The Orphan (32 page)

Raya woke up choking on water, her face and hair drenched. Soon as she cleared her throat and caught her breath, another blast hit her in the face. She turned away and tried to use her arms to push herself up, but her wrists were tied together, behind her back. Her feet were similarly bound. She was lying on a mattress of some kind, or a rubber pad. She coughed out more water and shook the drops from her eyes, sending a massive bolt of pain from her forehead to the back of her skull, pounding without mercy.

Something bad had happened to her. She remembered being at the party with Chad, asking for a cigarette, worrying about her parents, walking into the garden and then she… lost track.

Is that where it had happened, whatever it was? In the garden? That was the last thing she could remember. Something had been waiting for her in there, hadn’t it? She’d felt it, and now it had her. Something evil.

She was in a big dark room now, the ceiling two or three times higher than in a regular house. What was this? A warehouse? Keep calm, she told herself, keep calm until you know what’s happening. Breathe. Don’t say or do anything stupid.

‘She’s awake,’ a woman said from somewhere close, but not in front of her. ‘The kid is still conked out. I told you not to put that cord on too tight, you stupid old cow. Almost killed him before I cut him loose.’

Raya didn’t like the sound of this voice. The woman sounded her mom’s age but the voice was rougher, raw somehow, the voice of a lifelong smoker or a woman with too much testosterone in her system. Hard, mean, lacking all humanity.

‘Jes ’ill him now, why don’cha?’ a much older voice said, this one a man’s. ‘Please, darlin’, let us ’ill him now.’

This angered the woman. ‘No, goddamnit, I said. Not until we secure the prize.’

Chad? Were they talking about Chad? Oh God, they were going to kill Chad. Which meant they were probably going to kill her too. Someone had kidnapped them. Sick people here, at least two of them.

Raya tried to sit up a bit, but every time she moved another massive round of throbbing kicked inside her head. The pain was so severe she thought she was going to throw up. Before she leaned back, she peered across the room, a vast, almost empty space except for some kind of equipment at the far end. Rails going sideways, ropes hanging from the ceiling, stacks of something else she couldn’t make out, more mattresses maybe. She wanted to scream for help, scream Chad’s name to make sure he was okay, but she was afraid of setting them off.

Bootsteps click-clocked behind her, around to her right side, and a skinny form came into view, at the foot of whatever they had set her on. Who was this? Man or woman? Raya thought it was a woman but she couldn’t be sure. She was dressed in black, tight-fitting clothes. Wearing a black mask, or so it appeared. She looked down at Raya for a moment and Raya realized it wasn’t a mask, but tattoos, black make-up, some kind of patterns and symbols all over her cheeks and forehead, around her mouth. Her face was sharp, her nose a slim edge between closely set eyes.

Raya began to tremble. She couldn’t control it. It shook her legs and arms, made the rows of her teeth grate against each other.

‘Don’t fuss,’ the woman said. ‘If you try to get up or run, I’ll set these two on your handsome boyfriend here, who’s lucky to be alive. Understand me, little twat?’

Raya nodded quickly, and that hurt too. Tears swelled up and ran from her eyes. She squeezed her mouth shut, trying not to make a sound. Please, God, let Chad be safe. Please protect him from these people, whoever they are.

The woman had something in her hand. Short, black. A gun or a knife? She switched it from hand to hand as she talked, in the same emotionless tone as before.

‘We don’t care about either of you. We just want Adam. If he’s not here soon we will start the ceremony, and I promise you, he’ll feel that from twenty miles away. He’ll come. Only question is whether he gets here before I let Ethan and Miriam do what they want, which is a lot. You’re very pretty, you know that?’

Raya didn’t say anything.

‘Adam is lucky. I bet he loves you. I bet he loves you all kinds of ways, doesn’t he?’

Raya didn’t like the sound of that, but her mind was swimming in another direction. She was trying to piece this together. They wanted Adam, the boy her dad had been obsessed with. Did that mean he was real? Had her dad done something to him to make these crazy people angry? What could he have done to deserve this?

The crazy woman kicked Raya’s leg, just above the ankle. She must have been wearing boots, because it felt like she’d been hit in the calf muscle with a hammer. She cried out and the woman kicked her again, harder.

