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Lily backed towards the door, murmuring a silent apology to them.Bruno. Keep her mind on Bruno. No more distractions.
She peered out into the corridor, unnerved to find the coast still clear. What the hell were they all up to? She was too insignificant for them to bother with, maybe? Great. She darted to the next door. The next. The corridor made an L-curve, revealed another hall, just as long.
She worked her way doggedly down the hall. On the last door, the key clicked and turned, and admitted her into a dim room, shrouded by heavy velvet drapes. A suite. She had to check connecting rooms. All this effort would be in vain if she missed Bruno out of sheer sloppiness.
The place felt deserted. The connecting room was a bathroom, with a door on either end. She peeked into the next room, and saw two cribs in the light filtering through the narrow strip between the drapes.
She moved closer. Children were in them. Babies. They were very still. Pale. Oh, God. She crept closer, hung over the first crib, her hand clamped to her shaking mouth.Please. Don’t let them be dead.
They appeared to be alive. She touched a cheek. Cool, not cold. Toddlers, not babies. She wasn’t much of a judge, but she figured this one was about two. So was the other.
Two child seats, with clips for fastening into a car, were perched by the wall. They had webbing restraints. No machines were hooked up to the babies, thank God. Then she saw the needles on the table. Sterile physiological solution, a clutter of powder encrusted drug vials. A baby monitor. She spotted the vid-cam. Someone could be watching. Sounding the alarm. Bells ringing, feet pounding.
She reached into a crib, held her hand in front of the child’s nose, wishing she had a mirror. She could barely feel hot moisture, blooming with each exhalation. So slight, but they were alive.
It reminded her of the times she’d tried to find Howard’s pulse, Howard’s breath, amid a litter of hypodermics and other junkie trash.
Babies. God help her. She could afford to help these little ones even less. They were twenty-five to thirty pounds each, and fast asleep. If they did wake up, they’d scream the house down.
If she could find Bruno, maybe she could carry one, and he could carry the other. The authorities would help save the other kids. She closed the door quietly, and continued with the doors. Empty…empty…empty. Then a key caught, turned…and the door creaked as she shoved it open. She practically fell inside.
Bruno lay on the floor, tied hand and foot, his dark eyes open, but strangely empty, as if he didn’t recognize her. His face was white. Lip swollen and split, nostrils encrusted with blood. His eyes were hollow, shadowed. But it was Bruno, and he was alive.
* * *
“Oh, thank God. Thank God.”She ran to him, sobbing like an idiot, fumbling to separate the little knife on the keychain of her bunch of keys. She was babbling, incoherent. She sawed at the hard plastic cuffs that cut deeply into his empurpled wrists. Then the ankles.
He rolled up onto his side, sucking in air, a wheezing gasp of pain. She helped him sit up, and hugged him, like she’d been dreaming of doing ever since she woke up in her cell. But he was stiff in her arms, like a block of wood. All his vibrant, buzzing vitality gone.
A horrified notion occurred to her. “Oh, God, are you injured? Your shoulders? Or your back? Did I hurt you when I cut the cuffs?”
He coughed, wincing. “Not injured,” he said, his voice hoarse.
“Oh, thank God.” She tightened her arms around him again. His lack of response was weird. He was so strange. Not himself at all.
And not happy to see her. Not one little bit.
Fear uncurled inside her, like dark whorls of smoke. “Are you, um, drugged?” she asked, almost hopefully.
“No,” he said.
Well. That was uncharacteristically terse. She smoothed his hair back off his forehead. “My poor baby,” she murmured. “They beat you.” She touched the bruised cheekbone, his split lip with her fingertip.
He flinched away. “Don’t!”
She was alarmed. “Bruno?” Her voice was small.
“Don’t look at me like that,” he ground out. “Did he not tell you?”
“Tell me what?” she asked. “Who? King? He told me all kinds of things. Not many of them were worth knowing.”
He made an impatient gesture. “Quit it with that. What I mean is, did he tell you that I know?”
“Know what?” She was baffled to tears.
“That the game’s up,” he replied. “No need to pretend anymore.”
“Pretend what?” She was yelling. She tried to breathe. Think this through. He turned to look through the door, and she saw the blood encrusted in his hair. Understanding dawned, with wrenching tenderness. She touched the egg-shaped knot on his skull.
