TWILIGHT CAST EVERYTHING in an eerie gray when we met Liam by the LARC, but if anything, Abby seemed more at ease than in the daylight. “Got us a key?” she demanded.
Liam produced a key ring. “I have to get these back into Dr. Kapoor’s coat pocket before morning or we’ll all be strung up for the birds,” he warned. “And be careful. Mikhail’s around here somewhere.”
“Is he dangerous?” Abby asked.
Liam looked troubled. “He was weird with Sophia,” he said. “And I’ve heard Dr. Kapoor tell Hardcastle something about not wanting to run into the warden while she was alone.”
“If she’s afraid of him, why employ him?” Abby wondered aloud, but Liam didn’t have an answer. She glanced over at me. “You going to be all right?”
I’d told them my sudden exit was indigestion. I didn’t think either of them believed me—but I’d heard Liam mutter something about a panic attack to Abby, and even that was better than the truth. Normal people had panic attacks. They didn’t have whatever it was that I did.
“Ready to go find some answers?”
“I’d settle for knowing what questions I should be asking,” I said.
She grimaced. “Sounds like something my boss would say.”
Inside, our shoes squeaked on the tiles. Good thing there was no one here to notice. “This way,” Liam said, stepping into the lead after shutting the door behind us. He brushed past Abby, and she stepped back with an annoyed look. Some people were like oil and water, and I was starting to suspect these were two of them. But I didn’t need them to be friends.
The light through the windows made it unnecessary to even turn on the lights. “I’m not used to this sneaking-around-before-dark thing,” Abby murmured as she walked beside me.
“Maybe we should have waited for the mist,” Liam said.
“You mean do the one thing that you’re warned not to from the moment you step on Bitter Rock?” I asked.
“Yeah, that,” Liam said with a little laugh.
“In my experience, there are three reasons for a rule like that,” Abby said. “One, everyone’s hiding something. Two, something supernatural is going to eat you if you disobey.”
“And three?” Liam asked.
“They don’t want you falling and breaking your neck with zero visibility, a bunch of sharp rocks, and no hospital in reach except by airlift,” Abby said.
“Fair. This is it,” Liam added, pointing at the door to the records room.
I knew the LARC kept paper records because I’d filled out a bunch on the first day. The internship was unpaid, which meant I didn’t have to add social security fraud to my résumé, but I’d had to supply a fair bit of personal info, most of which I’d made up on the spot.
The door was locked—with a standard lock rather than a keypad this time—and Liam spent several minutes trying various keys from the big ring before Abby jimmied it with a department store gift card (“More flex than a credit card, so it works better,” she explained). When she flicked on the light inside, I let out a breath. I don’t know what I had expected. Shadows and cobwebs, padlocks, something. Instead there was an orderly bank of filing cabinets against one wall. Metal shelving on the opposite side held boxes labeled in neat handwriting.
“Here we go: ‘Employment Records, Archived,’” Abby said, indicating the farthest file cabinet. “You want these, or the boxes?”
“Those’re all just old office supplies and that sort of thing,” Liam said. “No one stores anything important in here.”
“It’s not like they’re going to write ‘Damning Evidence’ on the side,” Abby pointed out.
“I’ll take the files,” I said. I wanted to be the one to find my mother’s file. To see her name. That belonged to me.
I opened the first cabinet, and Liam went to the opposite end of the row. I trailed my fingers over the tabs of the files, my eyes skipping over strangers’ names. I opened the next drawer and the next. Nothing. No Novak, Joy waiting for me to find. As if she had been snipped out of the history of the LARC entirely.
“She’s not here,” I said. I hadn’t meant to whisper, but it was as if there was a weight bearing down on me, diminishing even my voice. “Maybe—” Maybe I’d been wrong. But I knew she’d been here. There was the photo. There was the bird. There was the damn story—The Girl in the Boat, my existence reduced to a catchy title.
“Look at this.” I wasn’t sure if Abby hadn’t heard, or if she just didn’t know how to respond. Her voice was as blunt and forceful as always, not a hint of softness or consideration in it, but I was glad; the first time I caught a whiff of pity off her, I knew I’d stop trusting her.
She held out a large glossy photo print for Liam and me to inspect. I recognized the format immediately: a group photo in front of the LARC building, just like the ones in the foyer out front. This one was marked 2003. There were seven people, and I read their names one by one. Dr. Damien Breckenridge. Dr. Helen Whitcomb. Dr. William Hardcastle. Dr. Vanya Kapoor. Carolyn Baker. Martin Carreau. Joy Novak.
She was here. “Where was it?” I asked, failing to disguise the shaking in my voice.
“In a box labeled ‘Reimbursement Receipts 2005–2007,’” she said.
“Misfiled?” I asked.
“Not a chance,” Liam replied. “That’s my mother’s handwriting. And she does not misfile things.”
Abby grunted. “I’ll take your word for it. There’s some other stuff in there, but I think we should take it with us. We’ve been here long enough.” She took off the empty backpack she’d been carrying for this purpose. Just as she unzipped it, something clattered down the hall. We froze.