‘Please…’ Raya said. ‘I’m sorry!’ Please don’t hurt —’

‘Answer me, bitch. Does he love you? Does he touch you the way he used to touch me? Did he teach you what you needed to learn to be a woman?’

No, Raya wanted to scream, but she sensed this was not the answer the psycho lady wanted to hear. She didn’t want to get caught in a lie but she couldn’t bring herself to agree with what this monster was suggesting.

‘I don’t know him,’ Raya blurted. ‘I don’t know who Adam is.’

‘Uuugghhh,’ the woman growled, lunging toward Raya. ‘Don’t fucking lie to me! We know where he lives. We’ve been inside his house. He got rich and thinks he’s special now, but he’s a Burkett, just like us. He thinks he got away, but you can’t escape who you are. You didn’t escape, did you, spoiled twat?’

Raya pressed herself into the mattress. She wished she could disappear through the floor. Working her hands behind her tailbone, she tried to feel her way around the cord. It wasn’t rope. Or tape. It was thin, cutting into her skin like a wire. Her fingertips brushed against a hard line between her wrists, plastic notches. If she didn’t get free soon, this woman was going to lose control and kill her. But the cord wouldn’t budge.

The woman stood back. She spat and something warm and sticky hit Raya in the cheek, across her nose. ‘Your daddy’s a dead man,’ she said. ‘You’re all dead. Do you know that? We’re going to take everything he’s got, we’re going to drain your blood, clean out the entire family line, and I will be the last thing you ever see.’

Raya cried harder, and she couldn’t tell whether she was faking it or not. She had decided to let the woman think she was too scared to try anything, but this was also true, she was terrified. Even so, she continued to swipe at the cord with her fingertips, testing the band around her wrists, using all the strength she could muster without showing it. But still the cord would not give an inch.

The woman walked behind her, out of sight.

‘You don’t know Adam,’ she said. ‘But I do. We all do.’

Her clothing creaked as she kneeled, her mouth suddenly close against Raya’s ear. She tried to turn away but the woman yanked her by the hair and pressed her lips to Raya’s cheeks, mashing into her, her hands running along her throat, lower, squeezing her breasts hard, pinching her skin, pulling it, and Raya shrieked. She thrashed, but the woman was too strong. She dragged her tongue across Raya’s lips and up the side of her cheek, to her ear. Licking and licking like a dog.

‘He burned us out,’ the woman said. ‘Tried to burn me like them, but we escaped. Because we’re stronger. He’s no Saturn. Never was. When he comes for you, he’s going to learn what it feels like to be burned by your own kin.’

The woman bit into Raya’s ear, her teeth like a blade, drawing blood. She licked the ear again quickly, moaned with pleasure, then shoved Raya’s head aside. She stood and her footsteps went the other way.

‘Now!’ an old woman said. ‘We did our job, let us do it now!’

Raya flashed back on the old woman in the back seat of the car. Her ruined face. The corpse-looking thing sitting up in the car.

‘All right. A taster to hold you over. Take her clothes off, Ethan,’ the young woman said. ‘No more than that. If you jump the gun, the gun’s gonna shoot you, I promise.’

The older ones, the ones Raya could not see, began to squeal with excitement.

Adam came back, but it wasn’t like before, waking up in the woods. This time he woke up in a house, on his feet, and there was a woman screaming right in front of him. She was on her knees, hanging over a bed, clawing at the sheets.

Adam looked back down the hall. He remembered the house. He knew who this must be – Darren Lynwood’s wife, Beth. Something terrible had happened. She was shrieking. Darren wasn’t home, otherwise he would be with her. He looked around the room, taking it in. The pretty bed, the girl’s clothes everywhere, posters of bands on the walls. This must be their daughter’s room. Raya, her name was Raya, the one he had seen in his dreams of a new family. But Raya wasn’t here, so this must be the problem. Something bad had happened to Raya.

The monsters had come for him, and when they couldn’t find him, they took Darren’s daughter. All because of Adam.

‘Why did you do this?’ Beth cried into the bed. But it seemed like she was yelling at him. ‘How could you let this happen? Where is she? What have they done to her?’

Adam didn’t know if Beth – Mrs Lynwood – knew he was here. He didn’t know what to say. He only knew he couldn’t run away this time.

