But she didn’t want to think about that.

Thinking about the red room made her want to die. 

She’d tried to kill herself once. Had slit her wrists with a piece of broken brick. The man had been so angry when he found her. He’d wrapped her wrists to stop the bleeding. Every day, he’d returned to the room to make sure the cuts didn’t get infected, and every day, he’d made her pay for her attempt to escape her prison. Made her pay so badly, she’d never tried again.

Thunder boomed outside and she slid to the center of the room, curling her arms around her legs. Her right foot throbbed from the minimal movement. Maybe it was broken, but as long as it couldn’t get infected, the man didn’t care. Her teeth began to chatter, and she hoped the storm was short. She wouldn’t be able to stand on her foot, not for more than a minute.

As the water began to creep into the room, she squeezed her arms tighter around her legs and prayed. God hadn’t heard her yet, but he was the only thing she had left.

Shaye bolted upright in bed as thunder shook her bedroom walls. She squinted a bit as the bedroom light hit her eyes, then zeroed in on the baseboards, looking for water. The old hardwood floors were as dry as a bone. She flopped back onto her pillow and blew out a breath. Lately, every time it rained, she had the same dream. So far, most of the summer thunderstorms had rolled through the city during the day, but a few had broken the night stillness with booming thunder and pounding rain.

She closed her eyes, wondering if she’d be able to get back to sleep, but with every roll of thunder, her heartbeat ticked up a notch. She flung back the covers and walked down the hall and into the kitchen. It was a short walk and an easy one. No light switches to fumble around for in the dark. The only time Shaye was in the dark was when the power went out, and even then, she had a lantern and a whole nightstand drawer full of flashlights, located right above the drawer filled with batteries.

No complete darkness. No candles. Not ever.

She grabbed a bottled water from the refrigerator and flopped down on the couch. The television was mounted on the wall in front of her, but the cable guy wasn’t due until tomorrow, so right now, it was just a big black monitor, providing no distraction whatsoever. At least the Internet guy had made a call that afternoon. Television she could do without for a night or two, but having no Internet was akin to having no hot water. It just wasn’t a livable sort of thing.

She rubbed the bottle of water across her forehead. The air-conditioning in the apartment was good, but the humidity from the storms made the air inside stale and muggy. Her laptop sat on the end table where she’d left it before she went to bed, so she flipped it open and fired up a movie on Netflix. At least it provided a little bit of noise to drown out the storm.

Staring at the dark television in front of her, she tried to force her mind from the dream but she couldn’t. Was it real? She had no doubt the girl in the dream was her, but what she didn’t know was if the dream was true. Had that really happened to her? Was that the reason she was terrified of the dark and hated even the sight of a candle? Or did she fear those things for other reasons and the dream was a made-up story that her mind had created? Its way of expelling her demons?

Would she ever know?

She blew out a breath. Eleonore told her that her mind had blocked the past in order to protect her from a mental break. Given the extent of her physical injuries, Shaye had no doubt that was true, but Eleonore also thought that one day, when she was strong enough, she might start to remember. The problem was, right now, everything Shaye saw was only in her dreams. Nothing flashed through her mind or caught her attention when she was awake. Only when she was sleeping did the darkness creep in.

The dream felt real. She could feel the terror the girl felt, the horribly painful throbbing of her foot, the awful desperation when she began to pray.

Shaye’s foot had been broken. It was one of the many things she’d had surgery to fix after she’d gone to live with Corrine. Two long scars across her wrists indicated a suicide attempt, and one made by a child who had seen it in the movies but didn’t know that you should cut long ways if you were serious about dying. But again, were those things that she knew to be true manifesting themselves in her dream, or was the dream giving her a glimpse of her past?

As much as the dreams terrified her, she hoped they were real. Because if she never remembered, then the people who’d done this to her would get away with it.

###

Emma hurried across the hospital parking lot, one of the hospital security guards in tow. Jeremy Walker was a nice man and more importantly, a big man and a retired cop. When her shift had ended, she’d sought him out specifically and asked if he would walk her to her car. It was a little after 2:00 a.m., and most of the city had shut down for the night. But it was midweek. Come the weekend, at 2:00 a.m., some parties would just be getting started.

“How you doing tonight, Miss Frederick?” Jeremy asked as they walked.

“I’m doing all right,” Emma said. “Thanks for asking.”

“I’m glad to hear it. You’ve had a rough time of it lately, and I’m sorry for that.”

“Things will get better, right? Isn’t that what you always tell the victims—that time heals everything?”

“I reckon that’s what we say.”

Emma looked up at him. “You don’t think it’s true?”

Jeremy frowned, his dark eyes troubled. “I don’t guess I do. I don’t think there’s enough time to repair some things. Some things just become part of a person, like their skin color. It doesn’t have to define them, but it’s always with them.”

“That’s an interesting way to look at it, and I agree with you. I don’t doubt that at some point I’ll be as happy as I was before, but I don’t think I’ll ever be the same, if that makes sense.”

“Yes, ma’am, it does. Most people go through life with a false sense of security…until something happens. Then you start to take a closer look at the way you do everything and the risks involved.”

“Like walking to my car alone at night in a dark parking lot?” Emma smiled.

“Two weeks ago, you’d have been waving and hurrying out that door without so much as a backward glance.”

Emma stopped in front of her car. “Well, I appreciate you walking me out here.”

“Any time. And I mean that. You don’t go traipsing around here like you’re some superhero. They gave me a badge and a gun for a reason.”

Emma placed her hand on his arm and gave it a squeeze. “You’re the best, Jeremy.”

He smiled. “I’m going to tell my wife you said so. Sometimes she needs a reminder. Now, go on and get out of here.”

He took a couple steps back from her car but stood and waited as she pressed the button to unlock her car door. Clearly, Jeremy didn’t consider the job done until he saw taillights. She pulled on the door handle, but the car was still locked. She pressed the button again, waiting to hear the click that indicated the lock has disengaged, but it never made a sound. She pulled on the handle again, just to be sure, but it didn’t budge.

“Is something wrong?” Jeremy asked.

“The keyless entry isn’t working. Something else to take care of, I guess.” She pulled her car keys out of her purse, disengaged the slave key, and manually opened the car door. “I can’t remember the last time I used a key to do this.”

Jeremy nodded as he pulled her door open. “Technology has taken over the world. Not that I’m complaining, mind you. I’m not one of those old people always bitching about progress. Last night I talked to my granddaughter in Tokyo on the computer. Nope, you won’t hear me complaining at all.”