Amber

Chapter 9

Hailey

November 4, 2015

The smell is awful.

It's everywhere.

I didn't notice it at first because I was so struck by the cold and focusing on how not to be in the worst pain of my life. But now as I drift out of my daze, it hits me like the baseball bat—as an explosion that keeps coming in waves, stronger every time. It's a combination of odors pulled together and attacking as one. Sewage and dumpster water airing in a gym locker room set on fire and filtered straight into my lungs. It strangles me, choking my breath out into the cold air.

This is probably what death smells like. I must be getting close.

After a few failed tries, I gain my feet and move around the space, trying to place together all of the moments that led me here. My mind is jumbled. Everything is backward or upside down or opposite of how I think it should be. Like I've assembled the right puzzle using all the wrong pieces.

I glance down and watch the girl as she moves, slowly at first, turning over like someone waking from a gentle dream—all defiant and unwilling to return to reality.

I reach for her, not knowing what else to do or say, but as soon as my hand grabs hers she swipes at me with the other and lets out a terrifying scream that brings all of the ringing back as I hobble away, stumbling into a wall—or—something hard with jagged edges that rips into my side. I instantly feel the blood trickling down.

More blood. Great. At least it's warm.

I fall to my knees, my hands again finding the powdered cold stone and sending a surge of pain through my shoulder as I grip at the new wound above my waist on my right side. I actually want to feel the pain—to focus on it instead of thinking about the smell ...

God, the smell. What is that? Did somebody die in here? It's even stronger here by the floor. Stand up. Move away from it.

I move back toward the girl, crawling and then forcing my body into standing. She's stopped screaming now. Even with her starlit skin, I still can't see well enough to find her face until I'm only a few feet away.

Christ, her face. What the hell has he done to her?

She's standing now—completely still as if unaware of the cold. She's wearing shoes—or, no ... maybe her feet are just that dirty. Her legs are exposed below her knees. She's wearing a dress. How is she not frozen solid? Her arms are bare too, and she's wearing what appear to be gloves. (More dirt.) Her hair dangles in knotted curls of dust and cobwebs and something that I can only assume is dried blood. The strands don't cover enough of her face for me not to see all of the deep lines of red—the openings in the skin around her cheeks, forehead, and under her chin. She looks like someone tried to carve her into a million pieces.

My eyes fall, seeing that her arms and legs are striped in places as well.

I start shaking, but not from the cold this time.

"Who are you? What are you doing here?" she asks in a whisper of a voice that sounds as broken as her body.

"I'm ... Hailey." I try to force myself to stop shaking, but it only makes it worse. "I'm ... I don't—I was brought here. I'm not sure ..." I say, trailing off. I start to wonder how she sees me and if I appear as bright to her as she does to me. "You're Lauren, right?"

She doesn't answer.

"They talk about you on the news," I say, whispering to match her tone in case she was doing it to keep him from listening. "They call you the missing girl."