Decoding Darkness Read online

  Both Stewart and the newly named Bryson moved into position. Bryson was shorter than Stewart, with the type of hair that was almost orange rather than red, and spattering of freckles across the bridge of his nose that made him look both younger and sweeter than I suspected he truly was. His eyes were green versus Stewart’s muddy brown eyes, and at least they had a spark to them, whereas Stewart’s appeared dull.

  The two men reached for me, and I allowed them to grab me and pull me to sitting. I blinked back tears—these ones caused by the light rather than me feeling sorry for myself—and wished I could use my hand to wipe them away. Instead, I lifted my shoulder and wiped my tearstained, snotty face on my t-shirt.

  I caught the glimpse of satisfaction—no, victory—on Hollan’s face at my tears. That son of a bitch. This was a guy who’d known me as a child. Who’d watched me grow up, and had brought birthday and Christmas presents to my house. He’d also watched me holding my father as he’d bled out all over my lap. I shouldn’t expect any kind of sympathy from him. He must have had his soul removed before his mother had given birth to him.

  I also reminded myself what he was capable of, the reason he’d taken me and the memory stick in the first place. He wanted to put an end to places like the base where the guys had grown up. Was he really capable of killing the children who lived down there? Were the people he worked with capable of the same thing, too? It seemed too monstrous, even for Hollan. How many of those bases were dotted all over the country? Three? Five? Ten? Twenty? I had no idea. Would Hollan really try to wipe them all out if he was able to get his hands on their locations?

  The two men hauled me out, my lower back and the rear of my legs banging and scraping against the edge of the trunk as they did so, and dumped me on my feet on the ground. My poor body had barely recovered from all the cuts and bruises it had sustained during the time back at the house, and now I was going to have to suffer a fresh round of injuries.

  Bumps and bruises will be the least of your concerns after Hollan has had his way, a voice that sounded suspiciously like Aunt Sarah’s said in my head. I thought of fingernails being pulled off with pliers, and a whole-body shudder shook me. I prayed Isaac and the others would reach me before anything like that happened.

  “Come on.” Hollan shoved me from behind. “We’ve got work to do.”

  As I was hustled forward, I quickly took in my surroundings. We were crossing a small parking lot that had seen better days. The asphalt was swollen and cracked, green tendrils of weeds pushing up through the fissures as though nature was trying to reclaim the place for her own. A building was positioned in the center of the space, a single story concrete structure consisting of squares that had all been shoved together, like a child’s attempt at building a house out of Legos. Metal roll-down shutters covered the main entrance, large enough to drive a vehicle through, and almost every surface had spray-painted graffiti scrawled over it. Around the outside of the parking lot was a chain link fence that looked like it had seen better days, parts of it fallen and lying flat on the ground, as though it had simply given up.

  The place looked abandoned from the outside, but one thing I’d learned over the past week was nothing was how it seemed.

  I kept walking, though my legs felt weak and shaky. Hollan and the other guys were half holding me up, but I knew it wasn’t done for my benefit.

  Hollan reached the front of the building and then pulled something from a hook on his belt. It was a key fob. He hit the button, and the metal shutters started to roll up. “Bulletproof,” he told me, and I picked up on the pride in his voice. “This whole place. Unless someone gets inside, they don’t stand a chance of shooting their way in here.”

  His words caused acid to swirl in my gut. Was that his way of telling me it didn’t matter if Isaac and the others found me—they had no way of getting in if they did. I hoped that wasn’t true and they’d find a way.

  The shutter stopped at a point barely high enough for us to get inside without having to duck. The second car had pulled up alongside the one I’d been taken from, and we waited for a moment for the two men to get out and join us.

  With everyone inside, Hollan hit the button on the fob again, and the shutter began to roll back down.

  “Welcome to my home, Darcy.” Hollan gestured around him. “I’d say I hope you’ll be most comfortable here, but we both know that isn’t true.”

  “Fuck you,” I spat.

