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I was gripped by a terrible grief and betrayal. “Why not? You don’t want me?”
“Always,” she said. “But you’re not done. You can’t stay.”
I was frozen in disbelief. Not done? Where to even begin with that?
“Mom,” I said. “Get real. No one, in the history of being done, has ever been more done than me.”
She shook her head. “No, you’re not. Go back. You have to finish this, baby.”
I heard a whirring, the grinding, and suddenly the thick slab of glass was between us. I was trapped behind it again. I pounded on it, yelling. I couldn’t hear her through the glass, but I saw her reach out to touch the glass, like Red had done. Her eyes looked so sad. Her lips were moving. I love you, baby, she was saying. Sorry.
Then she transformed into Red in her pale green ball-gown, mouthing ‘I am so sorry, I am so sorry,’ as stark agony stung me in the throat, a thousand bees all stinging, inside, outside. Every part of me in burning, writhing pain…
I was screaming. Struggling to breathe, gasping, choking, fighting. Light blazed into my eyes. My arms and tried to flail, but couldn’t. I was bound in a straightjacket.
The convulsions slowly eased. I panted for breath. I was so cold. I shivered violently, as if I were naked in the snow. So much light. My eyes stung. The air smelled so different. I was swaddled in… what the hell? A sleeping bag? No. Colder. Tighter.
Red was huddled in against the wall of tiny room that I slowly realized was the back of a van. I saw daylight through the windows on the sides. She was still in her ball-gown, the skirt all puffed out in a circle around her. Her hair had come down.
What the fuck is this?I tried to say it, but I couldn’t make my mouth work. I tried again. “Red?” I coughed out.
She was crying, her face wildly smeared with makeup. She wore a shiny blue wrap around her shoulders. “I am so sorry,” she said. “But you have to help me now.”
Help her? She wantedmeto help her? That was so messed up, I started to laugh, always a mistake. It made the wire across my throat saw savagely at my raw and swollen flesh. “For real? Have you seen me, Red? You’re hallucinating.”
“No. I’m not hallucinating, and neither are you,” she said. “I found out Halliwell was going to have you gassed to death, so I switched out the gas canisters. I loaded it with a sedative. They thought you were dead.”
“So... I’m free? That’s what you’re telling me?” I could hear the skepticism in my own voice.
“Almost.” She reached behind herself, and turned the door handle, pushing open the back door.
The rush almost knocked me out. Blazing outdoor light, the intensely perfumed, hyper-oxygenated outside air. The smell of earth, trees, stone, plants. The rustle of wind in the trees. I sat up, struggling to move in what I abruptly realized was a body bag.
Red pulled the van’s back door shut. The wind stopped, the light diminished. The cold made my teeth clack in my mouth.
I struggled to unzip the body bag and peel it off. “What does ‘almost’ mean?”
“You have to help me out with something first. And then you’ll be free.”
I puzzled over that for a second, then realized that she was trembling. Her lips were blue. Like she was afraid of me… or of what she had to do. What the fuck?
“Red,” I said. “I’m in no condition to help anyone. My resources are all tapped out. So open up that door and get the hell out of my way.”
“You have to help me,” she said, desperately. “My little sister is trapped in one of his clinics. He said he’d cure her, but I just found out that he was the one who made her sick in the first place. The son of a bitch. He scammed me.”
I waited for more. “And? So?”
“I have to save her!” she wailed. “As soon as he knows I busted you out, he’s going to punish me by hurting her!”
I shook my head. “How am I supposed to help you? Lady. I’m barefoot, half naked, drugged out of my gourd, fucked up in every possible way. I barely remember my own name. What the fuck do you want from me?”
“Anything! Anything you can do! You owe me!”
“I do?”
“Yes! I broke you out of that place! At great risk to myself! You have to help me now! You’re a Masters. You guys are massively rich. Influential. You know all kinds of people from the security company you ran before, right? You could call people. You guys could stage a rescue for Reggie really fast, with the Masters security apparatus.”
I shook my head. “I never made any deal with you.”
