Ghost Heart

by Ripley Patton

  I searched the bottom of the mural for an artist’s signature, but there wasn’t one.

  But there was a title. Scrawled across the bottom in glowing blue letters were the words GHOST HEART.

  17

  OLIVIA

  We had to work together to get the ball gag off. I had Grant bend over the cement slab, facing away from me. Then I sat down, my back to his head, so my cuffed hands could work the straps. When I finally felt them give, I slipped my fingers between the leather and his hair, loosening it along his skull. He took a deep breath and blew out, spewing the ball from his mouth. Then he ducked his head, tossing the whole thing off onto the floor.

  “Fuck that,” he growled, kicking the damn thing into the corner. When he sat up fully, his shoulder brushed mine, warm and solid.

  I looked up and found him staring down at me, his eyes swimming with emotion.

  “I thought you were dead,” he said. “Again.”

  “I thought you were dead too. I don’t think I’ve ever been so happy to see anyone in my life.”

  “Me neither,” he grinned, and I reveled in it. There we were, the two of us, handcuffed, imprisoned, and recently tortured by CAMFers, and we were grinning at each other like two kids reunited at summer camp. I felt almost high, giddy because I wasn’t alone anymore. Grant was here with me.

  But suddenly his face grew pained and serious.

  “Olivia,” he said, looking away. “What happened—what I did at Shades—I was a complete idiot. I never should have—”

  “Hey,” I said, nudging his shoulder. “Look at me.”

  And he did, his blue eyes locking with mine.

  “You were a complete idiot,” I agreed. “And I forgive you. We have bigger things to worry about than a sloppy kiss stolen in the dark.”

  “Sloppy?” he asked, a smile dancing at his lips again.

  “You want to argue that point?” I smiled back.

  “No.” He said, all serious again. “I just want you to know you’re safe with me. I would never hurt you or force you to do anything. And if it came off like that, I’m truly sorry.”

  “Apology accepted,” I said.

  The silence grew between us. Maybe he was thinking about Marcus, or wondering what had happened to Passion and the others. But I didn’t want to talk about it.

  Thankfully, he didn’t ask. Instead, he looked around the cell and said, “This is exactly like the one I was in.”

  “Do you know what level you were on?”

  “Not sure, but I’d never taken the elevator until today.”

  “So, probably the upper level. Were the others up there too?”

  “I have no idea. I didn’t even know there were others until a couple of hours ago when a guard gagged me, pulled me from my cell, and chained me to them. Did you—do you know any of them?”

  “No.” I looked down at my feet. After all the isolation I’d endured, all the abuse, it felt surreal having a normal conversation with Grant. I kept wanting to pinch myself to make sure it wasn’t a dream. But it also felt freeing and right. “I mean, I remember seeing them at the Eidolon, but I didn’t know them.”

  “Me neither,” he said.

  “What did they do to you?” I was afraid to hear his answer, but I needed to know.

  “They questioned me a lot.” Now he was looking down at his feet, at the shackles and chains still attached to his ankles. “Mostly about you. I wish I could say I held out, but I told them pretty much everything I knew.”

  “Even about the time we made-out in your garage?” I teased, wanting to take the pain in his voice away.

  “Well no, not that.” He looked up, grinning. “You swore me to secrecy, remember?”

  “Yeah, and then you turned around and told Emma the very next day.”

  “It wasn’t the next day,” he protested. “I think she wheedled it out of me a few days later. But that was your fault. The hickey you gave me wasn’t exactly subtle.”

  “Oh my God,” I said, shoving him with my shoulder. “I did not give you a hickey.”

  “Yes, you—wait, what is that?” He craned his neck, looking past me to the far wall.

  And that’s when I heard it too. The sound of mortar crumbling. The sound of rats that weren’t rats.

  “It’s a friend,” I whispered, turning too, just as the tip of a finger broke through again. “Come on,” I got up and walked over to the wall, kneeling down.

  Grant shuffled after me, kneeling as well, and both of us watched the finger wiggle back and forth as if searching for us.