  “I’m afraid you’re a little young for me, but I’m sure I have others here who will be happy to oblige.”

  I caught Stewart staring. I sensed how he looked at me, his gaze slipping down my body like oil, the look in his muddy-brown eyes telling me he wanted more. I prayed I wouldn’t be left alone in a room with this asshole. I didn’t know how far he would take things, and I didn’t know how far I would have to go to protect myself. I wanted to glare at him, but the very real possibility of what he might be able to do to me struck home, and instead, my cheeks burned, and I felt hot and sick. I could handle a lot of things, but that?

  I’d rather they tore off my fingernails.

  Chapter Three

  I didn’t know what I’d been expecting from the place Hollan had brought me to. A house, maybe, like the one I’d first stayed at with the guys. Or a big military base. Not an abandoned building in the middle of nowhere. I’d been expecting teams of people bustling around, acting important, but instead, I was faced with a glass booth at the front of the building, which contained one guy wearing glasses manning the numerous security cameras, and, other than the men we’d entered with, that was about it. The interior of the building mirrored the outside in that it appeared industrial—concrete floors and block walls that no one had bothered to paint. Beyond the glass booth, the corridor led to both the left and right. The building itself was in the shape of a squared U, and we’d entered from the front.

  I guessed the lack of personnel was because Hollan had to keep what he was doing quiet for the moment. He’d make up some kind of story to bring in the military once he’d gotten the location of the bases—not that I ever intended to allow that to happen.

  Hollan turned to me. “Before all the ugliness starts, and you put me in a place where I have to force the number out of you, I don’t suppose there’s a chance you’ll willingly give me the code your father put on the flash drive?”

  I held his gaze. “Not a chance in hell. I know what you did. I know you killed my father. Nothing you can ever do to me will make me give up that code.”

  He paced, tapping his finger against his lips. “You know,” he said lightly, as though reminiscing about happier times, “I wondered if you’d seen me the night your father died. It was part of the reason I started to put space between us after his death. At the funeral, I waited for you to say something, or give me any idea that you knew more than you were letting on, and yet you never did.”

  My lips pinched. “I didn’t know there was anything to let on about. I didn’t remember seeing your reflection, and at the time, I didn’t know there was anything special about what my dad had told me as he’d died. I thought he was confused, mumbling nonsense.” A thrill of bitterness went through me. “You know, if you’d only hung around long enough, you’d have heard the code for yourself as he told it to me.”

  He nodded. “I’m aware of that. Clearly something I regret not doing, but at the time I hadn’t realized your father had encoded the memory stick. Had I known this, I might have been a little less quick to kill him.”

  Anger surged through me. “You’d have still killed him, though,” I snarled.

  He shrugged. “Of course. He knew far too much, just like you do now. I always took him as such a family man, and yet he gave you information that not only got him killed, but will now get you killed as well.” His eyes narrowed. “I’m not sure he really thought it through properly.”

  “He was dying. I doubt he thought much through.”

  Hollan waved a hand dismissively. “Even so, it wasn’t t
he nicest of things to bestow on your teenage daughter.”

  His words stabbed me, and I hated him for it, partly because it was the truth. But then Hollan didn’t know about my synesthesia, and that that was the reason my father had told me what he had. He’d known I’d be able to visualize the number.

  Hollan sighed. “Anyway, I assume all of this means we’re going to have to do things the hard way?”

  “Is the memory stick even here?”

  He put his hands on his hips and turned to face me. “Now why would that be any of your concern, young lady?”

  I jutted my chin defiantly. “Maybe I want to see the thing I’m most likely going to die for.”

  He waved a finger at me. “There’s no need for that.” He turned to a couple of his men. “Why don’t you see our guest to her room?”

  Stewart and Bryson grabbed me again, pushing and shoving me along the corridor to the right. Doors that looked like the entrances to prison cells, with hatches in the middle for passing things through, lined the walls. Though I’d chosen to be here, in a way, the sight of those doors filled me with terror. I hoped at any moment chaos would ensue as the guys arrived and proceeded to storm this place. I wasn’t some damsel in distress, and I normally preferred to take care of myself, but right now I sure as hell could do with a little rescuing.

