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Are those voices, or am I imagining them?
Is that a copwho is clearly working for my grandpapabreathing, or just the dog?
Just when I’m certain that there are no voices, someone says, “Conor.”
The dog perks up, and then it starts walking toward me, and I just—
I freeze. I don’t know what to do if it casually jumps up and bites me or something. The dog—Conor, I guess—moves closer on big feet, then—
Pushes at my leg with his nose.
I put my hands down and mouthI can’t go out there.
“Conor,” the person says again. Theman. It’s a smooth, cold voice, and it sounds like the dark, but not necessarily ascarydarkness.
The dog nudges me again.
If the choice is between moving or getting bitten, I choose moving.
And so, though I want to scream and throw up and lie on the ground, I let it nudge me out of the clearing and onto the path.
Where Idoscream, a little bit, because I wasn’t expecting the man out here to be this tall and obviously a killer.
He blinks at me as my scream dies away in the trees.
“Hello,” he says. “Are you lost?”
My entire body shakes. My teeth chatter. My heart clenches blood so hard and fast it hurts. The dog goes to his side and sits, pointing its nose at me like it’s showing him what it found in the clearing.
“No!” I shout, because ifthis guyis one of the cops, I’m going to lose my mind. “No, I’m not lost. I’m here because I heard there was some sicko keeping kids in a—in a bad situation, so I came to—to see. If that was happening. Since certain acts aren’t only felonies, they’re morally reprehensible, and—”
His eyebrows have gone up, as if he can’t quite believe what he’s hearing.
“You came to save them?” he says softly.
“Yes,” I hiss, at the same moment his clothes register. I can’t see all the details in the dark, but I can tell they’re expensive. All black. It could look weird on a guy who’s blond. It doesn’t, probably because he’s extremely handsome. Not, like, as handsome as Jameson, but…extremely. “You look rich. Are you the one who’s keeping them here?”
He laughs.
It sends a shiver down my spine. Not because it sounds evil, but because it sounds—
I don’t know. I can’t describe it.
“No. I’m not him,” he says, his expression sobering.
“Do you haveproof?” I yank the picture out of my pocket, unfold it, and thrust it toward him. “Because it sure looks like there are kids here. Likethiskid.”
He scans the drawing and doesn’t react.
He doesn’t reactexceptthat his shoulders slope a little, and he lets out a breath. “There aren’t any children here.”
“Because you did something to them?”
“Because we grew up.”
I take a step back.
Look at the drawing.
