statement. “Bryn, I need to know what you know about the business Mr. Fairview and Mr. Watson were running from the
basement. ”
“The embalming?”
“Not the embalming. ”
“I don’t understand. ” She really didn’t, and her head hurt. Her mouth felt dry and tasted of metal, and she desperately craved a drink. “Could I have some water, please?”
“Not yet. I need you to tell me what you saw, Bryn. ”
“I can’t. ” She meant it. She was shaking all over, ice-cold at the thought of even trying to pull up those memories.
He studied her for a moment, then pushed back the chair, stood up, and walked over to murmur with Joe Fideli in the corner. It was a quiet, fierce argument, and finally Joe turned and left the room. He didn’t look happy.
The man in the suit looked at Bryn, and she felt vulnerable, fragile, and cold.
“I’m afraid I have to give you some very bad news,” the man said. “Please, I want you to stay calm. ”