  To my horror, we stopped at one of the doors and Stewart kicked it open. The interior was exactly as I’d pictured—a cell. Only prisoners would probably get better conditions. A thin mattress on a low, metal frame, foldout bed. A bucket to piss in. That was it.

  What had I been expecting? Hollan planned to torture then kill me. It was hardly going to be a room in the Hilton.

  Though this had been my plan all along, my fight or flight instincts set in. Things had been bad enough when I was locked in the trunk of the car; I couldn’t let them lock me in this horrible little room.

  My body seemed to act of its own accord, and I found myself pushing backward against the men, my heels pressing into the floor to prevent going any further forward. I shook my head, my shoulders shoving, trying to get the men away from me. I felt dizzy, lightheaded, as though I was no longer connected to the world.

  “No, please. No.”

  Hollan’s voice came from behind us. “Tell me the code, and you won’t have to go in there.”

  If I told him the code, I’d be dead, and so would the boys back at the base, and however many more were out there.

  Tears pricked my eyeballs, and I continued to shake my head. “No, I can’t.”

  “Then you leave me with no other choice.”

  He stepped forward, and I thought he might hit me or threaten me with his gun again, then he pulled a small set of keys from his belt and worked the cuffs around my wrists. My arms sprang free, and I pulled them to the front of my body, giving a little cry of relief. My relief was short-lived.

  A shove from behind sent me stumbling forward. I tripped over my own feet and landed heavily on the ground. My numb hands did little to break my fall, and I skidded across the rough concrete, face-first, grazing my cheek and skinning my palms. Behind me, the heavy door slammed shut, and a lock jammed into place.

  Heavy footsteps walked away, fading as they went. Hollan obviously planned on letting me sweat it out a little before he started the interrogations. Good. That gave Isaac and the others more time to reach me before he started.

  My face stung, and at first, I couldn’t feel the wounds on my hands. I managed to push myself to sitting, the cold of the floor leaching through my jeans and into my backside. With my knees tucked up to my chest, I held my hands out in front of me. Tingles fizzed in the tips of my fingers as the blood flow increased, and tentatively, I squeezed my hands open and closed. The tingling spread, and with it came pain. Only it wasn’t pain from where I’d skinned them, but instead my nerve endings firing off too quickly. I gave a cry and a whimper, wishing there was something I could do to help, but knowing there wasn’t. My body needed to go through this in order for me to get the full use of my hands back.

  I forced myself to flex my joints again, and tears of agony flooded my eyes. I willed the pain to be over, knowing I had to wait it out while wishing I could jump ahead in time. I clamped my teeth together, holding back any sound, not wanting to give Hollan the pleasure of hearing my pain. If he got his way, I suspected he’d be hearing a lot more of it, anyway.

  Though it felt like forever, eventually the pain began to subside, and I was able to breathe again. I gave my fingers another couple of tentative tries—open and shut, open and shut—and though they felt fat and stiff, they were no longer agonizing. The grazes on my palms stung, as did the one on my face, but I’d survive.

  Now that my body had released me from its torture, I was able to take a better look at my surroundings. I pushed myself back to standing and brushed down the seat of my jeans. A dim light was embedded in the ceiling—no chain or wire for a prisoner to hang themselves from—but it gave out no more than a muted glow, allowing me to see, but not in detail. From the door, to the flooring, to the walls, this place was a fortress of concrete and steel. There was no way out. I wasn’t going to be escaping any time soon. The only items in the room were the metal foldout bed, with a thin mattress on top, and a bucket in the corner. I wrinkled my nose at the offending item. I assumed it was to be my toilet. A wicked thought that I’d throw whatever I did in there at Hollan went through my head, and, despite my circumstance, I allowed a bitter smile to crawl across my face.

  No, I wouldn’t be here long enough to need to use the goddamned bucket.