“Goddammit!” croaked a familiar voice. “Hello, hello, hello.”
I relaxed. “Moriarty,” I said.
Liam shook his head ruefully. “He’s likely picked the lock on his cage again, the little bastard. We can’t just leave him wandering the halls—last time he managed to injure himself.”
“I’ll pack up here; you two corral the bird,” Abby suggested. “We can meet up outside.”
“Don’t forget to lock the door behind you,” Liam said, and she waved a dismissive hand at him, turning back to the mislabeled box.
We exited the file room and looked in the direction I thought the sound had come from. With all the echoing it was hard to be sure—but then Moriarty gave a gurgling chuckle, settling any confusion. “Silly bird,” I murmured, and we headed down the hall.
“What do you think of her?” Liam asked as we walked.
“Who, Abby?” I shrugged. “She’s smart. Seems like she knows what she’s doing.”
“Just remember that you don’t have any reason to trust her,” Liam said.
“And what reason do I have to trust you, Liam Kapoor?” I asked.
“My good looks and ravishing accent,” he replied. I shook my head, chuckling, but there was a strain in his voice.
“Are you all right?” I asked him. “I know this is a lot.”
“That’s a hard question to answer, for me. Even in the most normal of times,” he confessed. “I often find that the moment I think the answer is yes, I’m about to fall into a hole again. All of this . . . It’s almost pleasant to have something to be afraid and angry about that’s real, and not just a chemical imbalance trying to mess with me.”
“I think I know what you mean,” I replied. “It’s not quite the same, but knowing that this is real, and that I haven’t been imagining it all my life? It’s weirdly a relief.”
“Three cheers for objectively real horrors,” Liam said wryly. This time neither of us laughed.
Moriarty was near the bathrooms, perched on the top of one of the ubiquitous stacks of plastic tubs and cardboard boxes that migrated around the LARC like glaciers of clutter.
Moriarty croaked and examined us with one black eye. “You’re not supposed to be out here,” I told him. He made another guttural caw.
“Come on, bird,” Liam said. “Let’s get you back to—”
Moriarty gave Liam a withering look, spread his wings, and launched himself down the hall. I threw myself back, avoiding the storm of black feathers and flashing talons. He didn’t get far before he thumped down on the ground, hopping along at a surprisingly fast gait.
“At least he’s heading in the right direction,” Liam said. “Maybe we can herd him.” We hustled along after the bird.
My foot slipped in a wet patch, nearly making me fall. Water had pooled on the floor. Random drips and patches of wet—and others that weren’t so random. Bare footprints traced a path along the hallway before vanishing. Moriarty crouched at the end of the trail, his wings hunched, his pupils narrowed to pinpricks.
“Liam,” I whispered, goosebumps prickling up my arms. “I don’t think we’re alone here.”
“Hello, little bird,” Moriarty said, but with the odd angle of his head, I couldn’t tell if he was looking at me or at my reflection in the window beside us. Liam motioned for me to stay still, and he crept around the other side of the bird. Then—
“Damn it, Moriarty,” a familiar voice said from around the corner, and Liam and I looked at each other in horror. Dr. Kapoor was here. What was she doing here in the middle of the night?
“I thought you put a combination lock on the cage,” Dr. Hardcastle said.
“Clearly that isn’t a foolproof solution,” she snapped back. “I’ll get him. You work on getting that equipment fixed. We can’t afford for it to fail with the way the mist’s been acting up.”
“Normal seasonal variation,” Hardcastle replied, sounding exasperated. They were getting close. They were going to come around the corner and find us. Liam’s face was a mirror of my own dread. We were on opposite sides of the hallway from where Hardcastle and Kapoor’s voices were coming. Go, I mouthed. I moved backward as quickly as I could without making a sound. I reached for the nearest door—Please be open, please be open.
It was. I slipped inside and shut the door slowly behind me, hoping Liam had found someplace to hide.
Only then did I get a look at the room I was in—and I frowned, puzzled. The room was filled with audio equipment, enough to stock a recording studio. There was a bank of monitors and computers that looked like they had enough computing power to put a man on Mars, and printouts strewn around or tacked up on the walls with what looked like sound waves and—satellite imagery? They were of the island, and the mist.
A window stretched along one side of the room, and on the other side was a shadowed chamber. I could make out several microphones, and something else—a birdcage, covered in a white cloth. A recording booth? Hardcastle was studying bird calls, but this seemed like overkill. I crept toward the window, the glass throwing back my dim reflection.
And then a footstep sounded outside the room. Hardcastle.
Something shifted at the corner of my vision. A trick of the light, but my eyes went to my reflection, wild-haired and waifish in the dim light, features indistinct. I touched the sleek braid that hung over my shoulder; my reflection mimicked the movement—but she didn’t have a braid, just that wild tangle of hair.
She crooked her finger toward me.
The reflected room around her was dark, the angles of the walls and ceiling barely perceptible. The doorknob began to turn.
“Little bird, little bird,” Moriarty croaked in the distance. I lifted my hand tentatively toward the reflection.
The door swung open. I spun around, trying to form a plausible excuse.
A hand grabbed my wrist and yanked hard.