The photographs hung from chicken wire that crisscrossed above. Hundreds. She plucked a handful and saw the girls, wearing smiles for a stranger because their parents wanted a reminder at each stage.
And then she saw the marks on them.
Rough circles drawn above each head. Halos. She moved along, saw another row, unmarked. Saint felt her body chill as she looked at Misty. Saint counted a dozen photos. One showed Misty on the front of a newspaper. In another she was on the Sports page, her lacrosse stick loose by her side.
She heard a noise to her left.
Saint dropped the stack, moved on, quick till she came to the far wall.
It was only when she saw the bank of monitors on the wall, the grainy black-and-white video of a dozen cameras pinned around the house and the woodland, that she knew just what she had found.
On each screen she saw the rooms she had come from, the trees, a neater, nicer bedroom, and, finally, some kind of bunker, and there, on the mattress, a shape.
The generator died.
“I shouldn’t be here,” she whispered it, looking for calm in the sound of her own voice. “I want to go home.”
Saint inched slowly past the boxes, staying low.
She found a door and moved through into another room just as dark. The chemical smell grew stronger.
In the pocket of her overalls she found her book of matches and lit one.
She made out shapes and shadows, and for a moment allowed herself to calm before the gunshot almost broke her, the echo vicious as a bullet snapped the wall above her.
She heard laughter, like he was toying with her. Like he was hunting her.
Saint crashed into shelving and heard breaking glass as she dropped the book of matches and ran.
She found steps down into a wide tunnel that ran back in the direction of the main house. Saint moved fast and quiet, through the tunnel and up the stairs, and then she was back in the living room.
Saint looked at the front door open to the woodland, knew right then she should break and sprint for the trees, make it back to the highway and call for help.
And then she saw another door. And she thought of Patch, and what he would do if she was in trouble.
Saint opened the door. Stairs led back down underground like the whole compound had been built so Eli Aaron could move around without being seen. She hugged the wall as she descended into darkness, her slingshot up as she followed a tight turn.
She smelled earth and damp. The heat climbed. Sudden and humid.
Saint felt along the wall, found a light switch and flipped it.
For a moment she saw them.
A dozen tanks. The snakes looked wild, like he’d plucked them from the woodland only to keep them alive and captive. She knew some from her books. Copperhead. Massasauga rattlesnake.
The light flickered out.
“Patch,” she called.
She heard Eli Aaron on the stairs, following her, and so she ran deeper into the dark.
Another gunshot.
The sound blunted around her. Saint fell to her knees and crawled.
She closed her eyes tight.
She prayed for it to be over.