Something in his hand. He looked at it. A note. He recognized the handwriting. He knew who it was. He remembered them. His mother and father and his sister. They were supposed to be dead, like him, but they weren’t. Somehow they had survived the fire. They wanted him. They were holding Darren’s daughter hostage. Bring Adam to school – that meant Crest View. Had to be their elementary school. Crest View seemed right, because it was close to home, to the trailer court where they had burned, and because he and his sister had hated school. Hate was power for her, and the school was filled with dark memories, ill will, the teasing and cruel things the other kids had done to her, to both of them. How she used to wet herself in class, only to be laughed at and sent home, their angry mother shouting at the teachers, causing a spectacle in front of the class, making it worse.

Sheila would have chosen home if it hadn’t burned to the ground, and probably been replaced by a new house by now. School was the next-best thing. For her.

She was going to use it somehow.

‘I know where she is,’ Adam said. ‘I can get her back.’

Mrs Lynwood pushed herself up and grabbed him by the shirt, yanking him back and forth, screaming at him. ‘What have you done? Why didn’t you tell me? You lied to me! None of this would have happened if you told me the truth!’ She raged and swore at him, babbling her fury.

‘I’m sorry,’ was all Adam could say. ‘I’m sorry, Mrs Lynwood. I’ll go find her. They want me, not her. I’ll get her for you.’

Mrs Lynwood stopped shaking him and stared, her eyes wet and swollen red. She was beautiful, the mother he’d always wished he had, and his stomach churned for how sad and frightened he’d made her. She studied his face, placing a palm on his cheek.

‘Even now?’ she said. ‘You’re still doing it? Do you think this is a game?’

‘No, I —’

She slapped him hard across the mouth. Again. A third time, until he tasted blood and his ears rang.

‘Stop it! Stop playing games!’ she screamed at him. ‘This is our daughter’s life at stake!’

Adam let her slap him over and over. He forced himself to stand still and take it, but he tried to warn her. ‘I have to go now, as soon as possible. I will get her back. They just want me, Mrs Lynwood, I promise.’

She reared back and laughed, but her laughter turned into another scream. She pushed past him, moving down the hall, into the living room and then the kitchen. He ran after her. She reached for the phone, started to dial.

‘Who are you calling?’ he said.

‘The police, who do you think?’

‘Don’t do that. You can’t.’

‘Watch me.’

‘If you call the police, they will kill her.’

She hesitated, fingers on the cordless phone. She stared at him, her face drawn, pale. She began to moan like a wounded animal.

‘They will kill her,’ he said again, slowly, forcefully, to make sure she understood. ‘They will cut her open and dig out her organs. They are monsters, Mrs Lynwood. I’ve seen them do it. I was there that night, at the Kavanaughs’. They used to practice on homeless people when we were kids. Sheila is as bad as they are. Probably worse now. You really can’t call the police. Don’t do it.’

She couldn’t speak. She stared at him again, deep into his eyes. ‘It’s you,’ she said. She looked him up and down. ‘It’s really you.’

Adam looked down, to his dirty jeans and ruined sneakers, his faded Creature From the Black Lagoon T-shirt. He didn’t understand what she meant. Who else would he be?

‘Adam?’ she said. ‘Is that you, Adam Burkett?’

‘I’m sorry we had to meet this way, Mrs Lynwood.’

This seemed to calm her somewhat. She was still scared, but she spoke quietly, choosing her words carefully. ‘Where’s Darren? What happened to him? Can you tell me where he goes?’

‘I don’t know,’ Adam said. ‘He’s not home with you? Did he go look for her? Does he know? I tried to tell him about them but I never knew if he believed me.’

Mrs Lynwood looked around the living room, toward the bedroom, as if she were expecting Darren to appear at any moment.

‘I didn’t hurt him,’ Adam said. ‘I would never do that.’

‘Who are they? Who took our… my daughter? Are they your parents?’

‘Yes, and my sister,’ Adam said. ‘We have to go. Can you drive me to Crest View? I’d take one of the bikes, but it will be faster if you drive me.’

‘We have to call the police. You can’t, not like this… you’re a child.’

‘I know them better than anyone,’ Adam said. ‘No police. They will never surrender. They will kill her and themselves before they ever let the police take them.’