  “Someone is over there? Have you talked to them?” Grant asked, and then, before I could even answer, he was shouting. “Hey! Who are you? Can you help us?”

  The finger pulled back quickly, disappearing.

  Fuck. Had he scared her away? Had she been surprised to hear his voice instead of mine?

  With my hands still bound, I didn’t even have a free finger to beckon her back, so I bent down, putting my mouth to the hole. “It’s okay,” I said. “I’m still here, but I’m handcuffed. And that was my friend, Grant.”

  There was no response.

  I sat up and turned to Grant, “I’ve talked to her once before,” I told him. “But she didn’t answer then either.” Something held me back from telling Grant about the note she’d sent me. I don’t know why. It felt wrong to tell him when I knew she was listening, like a betrayal.

  “How do you know it’s a she?” he asked.

  “Her finger’s smaller than mine,” I explained.

  “Could be a kid, though.”

  “Could be.” But I didn’t think so. Maybe I just didn’t want to imagine a kid wandering around in the CAMFer’s basement next to the morgue.

  “Why won’t she talk to us?” Grant asked.

  “I don’t know.”

  “She could be gagged,” he pointed out.

  “Maybe.” I hadn’t thought of that—not until now—but it made sense. “If she is, couldn’t we use Morse code to communicate with her? Do you know it?”

  “Sort of,” Grant said. “I know S.O.S. and that’s about it. But it’s pretty obvious we need help. Besides, what would we do? Tap it out on the wall with our heads?”

  “Dammit!” I leaned my forehead against the rough stone wall. “We need to get these handcuffs off or we’re screwed.”

  More mortar crumbled down next to my foot and something poked through the hole, but it wasn’t a finger. It was something metal, and it fell with a soft clink onto the pile of dust on the floor.

  Grant and I stared down at the key, small and silver.

  “Holy fuck,” he exhaled. “Is that what I think it is?”

  I scooted around on my ass, fumbling at the key with my fingers and finally managing to pick it up. “Put your back to me so I can try it,” I told him.

  He turned and we sat, back to back, me trying to stick the tiny key into a tiny keyhole I couldn’t see. Eventually I got it. I felt the key slide into the hole and catch. I gave it a twist and heard a satisfying click as one side of Grant’s handcuffs fell open.

  “Good,” he said, turning toward me. “Give it to me and I’ll undo the rest.” His warm fingers took the key from mine, and I could hear him unlocking his other wrist. Then, he made quick work of mine.

  When I finally turned around, free at last, he was holding both sets of handcuffs.

  “Try your shackles,” I urged him.

  He set the cuffs aside and bent over, giving it a try. Somehow, I wasn’t surprised when the shackles fell open with a click.

  “What should we do with them?” he asked, tossing them next to the cuffs.

  “We should keep them close. Next time they come for us we need to have them on, but unlocked, in case we get a chance to escape. Plus, we don’t want them to know we have help.” I looked down at the hole in the wall. “It worked,” I called softly. “Thank you so much.”

  Again, there was no response.

  “Maybe the key will work for the door too?
” Grant said, starting to get up.

  “No.” I held him back. “It won’t.” I’d inspected that lock enough to know it was the wrong kind of key. “And the camera,” I said, nodding toward it. “We don’t want them to see we’re free, or that we have a key.”

  “God, did you do that?” he asked, eyeing the damaged camera and sounding impressed. “Are you sure it even works anymore?”

  “I’m not sure,” I said. “But I know they can’t see us over here.”

  “Whoever gave us this key,” Grant said, nodding at the wall, “isn’t a prisoner. How would a prisoner get a key?”

  “I don’t know,” I said. “If she’s not a captive, what is she?”

  “Hello!” Grant called. “You over there. Who are you? How did you get this?”

  “Don’t do that! You’ll scare her, and she’s all we’ve got.” But it was too late. I could hear the rustle of cloth and the soft scuff of her feet as she moved away from the wall. “See?” I huffed at him. “Why did you do that?”

  “Because whoever that is over there can help us get out of here. They just proved it,” he said, holding up the key.

