Crying out, I tried to kick at him and he cursed, but he kept his grip, pushing me toward the hidden door, punching at buttons.

“Do you see it?” he demanded again, lower this time, because now he’d pulled me in tight from behind, our heads were close, and then I could feel it, the warm slickness of his ruined ear against my hair, the back of my neck, and for a single instant, as he groaned, its deep, gouging pain.

“Yes, I see it.” I wanted to be free of his grip. I didn’t care what came next.

The cold blasted over us, then the lightlessness inside.

“Good,” he said, and threw me forward, hard, into the freezing room, so that I staggered and fell facedown on the concrete floor.

Behind me, the wall closed. Then came a second, heavy sliding sound: the bookcase sealing me in.

24

THE COLD MIXED WITH THE dark, and the air chafed. The floor grated my cheek and the palms of my hands. As my adrenaline faded, I could feel the sleep pulling at me again, keeping me from breaking the surface. I wanted to sleep instead of remembering Nelson’s ruined ear touching me, its pulpy caress.

I forced myself up. Faintness flooded my skull. I reached for a wall and found a shelf instead, covered in objects. Stone. Small shapes and large shapes, smooth and old.

Bones, my mind told me.

A cemetery, my mind told me.

Then: Art. Sculptures.

“Ray?” I said.

The air was still. I was alone in the room. It was frigid. Winter cold. Winter cold with no coat or hat. The thermostat on the wall said thirty-five now. The climate control settings would be for the artwork. Nelson had turned them down to their lowest temp. Near freezing. I would not survive two days at thirty-five degrees. I might not survive a day, not if I kept falling asleep.

I needed to get out. First, I needed to see. First, I needed to move.

I counted to twenty, and for every count I contracted my muscles, pushed myself to feel the objects around me (cool, hard, dust whispering on my hands), to crawl toward the door. At twenty, I collapsed, exhausted. Another twenty. I felt the whole door, every smooth edge of it, and around the edges for a light switch, but nothing. A lone blue glow from the thermostat on the wall. Thirty-four degrees now. I felt everywhere on the instrument for a button or switch, but it had none.

I sank to the ground and folded into a ball, blinking to stay awake, trying to keep the warmth in.

The rustle was so soft at first, I thought my ears were playing tricks on me. Then I heard it again: the smallest scraping sound off to my right.

“Hello?” I said.