But then I heard something. A tiny noise, maybe a footstep. It came from right down at the other end of the complex, where the stairs were, but sound carried a long way in that silent, echoey space. Calahan! There was no one else it could be. Somehow, he’d found me!
I froze as I heard more footsteps, closer by. Through the storeroom’s open door, I saw Josh creeping away from me, heading for the stairs. He’s going to ambush him. He’s going to ambush Calahan!
I looked at the dark precipice one more time...then I set my jaw, grabbed hold of the metal shelves and started to pull myself up to standing.
70
Calahan
I REACHED the bottom of the stairs and cursed. I knew Josh could be lying in wait for me. I knew I should go slow, searching every corner. But there was no time. What if he was already bleeding her? What if the life was draining out of her right now?
I hurried forward and—
I didn’t even see him. The only thing I registered was the crowbar swinging down towards me and then the crack of bone as it hit my arm. I cried out in pain and my gun went skittering across the floor. I backed away, cradling my injured arm. Shit.
Josh advanced, the crowbar raised.
71
Yolanda
I’D USED the metal shelves to haul myself upright. Now it got hard. Grunting, I started to climb, my legs dangling uselessly beneath me. The shelves were smooth metal, difficult to get a grip on, and their edges cut into my hands.
But he needed me.
I levered myself up onto the top shelf and dangled there, my arms wrapped around the shelving. Now I was high enough to reach up and grab the cable bundle, but I had no idea if it would take my weight.
I gripped it with one hand. The wires were so old, their rubber casings sloughed away into dusty shreds under my fingers and soon I was touching bare metal. The power’s disconnected, right? I had no choice. I just had to hope it was.
I let go of the shelf and grabbed the wires with both hands. Now I was dangling from the ceiling, my feet a few feet above the floor. My momentum swung me like a pendulum, threatening to tear my grip loose, and my stomach churned. But I held grimly on.
And then, as the swinging slowed, I started to shimmy across the room.
If I hadn’t built up my arms hauling on the wheels of my wheelchair and lifting myself in and out of it, I never would have even got off the ground. Even so, my whole bodyweight was dangling from my hands and I could feel my grip weakening by the second.
By the time I reached the edge of the precipice, I was sweating and panting. I looked down at the approaching blackness and it seemed insane. Go back! Go back before you fall!
But I could hear a fight, echoing through the complex. My man was in trouble.
I gritted my teeth and pulled myself along: one hand, then the other. I stopped looking down but I could feel the sudden chill of cold air when I swung out over the precipice. Oh Jesus. I stared straight ahead, at the far side and safety. The temptation was to go fast, before I lost my grip, but going fast made my body swing, and that made it harder to cling on. My arm muscles were burning, now. Left hand. Right hand. Left hand—
And then, to my horror, the sound of the water pouring into the room changed. The rain outside must have intensified because the waterfall widened and thickened. It had been coming through just one end of the crack but now it spread right along its length, blocking my path in a translucent curtain.
I was going to have to go through it.
I didn’t allow myself time to be scared. If I hung there thinking about it, I was going to lose my grip and fall. I kept going, bracing myself—
The water was ice-cold. It soaked me instantly, hammering down on my scalp and freezing my brain, forcing my eyes shut and making it impossible to breathe. All I could do was keep going but the wires were slippery and my hands were quickly going numb. Left hand. Right ha—
I slipped.
There was a white flash of pain in my left arm as it took all my weight. I don’t know how I managed to keep my grip: my left hand had locked down like a vice on the wires. I dangled there sobbing. The water was blasting my face and I couldn’t breathe or see. I heaved myself up and grabbed with my right hand. Missed. Missed again. I couldn’t get high enough and my left hand was slipping, slipping—
I heaved myself up a third time and found the wires. Another grab with my left hand and I was out of the water. Spluttering and panting, I carried on: left and right and left and right, but my muscles were on fire, now. My fingers refused to grip and my palms were wet and slippery. I grabbed again—
And this time both hands slipped. I fell….
And landed hard on the floor, a few inches beyond the precipice. All I wanted to do was collapse in relief. But I rolled onto my stomach, got myself turned towards the door and started to haul myself towards it.
72
Calahan
JOSH SWUNG the crowbar again. I managed to stumble to the side and it whistled past my head. The next one, though, connected, and I thought I felt a rib break. It was only a matter of time, now. I was bigger than him but I was unarmed and with a broken arm it was no contest at all.
He swung at me again. I ducked but the crowbar glanced off my scalp and the world exploded into red-edged pain. I tottered sideways and fell to my knees. I’d failed. Failed to protect her.
Josh raised the crowbar over his head….
“Stop!”
Both of us froze and turned.
Yolanda was lying on her stomach, halfway through the door. My gun was clutched in her hands: she must have found it on the floor. And the barrel was pointed right at Josh.
Josh’s face darkened. His knuckles whitened where they gripped the crowbar. He didn’t think she’d do it.
“Stop!” yelled Yolanda again. “Josh, don’t!”
The crowbar twitched. I wanted to throw up with fear. I wasn’t scared of the pain, when the crowbar finally came down. I was terrified of what it would do to Yolanda, if I died because she didn’t pull the trigger. Or even worse, what it would do to her if she did pull the trigger and killed her own brother. I honestly didn’t know which would be worse. I tried to struggle to my feet but my legs were like wet paper and the world spun and blurred. Goddammit….
Josh looked at me. Looked at Yolanda. He seemed to come to a decision.
“Don’t!” she yelled, but it was almost a sob. Her voice broke and my heart broke along with it. This was going to destroy her.
Josh swung the crowbar.
He’d reached the same conclusion I had: she wouldn’t shoot her own brother. I closed my eyes. I don’t blame you, I thought. I wouldn’t have been able to do it, either.
