PROLOGUE

•   •   •

Light.

Piercing. Stabbing at his eyes like a thousand shards of glass. Blinding.

He blinks once. Twice. Thrice. Rapidly then, fluttering his eyelids as if they were wings attempting to take flight.

Slowly, like the melting of ice, the light fades into a dull monotonous haze. Concrete walls, water-stained and dirt gray, surround him. Exposed pipes encased in flaking asbestos form a grid along the concrete ceiling. The room is windowless, at least as far as he can tell. Despite its drab appearance, the place is clean. No cobwebs decorate the ceiling; no dust collects on the pipes.

He’s on his back. The table upon which he lies is as cold and hard as a slab of granite. His head throbs along the right side, just above the ear. He tries to move, to sit, but his arms and legs are bound. The more he strains against his bonds, the more his head hurts. And as the throbbing intensifies, the light fades even more. Soon the light is gone and all that remains is the throbbing. Like his heart has been transplanted to his head. He wonders if that has been the case, if he’s been the subject of a sick and twisted experiment performed by some devotee of Dr. Frankenstein himself.

Soon, the throbbing too begins to fade; the heartbeat weakens. And then all is gone and there is only stillness, dark nothingness.

He awakens in the woods, standing alone in the middle of the day in a thick forest. Trees —pines, mostly Douglas fir —stretch upward, reaching over a hundred feet above the forest floor and spreading their broad limbs into an impenetrable canopy. Only a few bars of muted light make it past the canopy of needles and reach the forest floor. The musky smell of pine hangs thick in the cool air. He closes his eyes and draws in a deep breath.

He’s had the dream again, the dream of torture, of bondage, of feeling alone and desperate. Lost.

A rustle to his right draws his attention. A woman steps out from behind a tree. His wife, Karen. She’s dressed in jeans and a thick maroon sweatshirt, boots and a knit hat. She approaches him quietly, head tilted back, face upward, studying the piney ceiling. She leans her head on his chest.

“You’ve had the dream, haven’t you?” she says. Her voice is sweet and soft but laced with concern.

He smells her hair and nods. “Yes.”

“The one with the headache?”

Again, he nods. “Is it real? Did it really happen?”

She presses her face into his chest and tightens her hold on his waist. “I don’t know. There’s so much we don’t know.”

“I hate not knowing.”

Karen raises her head and meets his eyes. “You don’t have to know. You have us now —me and Lilly. We’re together and nothing is going to change that.”

Lilly. His daughter. Just eight but so full of wisdom and insight. He scans the forest for her, but she is nowhere to be found. He releases his hold on Karen and turns a complete circle, searching every shadow and shaded place, panic now clutching at his chest like two bony hands.

His breathing increases; his palms begin to sweat; his heart begins to pound. The headache is there again. The throb. The panic.

“Where’s Lilly?”

But Karen says nothing.

He faces his wife and reaches out to her, takes hold of her shoulder. “Karen, where is Lilly?”

Karen’s eyes fill with tears. Her chin tightens and lips tremble. Slowly she shakes her head.

“Where is she, Karen?”

Tears spill from Karen’s eyes and make tracks down her cheeks. “She’s gone, Jed. She’s gone.”

Jed Patrick jolts awake and opens his eyes. Once more, the light is there, bringing with it the pain, the stabbing, poker-like sting. He closes his eyes and opens them to just a sliver. He’s in the concrete room with the asbestos pipes. Still bound. Still fighting the throb along the right side of his skull. But this time something is wrong. The room is a blur; the colors run together like watercolors. He can see the outline of the pipes above but cannot make out any of their details.

A man appears then, fuzzy, out of focus. He has a large head and wears dark glasses. No other features are distinguishable. When he speaks, his voice is high-pitched and whiny, almost feminine in tone.

“Wakey, wakey, Sergeant Patrick. Welcome back.”

Jed opens his mouth to speak, but no words come. His throat is as dry as paper and his tongue as clumsy as if it were disconnected from the rest of his mouth.

“Don’t try to speak just yet. You need your rest.” The man’s voice carries a thick Russian accent. “The procedure was a success, and we’ll begin testing as soon as you recover.”