‘Oh my God. Oh my God.’

He took the car keys from the counter and handed them to her. ‘You don’t have to go inside. In fact, I can’t let you. I have to go alone. It will be safer that way. But can you drop me off at the school?’

She nodded slowly. He knew she was in shock, too scared to think clearly, and he would have to help her. She accepted the keys. ‘But what are you going to do? How can you deal with them?’

He forced himself to sound a lot more confident than he felt. ‘I know their weaknesses. Just get me there. The rest will be okay.’

She started to cry once more, then swallowed it. ‘Are you sure? There’s no other way? You can’t be wrong, Adam. Not about this.’

‘I’m sure. But I need my backpack. Is it still here?’

Mrs Lynwood shook her head. I don’t know.

‘Maybe he left it in the Firebird,’ Adam said. ‘I need it. We can’t go without the stuff in the backpack.’

They went into the garage. Adam’s backpack was on the passenger seat. He checked inside, to make sure everything was in its place.

‘It’s all here,’ he told her. ‘Let’s go.’

They got into the wagon and backed out. Mrs Lynwood had never been to Crest View, but Adam pointed the way for her. It was a good thing he’d stopped there to steal the bike recently, otherwise he might not have been able to find it, not at night anyway. They drove up 19th Street.

She asked, ‘Was it you? Are you the one who stole the groceries at Safeway a few days ago?’

Adam felt himself blush with shame. He looked down. ‘Yes.’

‘And the running away at night. Sleeping outside. You’ve been doing that?’

‘Yes.’

‘For how long?’

‘I don’t know,’ he said. ‘Every night feels like the first time. But then, sometimes it feels like I’ve been running for ever.’

She looked away from him, shaking her head.

When they arrived, the clock inside the station wagon said it was 4:42 in the morning. The parking lot was empty. The low little school looked like a flattened prison in the night, its long rows of windows all black.

‘What if they’re not here?’ Mrs Lynwood said, easing into the parking lot. Her hands were shaking. She kept squeezing the steering wheel, it seemed, to keep herself from flying apart. ‘They could have taken her anywhere.’

‘They’re here,’ he said.

‘How do you know?’

‘I can feel them.’

She pointed at the school. ‘Does that mean they can feel you too?’

‘Yes.’

‘Because you’re different. You have something the other kids don’t. Is that right?’

Adam nodded.

‘She got it from you,’ Mrs Lynwood whispered, covering her eyes. ‘I didn’t want to see it, but she’s like you.’

‘Who got it?’

‘Raya’s hunches,’ Mrs Lynwood said.

He gave her a questioning look.

‘You don’t remember – no, of course not. Our daughter has it too. Like you and your family. Something different, a sense of things that haven’t happened yet. She got it from yo – from Darren.’

Adam’s thoughts spun in confusion. Darren Lynwood had it too? Is that why they were connected? A vision flashed behind his eyes. For a moment he saw the log in the mountains, the woods where he had been hiding. In the trees was another boy, a boy in a Patterson Racing jersey. Was it him? For a moment it was like looking into a mirror, the two boys were one, and then the boy moved and the same boy split in two —

‘I could ask you questions all night. But we don’t have all night, do we?’

Adam blinked away the confused memories. ‘No. I’m sorry. I’m going in.’

He pushed the door open. Mrs Lynwood opened her door too.

‘No,’ he said, reaching for her. ‘You can’t.’

‘I’m not letting you go after her alone.’

‘You have to. If they see anyone else, they will kill her instantly.’

‘Stop saying that, please stop saying that.’

‘I’ll get her back,’ Adam said. ‘I promise you that. But if this is going to work, you need to stay here and wait.’

Something in his eyes must have convinced her. She shut her door.

‘Ten minutes,’ she said. ‘No, five. You get a head start, and then I’m coming to get my daughter, do you understand me?’

‘Yes, ma’am.’

Adam exited the car and shut the door quietly. He pulled the straps of his backpack tight against his chest. Ducking as low as he could while still moving on his feet, he jogged to the school’s front doors. Being quiet and trying to mask his arrival wouldn’t matter, he knew, but he couldn’t help it.

They were expecting him, and they would be prepared.