➵ Chapter 54-5

Eric. Eric was alone. I tried staying conscious. I heard the thump of somebody else hit the ground. "Jace? Logan?" "Still here, Robin." Lee's hand went limp, and I felt him slump over, still awake, but growing weary. "Lia." "He's alone. Eric's alone." Suddenly, the ground was under my cheek. "Lia," Jace said again, his voice fainter than before. "I'm sorry," I whispered, my heart slowing in my chest, letting the sweetness in the air drag me further into the dark, someplace, that surely, there would nothing. No one. Just the dark. ➵ I turned my head and groaned, dizzily coming to my senses. The ground under me was cold and wet, grass brushing softly against my cheek. "Wake up, Miss Mason. Your friends need you." I didn't want to open my eyes - my head hurt too much. But I forced them open, met with the sight of a pitch black sky. "There we go." The voice was coming from my ear, and for a moment, I was sure that I had gone entirely insane. It took a terrifying beat to realize I was wearing an earpiece. "Take a look around. Do you know where you are?" I forced myself to sit up in the damp greenery, trying to make sense of something. Anything. It was a small lawn cordoned off by a white fence, the architecture of the building familiar with the stylings back home. It was nothing special - tall, made of bricks, windows boarded up. Abandoned, no doubt. "Don't you recognize it?" the voice asked, almost amused. "Who are you?" "The man you're looking for. Here I thought you would at least know my voice." "Polk," I growled, "where are my friends?" "I told you. They need your help." "What kind of twisted-" "Look around. Go inside. Tell me where you are." I got to my feet, legs wobbling as I took my first few steps, heading toward the door. The knob turned easily, but the door groaned as I pushed it open. Hit hard with the stagnant air, I tried breathing only when I had to, gaze sweeping the skeletal old building with its stained floorboards and peeling wallpaper. It was dark and cold, dust covering every surface. The counters of the kitchen, the floors that had gone untrodden on for so long, the empty shelves encrusted with the most repulsive of molds. The familiarity of the place struck me hard and sudden, and I moved toward the boarded window, gazing down on the windowsill where a young, angry girl had carved her name. I ran my thumb over my name. "The orphanage," I said. "Why did you bring me here? Back to New York?" "I told you. It's a game. Go to your old room." "I-" "Are you stupid enough to risk not listening to me when I have your friends hostage?" "You're a sadist." "Your bedroom, Lia." Legs trembling under me, I went up the stairs, every step followed by a creak that forced me to wonder if the building was coming to come down while I was in it. The walls of the stairway had once been plastered with picture frames of beaming, adopted girls. But now the walls were empty. My bedroom was the first one that one would see when going up the stair, straight ahead from the last step. The door had been taken off its hinges, but there was still a piece of furniture inside. A little old rocking chair that I knew hadn't been there when I'd lived here. My bow and a quiver of arrows were sitting on it. "Why are you arming me?" "We both know there's one way for all this to end. One of us has to die. But when I kill you, I kill all your friends too." "Where are they?" "All part of the game." "I don't want to play!" "Why not? We've been doing this for how long now? But you kept breaking the rules. Now I'm going to make sure you don't." "I'll kill you." "You'll have to find me after this. That's the objective." "What about now?" "Find them before time runs out. I mean, I've practically handed you the girl." "I don't-" The earpiece either died out or was switched off. I slung my quiver across my back and nocked an arrow as I went back out, searching every other bedroom until I came to a locked one. My foot struck the weakest part of the door, and the door flew open. I was met with a shriek of, "Lia, duck!" I hit the ground just as the gunfire started, looking up at the girl bound to an old chair. "How do I switch it off?" "I don't know!"