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There was one last place to check.
The Eastern Stairs.
CHAPTER13
Grant
When Grant opened his eyes, he didn’t know where he was.
It was a dark room, hazy and red, and he could hear a dull, distant throbbing.
The last thing he remembered was sitting down at the office desk to get ready for an arduous evening of watching the monitors, and then…
What?
What had happened?
His memories were coming in bits and pieces, and he struggled to put them back together to form a proper timeline.
He remembered his date with Huck—oh, and definitely someveryspecific parts about that date and the following morning—and he could recall being at breakfast and hearing Huck’s warning.
After that, Grant had seen Bachata, and they’d chatted about the big investigation tonight. He’d also talked to Aurora about, well,something, and then the rest of it was a big blur until he went to sit at the desk. He’d checked the monitor feeds with Cary over the walkie-talkies, had everything up and running, and then…
Everything went black.
And he was here.
Whereverherewas.
There was a solid floor beneath his feet, but he couldn’t see a ceiling overhead. He also couldn’t see any walls. No matter which way he turned, there was nothing but endless, hazy red smoke. He picked a direction and started running, but even after several minutes he still appeared to be in the same spot.
“What the fuck?” Grant wondered out loud, panting angrily. “What the actual fuckingfuck?”
He checked his pockets for his phone, but he didn’t have it nor any idea what the hell he’d done with it. Maybe he’d left it at the desk or dropped it when he was taken. He tried to tune in to the strange thrum throbbing around him to see if he could reach out to Huck or any of the other ghosts, but it was…
It was vast and strange andendless, and it was overwhelming his senses until he couldn’t think or even hardly breathe from the pressure trying to swallow him up.
“Fuck, fuck, fuck.” Grant had to consciously fight to get the sensation to leave him, and he pushed it as far away as he could. He shivered when he realized he’d felt this energy before…
It was the Thing in the Eastern Stairs.
Grant looked around the giant space again, and a new coil of dread seized his guts. He was shaken, confused, and angry. He had no idea how the hell he’d gotten to this strange place and there was no clear way out.
Going over his fractured memories again didn’t offer much help. The last thing he could remember clearly was that he’d ended up in the command center by himself. Everyone else had left for the big investigation in the morgue. He’d been waiting for them to get started, and someone…
Someone had come in.
Shit. Who?
Someone came in, right up behind him, and he could recall trying to turn around, and then bam!
Darkness.
Darkness, the sense of being pulled along—but wait, no, not like being pulled across something physical like a floor. This had been a feeling of eerie cold, akin to the shivers he experienced when he interacted with spirits. It was the tingling cool sensation of something very, very not normal.
Grant tried to take a few deep breaths to calm down, and he muttered to himself, “Where the fuck am I?”
“Somewhere where no one is ever going to find you,” came Janice’s cold reply as she appeared before Grant. Her form was like a vapor, misting into view from the hazy crimson smoke that filled this space. She was smiling confidently, her arms crossed and her hip cocked, totally in control.
