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I had a hard time keying in the code that opened my apartment, my eyes were so full of furious tears. It seemed silly that there was a code at all. Everyone in this place seemed to have access to it. Hell, why have a door at all?
I was not a weepy type. Mom had always called me a stoic. But whatever my natural emotional blocks, they had all been pulverized tonight.
Tomorrow was unthinkable. But I’d better start thinking, and fast. The parameters of how bad things could get in this place were expanding every minute that passed. Halliwell could demand anything he wanted in exchange for Reggie’s life. And he clearly liked doing it. He got off on making me feel vulnerable. Exercising his power. He was going to kill that man in front of me just to show me who was boss.
Eventually he might use Reggie the same way. That would be the end of me.
I tore off the dress and shoved it into the garbage chute. The shoes followed, and the underwear. My hands shook. Halliwell had made it look as if I were his accomplice. Like I had deliberately lured Shane into that sick ambush by kissing him. And Halliwell had opened the glass wall just to scare me. A threat of second-hand rape.
I bet the twisted old bastard hadn’t expected me to like it.
It had surprised me, too. I’d never been all that interested in sex. I was too stuck in my head to let go and enjoy it. After trying it a few times, I had basically concluded that it wasn’t worth the mess. That my hormones were permanently stuck at the “take it or leave it” setting.
So I’d left it. I’d been busy with a sick mom at the time, anyway, and then with an orphaned sister. I simply could not be bothered.
Well, I sure was bothered now. And Halliwell had seen exactly how much that man moved me. How deep those feelings went. I sobbed it out in the shower, then toweled off, trying not to think about the cameras probably hidden all over the apartment. Wondering if people were always watching me in my most private moments.
Get real, Cass. Of course they fucking are.
My phone rang as I was swabbing inky black smudges from beneath my eyes. At four AM? Reggie. I wrapped myself in a robe and lunged for the phone. Reggie’s thin, hollowed face appeared on the screen, lit with eerie blue light from her tablet.
“Babe, what are you doing awake?” I asked. “It’s almost four AM!”
“You’re always working in the daytime. And I can’t sleep anyhow. Whenever I try, I have nightmares. So I mostly just doze. Sorry if I woke you up.”
“No, I was in the shower, see my towel? I’m glad you called. I miss you like crazy.”
Reggie’s face crumpled. “I miss you too.”
The next several minutes were spent soothing her, trying to figure out the problem, which unfortunately was not one I could solve. She wasn’t being overtly abused or maltreated, just ignored. Bland, unappetizing meals arrived three times a day, delivered by an orderly who wouldn’t speak to her. A team of doctors examined her every day without talking to her or acknowledging her when she spoke. The nurse took blood and tissue scrapings from her throat every day, but not one of them had a fucking kind word for a lonely little girl locked in a windowless room. She might as well be in a cage in a kennel. Worse, even. At least the dogs could bark at each other for company.
“You can always call me,” I said. “Whenever I’m not at work.”
She snorted. “When is that? Only late at night.”
This was sadly true. I clocked twenty-hour days on a regular basis trying to finish Glow-worm. “I’m sorry about that, honey. Did you read the books I sent to your tablet? And the films?”
“Yeah, they were great,” she said listlessly. “Could you send me some more?”
“Sure, sweetheart. I’ll find something really special for you.”
She stared at me through the screen with sad brown eyes. Her hair was as red as mine but in this light it looked black. “Am I going to die, Cass? I ask the doctors, and the nurse, but they don’t hear me. I feel like a ghost. Like maybe I’m dead already.”
Those fuckingassholes.“Of course you’re not going to die,” I assured her. “Halliwell said he had a cure. You’re better than before, right? No more of those rashes, or the fevers and nosebleeds or coughing or snot, right? All that stuff has stopped.”
“Yeah,” Reggie said. “But there’s not much point being alive here. They never let me go out. There isn’t even a window. Just cinderblocks. And I’m locked in.”
Those sick fuckers were being cruel just for the sake of being cruel. It drove me mad with fury and frustration. “Then I’ll be your window,” I told her, walking out onto the deck. I flipped the screen so that I could pan the phone around, showing her the white surf surging up on the wide, dark beach below, the sharp crags of rock, the morning star hanging heavy and bright over the dark hills. “This place is messed up, but at least the Pacific Ocean is beautiful to look at.”
“I can’t stand it, Cass,” Reggie said, her voice thick with tears. “I’m sorry. I know you’re working really hard for me. But I can’t keep doing this. I’d rather just be with you now, and whatever happens, happens, you know? At least we could say goodbye, right? I don’t want to die here alone with people who don’t even see me.”
“You won’t,” I promised rashly. “I’ll find a solution. Hang on, okay? Please, babe. For me. Try to get some sleep. Think of the ocean waves I just showed you.”
“Okay,” Reggie said faintly. “I’ll try. I love you.”
“I love you, too, angel. Remember that. Think of the stars, the waves. That waterfall we went to, that one time, remember it? The forest, with the long hanging moss? As soon as I spring you out of there, we’ll go back to all our favorite places.”
“Promise?”
