He rounded the cabin from the north in the mid-morning light, and stood on the back deck. As he breathed out, the warmth and moisture from his breath fogged the air. He stared out over the lake. The edges were still covered with a fine layer of ice, and the weeds and reeds were frozen in place. The air smelled strongly of pine and cedar. Morning sun broke the top of the mountains to the far east. It gleamed on the cold, calm waters of the lake.

It was the perfect day. The kind of morning every skier and snowboarder craved all season long. Crisp, clear, cold. It should have been beautiful.

But the Adder could focus on none of this. All he saw was one bad memory. And the images in his head. Ones that had once been terrifying but now seemed like faded stills from a different life. A different world.

And in some sense, that was exactly what they were.

The sliding glass door opened behind him with a soft rolling sound.

‘Gabriel,’ a feminine voice said. Soft, and with emotion. With relief. And the Adder immediately knew it to be Dalia. She was the only one who cared. The only one who had ever cared. She came up behind him and wrapped her arms around his chest, then let loose a gasp and shivered. ‘You’re so cold,’ she said softly. ‘Come inside. Later on, I’ll help you warm up.’

He said nothing; he merely turned around and walked with her towards the cabin. Before entering, he stopped.

Thought.

He knelt down and removed the DVD from his pocket. It was Disc 1, the only copy he had left, and the only one that truly mattered. He slid it beneath the porch steps, far into the back where it was out of view. Then he stood up and moved into the warmth of the cabin. He’d barely stepped foot on the ceramic tile when the smell of green tea hit him. And then the Doctor came storming into the kitchen. Her eyes were set and dark, her face so tight it looked bloodless.

‘It’s about time – you fool,’ she said.

Dalia stepped forward. ‘Mother, please—’

‘To your room, girl.’

‘But Mother—’

‘To your room!’

Lexa Ostermann stepped forward and gave the Girl a backhanded strike – a sharp, hard SLAP! that resonated like the crack of a whip. Dalia recoiled from the blow and grabbed her cheek. Sobbing, she spun from the kitchen and raced up the stairs to the second floor of the cabin.

The Adder watched her go, but did nothing. A strange tingling sensation was tickling the back of his mind. His heart. His entire body.

And he did not like it.

‘You’re a fool,’ the Doctor continued. ‘Everything, ruined. Years of work, ruined. Our family, ruined!’

‘I did nothing.’

‘Your videos,’ she said, and there was ice in her words. ‘They are what set everything off. Your father, dead. The police, hunting us down. Like animals, Gabriel. Like animals!’

He said nothing, and his silence only seemed to infuriate her more.

‘Outside. Now.’

He looked out of the sliding glass door. ‘There is no reason.’

‘You know the rules.’

‘But there is no well here,’ he started, then he saw the lake.

‘Outside,’ the Doctor ordered. ‘I will not tell you again.’

The Adder said nothing for a long moment, then he nodded absently and walked back out through the door. The moment he left the kitchen, the cold wind slapped his face. Sharp, stinging, burning his skin and eyes. He marched across the slippery wooden porch, down the steps and across the small back yard. The frozen blades of grass crunched beneath his feet. Then he was at the edge of the lake. Memories of the past deluged him. Memories of William.

He could not bear it.

‘Take off your clothes,’ the Doctor ordered.

Mechanically, the Adder did as instructed, folding them neatly and placing the articles one on top of the other. Shoes, then pants, then shirt. When he was completely naked – when the winter wind was cutting into him like an icy blade – the Doctor stepped closer.

‘Into the lake.’

Without so much as a word, the Adder stepped forward until the soles of his feet touched the thin ice of the lake. The ice cracked, and broke beneath his weight, and the sounds of laughter grew in his ears and the image of William was suddenly there before his eyes. A little boy running and giggling on the lake.

He stopped moving.

‘Into the lake,’ the Doctor said again.

But this time, the Adder did not respond.

‘I order you into the lake.’

The Adder turned. Faced her.

‘No,’ he said. ‘I will not do this any more.’ And for the first time in his memory – the first time since William’s death – the Adder felt more than alive, he felt awake.

The Doctor’s face took on a shocked look, and then she nodded slowly. ‘I always knew this day would come, Gabriel. Very well then. You have finally left the past behind you. Pick up your clothes and join me in the cabin. We have much to discuss.’

The Adder nodded. He bent over to pick up his clothes and suddenly sensed movement beside him. He turned – but was far too slow. A sharp pricking sensation stung his neck, and he knew the needle had gone in.

He jerked backwards, stunned, and felt a strange hot warmth rush from his neck down his arms. The flow carried on through his body, down his legs, and even up into the top of his head – a strange numb warmth. Almost immediately, his muscles grew weak and he felt himself folding inwards. His legs trembled, then gave out, and he collapsed on the edge of the lake.

A strange, distorted sound filled the air, and the Adder realized it was the Doctor. She was laughing at him. One second there was only white sun and blue sky above him; the next moment, the Doctor was there, looking down at him with a dark smile on her lips.

‘Mivacurium chloride,’ she said. ‘How does it feel to be on the receiving end, for a change?’

The Adder could not speak. He looked up at her melting face and tried to respond, tried to say something – what, he had no idea – but his lips would not move.

‘There is a certain set order, Gabriel,’ the Doctor continued. ‘A hierarchy. And you need to remember your place within it.’

The mask she wore crumbled away in pieces, and the Adder saw her for everything that she was. Everything she had always been.

The monster beneath.

He felt her grab his legs. Felt his body being dragged along the ground. There was a wet, cold feeling surrounding his legs and hips, and he knew she had left him in the lake. Cold. So terribly cold. And the sky was black and growing blacker by the second. After a while, the sky faded. And eventually the sun burned out, leaving him with nothing but black.

Eighty-Two

Felicia hung up the phone. ‘Nothing comes back,’ she said.

Striker cursed. ‘Nothing?’

‘Zilch. The only address the registrar’s office has on file is their house on Belmont.’

Striker thought this over. ‘What about using EvenHealth as an entity?’ he asked.

‘Already one step ahead of you. EvenHealth as an entity comes back to every clinic the programme is associated with – and there’s more than two dozen all across the city. Not to mention the rest of the Lower Mainland. How many clinics there are out there in total, I have no idea.’

Striker frowned. It left them with nothing. All they had was a house where Lexa and her children had fled from, and a pair of speeding tickets from the Whistler Village area.

He met Felicia’s stare. ‘If you were Lexa Ostermann and you needed somewhere to store some extra cash and ID, where would you go?’

‘A PO box.’

‘Agreed. But a post office box is only accessible during business hours. Normal people like you and me could always wait till the next business day, but someone involved in a scam like this would have to run at a moment’s notice. So where else would you go?’