  I lifted my hand and gingerly touched the spot behind my ear where I’d placed the tracker. My stomach lurched, my heart skipping, thinking I couldn’t find it, but then my fingers grazed the tiny tracker, which lay almost flat against my skin.

  The guys knew exactly where I was and were coming for me. They might be a few hours behind, due to having to get my aunt somewhere safe, and perhaps needing to plan or load up on more ammo—I didn’t know for sure—but I knew they were coming. I had to hang onto that hope. If I didn’t, I was as likely to die from a broken heart as I was at the hands of Hollan and his sidekicks.

  The sparseness of the cell made me think back to the cellar the guys had kept me in when this whole thing started. I’d hated that place, had vowed never to go back down there, had raged and broken things, and slammed at the door demanding to be let out, but compared to this room, it had been a five star hotel. I’d had a big comfortable bed—which, stupidly, I’d refused to sleep in—plus a bathroom and changes of clothes. The guys had brought me meals, but I highly doubted I’d be brought anything here. If I were staying here for any length of time—which I wasn’t—I expected Hollan would make sure I had enough water to keep me alive, but that would be about it.

  On stiff legs, I walked around the edge of the room, counting my steps in barely a whisper. The numbers appeared in my personal space in front of me as I counted ...

  “One, two, three, four, five, six ...”

  The room was thirty-two paces around the edge in total, and as I thought this, the three and the two flashed in front of me.

  With a sigh, I sank down on the edge of the bed and put my head in my hands. What the hell was I supposed to do now? Just sit here and wait? I’d never been good at sitting around doing nothing. Maybe it was my generation, but we always had something to distract ourselves with, and my brain didn’t know how to function without it. I didn’t want Hollan to come back, knowing it would mean he’d start asking about the code to the memory stick, and he would most likely use violence to get it, but at the same time, I hated the waiting.

  It was a small comfort, but at least I didn’t need to worry about my aunt’s fears of not being able to trust Isaac and the others being true. Though my heart had screamed that she was wrong, I’d put a lot of weight on her opinion over the years, and, especially because of the way we’d all met, her words had haunted me.

  Now I had no doubts Hollan
was the bad guy.

  Chapter Four

  As I sat, waiting, I couldn’t help but focus on each and every sound. Footsteps walking past the door. The metallic bang of doors slamming. The place felt and sounded like a prison, and I hated it. My main reason for listening, however, was in the hope I would hear something else happening, something that would signal the arrival of Isaac and the others. Would they be stealthy and sneak up on the place, or would they arrive with guns blazing?

  That’s if they’re coming at all.

  No, they were coming. They wouldn’t just leave me, and, even if they did, which I was sure they wouldn’t, they definitely wouldn’t give up on the opportunity to get the memory stick back into Devlin’s hands. They were tasked with making that happen, and right now I went hand in hand with that. But it wasn’t only about the memory stick. They cared about me, and they wouldn’t let me rot here, even if there wasn’t the chance the stick was here as well.

  They were happy to let you stay at the base after Devlin told them to leave without you.

  These evil little ear worms, whispering negative thoughts into my head, trying to grind me down. Why was it the most negative influence in life was often that horrible thought in your own head?

  I conjured up Kingsley’s words, the ones he’d spoken to me right before we’d had sex. He’d told me I’d gotten under their skin, and they’d be crushed if anything happened to me. And I believed him. They wouldn’t abandon me.

  Lifting my hand to my mouth, I chewed at the dried skin around my nails, planning my next move.

  I’d wanted to find out exactly where Hollan was keeping the memory stick before the guys arrived, but I couldn’t do that locked inside here. I needed to get Hollan or one of the others to let me out.

  With no sign of the guys arriving, I couldn’t sit here any longer. If nothing else, I could at least try to get information out of Hollan about where he was keeping the memory stick. I loathed being in the man’s presence, but once we got that memory stick back, I could take my ultimate revenge and kill the son of a bitch.