  “Okay. Fine.” I snatched it from his fingers, annoyed. “But she’s not going to help us if you yell at her. She isn’t our genie in the wall.”

  “Seems like she sort of is,” Grant said. “Hello?” he turned back to the wall, calling even louder. “Are you there? Can you help us?”

  “Stop it,” I hissed. “You’ve already scared her off. Do you want to call them down on us too? You’re acting like a dick again. Just stop it.” He was supposed to be my ally, not another liability.

  “All right, all right.” He held up his hands in a gesture of peace. “I’m sorry. I promise not to yell at your genie.” The last part he said snidely, but I just ignored it. Still, I was suddenly very glad I hadn’t told him about the hidden note.

  “What about this thing?” he asked, reaching out and touching the special cuff on my right wrist. “Will the key work for it?”

  “No.” I looked down at it too. “It doesn’t have a lock. I don’t know how it works. They put it on me when I was drugged.”

  “It looks like it would just slide right off,” he said, slipping the tip of his finger between the bracelet and my skin.

  “I know.” I pulled away. “But it doesn’t.” It had been an intimate touch, one I hadn’t invited, and suddenly I was afraid of Grant again, a terror rising in my chest.

  “What’s it supposed to do?” he asked, oblivious to my inner turmoil. “And what was all that with you sticking your hand into me? What were they trying to get you to do?”

  That’s right. Grant didn’t know any of this. He’d come to the Eidolon, found out I was alive, made a pass at me, and ended up being kidnapped by CAMFers at the end of the night. He had no real idea what was going on. Or why. He didn’t know about my history with Fineman or the things my hand could do. And I really didn’t want to have to explain the details of the last month to him. The less he knew, the better for him. Still, he deserved some explanation.

  “Back in Greenfield, my ghost hand started doing some weird things,” I said. “It reached into Passion Wainwright and pulled something out—and it did that again later—pulling strange items out of people that represented some kind of issue or emotional burden they had.”

  “You pulled those dog tags and that matchbook out of someone?” he asked, incredulous.

  “Well, the tags are from Passion.” I didn’t need to tell him they’d been blades or why. That was Passion’s secret. “And I eventually pulled something out of Fineman. A silver cube. That was in self-defense and I wasn’t gentle. Taking it put him into a coma, and pissed him off. Now he’s determined to make me put it back into him. Thus, the experiments with you today.”

  “But it didn’t work. Everything you tried to put into me wouldn’t go.”

  “I know, but he’s figuring out what doesn’t work, so he can figure out what will. You weren’t the source of those items, so I was pretty sure they wouldn’t go into you. And I was right. But he can use that information to his advantage. He can keep using me as his lab rat to figure it all out.” I didn’t want to tell Grant about Major Tom, didn’t want him to know the many awful things I’d done with my hand. In his eyes, I was still the innocent girl he’d left in Greenfield when he went away to college. That was the girl he had a crush on, but she didn’t even exist anymore. That Olivia was long gone.

  “So, what happens when you put the cube back into him?” Grant asked.

  “I don’t know. It’s complicated. See, something else got inside the cube by accident. Something from inside someone else. And now he’s been tinkering in his lab with everything. I have no idea what will happen if I put it back in him.”

  “Why not just do it and find out?”

  “Because he wants me to,” I said, feeling like I was explaining calculus to a baby. “If it’s important to him, it’s bad for me. For us. For anyone with PSS. That man is crazy, and I won’t do anything to help him. Ever. ”

  “Not even if he’d let us go? I mean, it might be harmless. If the cube came from him originally, how could it be bad to put it back?”

  “What makes you think he’d let us go?” I asked, staring at Grant, a cold, hard pit of fear forming in my stomach. “Why would you say that?”

  “I’m just saying, if it’s what they want and they get it, maybe they’d—”

  “What did they say to you?” I demanded. “What did they promise you to convince me?”

  It had only been a guess, but he looked away when I asked, his eyes flashing guilt.

  “Oh my God,” I said, the air around me suddenly sterile and cold. “You’re on their side. They put you in here with me to convince me to help them.” I wanted to grab him and shake him. I wanted to kick him out of my cell and never see him again. But I needed what he knew. All of it. “Who talked to you? Mike Palmer? Fineman himself? Who the fuck talked to you, Grant?”

