Sara screamed into the pillow; she had to. She wanted to be sick again, to make herself empty; but reality was the one thing she couldn’t vomit out. When that fantasy passed, she went looking for her courage. To do it, she kept her eyes closed, and focused on her heartbeat, then on the breath in her lungs. She reminded herself of all that she’d survived in twenty-seven years: the bad boyfriends and the back-alley abortion, the fight with her parents and the year she’d lived rough in Haight-Ashbury.

When she thought she could, she opened her eyes. A wooden floor. Baseboards painted white. Risking more, she saw a wooden chest at the foot of the bed, a dresser with a lace doily, a vase of plastic daisies. Small rugs lay on the floor. There was a vanity, a mirror, framed photographs of people she’d never seen.

Covering herself with a blanket, she picked up one of the photographs, a black-and-white shot of a young family in front of a roller coaster and clapboarded buildings with signs advertising beer and popcorn and ocean bathing. A small boy held a bag of peanuts. Only the father was smiling.

Sara put the picture down.

No noise in the room.

There were curtains but no windows.

At the bedroom door, she listened but heard nothing.

He would be on the other side.

He had to be.

Moving quickly, Sara checked under the bed and beneath the vanity. The dresser drawers were filled with old-fashioned undergarments; the clothes in the closet were equally dated. Dressing numbly, she saw herself in the mirror, hollowed out and pale as soap, a strange woman in a pencil skirt and fitted blouse.

“Not me,” she said. “Not like Tyra.”

She opened the door, and stepped into a hallway with a pink bathroom on one side and a second bedroom on the other. The hallway ended at a kitchen.

Still, no windows.

Crying openly, she staggered into the next room, and stumbled against a rolltop desk. The room was small, but there was a door and an umbrella stand. That meant, exit, outside, escape. Sara ran for the door, and tore at the lock, metal giving as she jerked at the knob, and the chain snapped tight.

“Shit! Shit!”

She fumbled at the slide, tore skin. The chain dropped, and she heaved at the door. Beyond it was a second one made of steel. No handle or lock. Not even hinges.

“No! No! No!”

Sara pounded metal until her hands ached.

“No, please…”

She slid to the floor.

“Not like Tyra.”

28

The guards came midmorning, this time Jordan and Kudravetz. They took Jason to the subbasement, and there was no question of X’s intent. Stripped down to fighting shorts, he stood barefoot on swept stone, the glint in his eyes cold, critical, and eager.

When the guards left, X leveled those eyes at Jason. “I assume we still understand each other?”