Page 30 of Monster Queen Rising

I lift them to the peephole. Palms out. Empty.

The peephole goes dark while she looks, and stays dark a long count. Then the deadbolt. The door opens to the chain limit and stops there.

Elma Reyna is at the gap. Five-eight, hair pulled back tight, green scrubs. Dark eyes, set mouth, one hand on the inside of the door and the other below the gap where I can't see it.

I don't know what's in her other hand. I don't need to.

"Talk," she says.

"I'm going to tell you a few things that happened to me. You tell me if any of them sound familiar."

She doesn't say no.

"Sometime in the last year you had blood drawn. And the results came back wrong — numbers that didn't make sense, nothing your doctor could name."

A pause on the other side of the door.

"They ran it again to be sure. Same result. Then they sent it out — a specialty lab, somewhere that wasn't your usual. And after that your doctor got quiet. Stopped calling you back."

The hand below the gap goes still.

"Then people started showing up. Not neighbors. Men who stand wrong. Sit in cars too long. One of them knew your name when he shouldn't have."

The chain is still on. But she hasn't moved to shut the door either.

"Stop," she says. Quiet. "How do you know about my labs?"

"I don't. That’s my story. That's the year I had, right before they put me in a cell." I keep my hands where she can see them. "I'm guessing it's yours too. Tell me I'm wrong and I'll go."

She isn’t blinking now. Just staring at me.

"There are people downstairs who'll come up these stairs within the hour. I'm here to get you out before they do. I'm with a group that takes people away from what those people are part of. If you want me to leave, I will. I'm asking for two minutes."

She watches me. I don't look away.

"Why now?"

"Your name's on a list. I have it. You're at the top."

"I’m on a list."

"It came out of the building they took me from. I've been working through it since."

"You were kidnapped?"

"Last month. Escaped because other people helped me. We've been getting people out ever since."

Her eyes hold mine a long second.

She closes the door. The chain slides off. The door opens.

"Come in."

I step inside. She closes it behind me. Chain. Deadbolt. The hand she's been keeping below the gap goes into her pocket, and I don't see what was in it.

There's a duffel by the door. Packed, zipped, sitting on a pair of running shoes.

"How long do I have?"