  “Mike Palmer the Fire Chief is here?”

  “Yes. I told you before, he’s a CAMFer.”

  “Well, it wasn’t him.”

  “Who, Grant? Who the fuck did you talk to?”

  “Olivia, the doctor knows us. He was with your Mom.”

  “The doctor?” I choked out, my gut tightening into knots. “He doesn’t want to help us, Grant. He wants to use us, maybe even kill us. He’s the one who orchestrated the massacre up on those cliffs. He killed Nose and Yale and—everyone. He’s a fucking monster.” I was yelling, almost screaming, tears running down my face, my entire body shaking. Grant’s appearance had been a spark of hope, a glimmer in the darkness. But Dr. Fineman had taken that spark and pissed on it. He’d fooled me into hoping and then impaled me with it.

  “Hey.” Grant was wrapping his arms around me, and I let him. “It’s okay. You don’t have to help them. I’m sorry. I’m an idiot. Don’t listen to me.”

  I melted into the firmness of his body, resting my head on his chest and slipping my arms around him, gripping him like I would never let go. Sobs shook me as I clung to him. I’d almost forgotten what it was like to be touched for comfort. To receive care instead of violence.

  “I just want you to be safe,” he whispered into my hair. “That’s all I meant. I’m not on their side. I promise you, Liv. I’m only on your side.”

  I wanted to believe that so badly. Some part of me yearned to give everything over to him and let him decide my fate. Wouldn’t it be easier that way? I wouldn’t have to think anymore. I wouldn’t have to agonize. If I turned everything over to Grant, nothing would be my fault or my responsibility. No one could blame me for anything. He was older and stronger than me. It made perfect sense.

  But I couldn’t do it.

  I couldn’t lose myself that way.

  Not to Dr. Fineman, or Anthony, or Grant.

  Not to anyone.

  18

  MARCUS

  I was up to two walks a day, one in the morning a
nd one in the evening, but my uncle still wasn’t convinced I was well enough to travel. Of course, they didn’t let me walk alone. Reiny came and when she couldn’t, Pete did, as if they were afraid I’d keel over and need CPR of the PSS. Physically, I felt fine. Psychologically, I was a basket case, but I pretty much always had been, so I kept that to myself.

  I didn’t talk much on the walks, once I’d figured out they wouldn’t tell me anything. But I had a lot of time to think. The main thought being that everyone was waiting for me—waiting for me to recover, waiting for me to remember, waiting for some invisible second shoe to fall. My aunt and uncle kept insisting that arrangements were being made for us to fly to Oregon for the hostage negotiations as soon as possible, but I had a feeling it all somehow rested on me.

  I hated waiting. Why would someone sit around waiting for bad things to happen? Action was better. At least then you had some say in the matter, even if you fucked it up.

  So, when I got the chance to escape from Reiny on our morning walk, I took it. Some guy had stopped us to flirt with her on our boring circuit around the farmyard. Usually she blew the gawkers off, but she must have been interested in this one because this time she didn’t. Instead, she stopped and flirted back. After a couple of minutes, it was obvious she’d forgotten I was standing there next to her, which was exactly what I’d hoped for. I took one step back, then another. Neither of them even glanced my way. Four more backward steps, and I slipped around the corner of the gun range building, slinking along the wall to the cornfield out back. I wasn’t kidding myself. I knew I wasn’t going to get far. But I was tired of being babysat.

  The corn was high and ripe for the harvest. The crisp, yellowing stalks towered over my head in neat rows, rustling in the breeze. I ducked into the nearest row and ran. My boots kicked up clods of dirt, and I heard Reiny calling for me, but I was free. I had escaped my uncle and his machinations once again. At least for a little while.

  Cornfields in Indiana are fucking huge. I ran until my heart was hammering in my chest and I had to stop to catch my breath, and I still hadn’t reached the end of the field. Maybe I wasn’t in as good of shape as I’d thought I was. No, the field was just huge.