I felt the gust of air against my scalp as the crowbar descended.
Then a gunshot split the air, deafening in the confined space.
73
Yolanda
FOR A SECOND, I thought the gun had exploded in my hand. It kicked upward so hard, it nearly tore itself out of my grip and there was a flash of fire and smoke that blinded me and stung my nostrils. Josh fell backwards and sprawled on the floor. The crowbar clattered across the concrete. Oh God. Oh Jesus, what have I done?
Josh groaned and gripped his leg. I took a shuddering breath and crawled over to him. Blood was welling up between his fingers from a wound on his upper thigh, but….
Calahan crawled over to us and pulled Josh’s hands away from the wound so he could look. “You didn’t hit an artery,” he said after a moment. “He needs a hospital but he’ll live.”
I let out a huge sigh of relief and threw an arm around Calahan’s neck. He lifted me, but he grunted in pain and I saw he was favoring his left arm. “You okay?”
He scowled. “I’ve had better days.”
Then he crushed me against his chest as if he hadn’t seen me for weeks. That made him wince, too. Had he cracked a rib? “That hurts?” I asked, worried.
“Worth it,” he muttered. Then, “Sorry. That thing with the sta
irs...I was just trying to keep you safe.”
I stretched up and nuzzled my cheek against his stubbled jaw and that warm, hard scratchiness against my softness was the most reassuring thing in the world. “You won’t ever pull something like that again?”
“No.”
“Because partners don’t leave partners behind.”
“Got it.”
I kissed him quickly on the lips. Then I turned to Josh. “What are you doing? You were going to kill him! You killed Daniel Grier and Sharon Kubiak. You tried to kill Clara, you were going to kill a kid!”
I guess maybe I thought being shot would bring him to his senses, snap him back to being the Josh I knew, who’d never hurt anyone. But he just shook his head, unrepentant. “It’ll all be okay,” he said firmly. He clambered to his feet, taking all his weight on his uninjured leg.
I just gawped at him. “Okay?” I broke off as water started flowing into the room. Just as I’d predicted, the whole place was steadily filling up. We better get out of here. I shook my head bitterly. “How can it possibly be okay?”
Josh cocked his head to the side and frowned at me. “You don’t—Wait….” he said doubtfully. “Have you not figured out what the spell does?”
I glared at him, my cheeks coloring. But he wasn’t trying to make me feel stupid. He genuinely thought I knew.
“Yolanda,” he said slowly, spreading his arms wide, “This...all this...is to fix one tiny thing. To correct a flaw way back in the past.”
What?! “What...flaw?”
“The flaw in the bridge,” he said calmly. “So that it never collapses. It won’t have happened, Yolanda. The bridge will still be standing. Over three hundred people who died that day will be alive. I won’t have been trapped in the dark. And you won’t be injured.” He gave me a gentle smile. “Yolanda...I did all this for you.”
74
Yolanda
IT WAS AS IF all the blood in my body turned to freezing, slimy oil. I went woozy, swaying in Calahan’s grasp. No. No, it can’t be—
From the beginning, I’d been horrified by this case. I hadn’t been able to comprehend how anyone could do what the killer did to Daniel Grier, or how they could kidnap an innocent child. I hadn’t been able to believe that my brother was involved in something this twisted and dark.
And the whole time...it was my fault. He did it all for me.
The water was up to Calahan’s ankles, now. I knew we had to get up, get moving, get out of there but—“How?” I croaked. “How could you possibly think you could—”
“The bridge only fell because of one miscalculation,” said Josh. “All we have to do is reach back through time to correct that one detail and then everything will play out differently. I figured it out after you were rescued, when I was trapped in the dark. Then I spent a year refining the equations until I had it exactly right.” He looked between Calahan and me and his eyes gleamed, just as they had back in college when he’d solved a problem no one else could. “And because the bridge won’t collapse, I’ll never do any of this. The spell will self-delete from history. None of this will ever have happened. It’s so elegant!”
I let out a groan of horror. That was the other part that had never made sense: how he’d killed with such a lack of regret. Now I got it. ”The people you killed, Daniel Grier and Sharon Kubiak….”
He smiled, happy that I finally understood. “They’ll all be alive again because none of this will ever have happened.
I felt sick. In his mind, it didn’t matter how many people had to die to complete the spell because everything would be undone. No one would be dead and hundreds of people who’d died in the bridge collapse would be saved. Oh God. For the first time, I really accepted it: my brother was a murderer. Not because he’d turned evil but because he believed he was being a hero. I wanted to weep. It wasn’t his fault. He’d lost his mind, down there in the dark. But that didn’t change what he’d done. My brother was going to jail, or to a secure psychiatric ward.
I shook my head. “No. Josh, no….” I looked down. The water was up to Calahan’s knees. “Josh, it’s not real.”
He stubbornly shook his head. I sighed. I didn’t even know where to begin trying to convince him. There was no time, we had to go—
“Look at me,” said Josh quietly. “Look me in the eye.”
My heart breaking, I looked.
He stared right at me. “I’m right about this,” he said firmly.
And the strange thing was...his eyes didn’t look crazy. They were clear and focused.
A tiny thread of doubt whispered into life, as insignificant as a single candle in a vast cathedral but impossible to ignore.
I’d been assuming that his eerie calm was because his delusions had hold of him so completely. But...what if there was another possibility?
The whole world seemed to slip sideways.
What if he was right?
“Yolanda?” asked Calahan, sounding worried.
I couldn’t answer him. My mind was spinning. My brother was the smartest person I’d ever met. People can do incredible things under intense stress. What if, what if, down there in the darkness, he really had discovered something new? If there was anyone who could figure out something as crazy as changing the past, it was him. He did have the background in theoretical astrophysics. He understood wormholes, and black holes, and all that stuff.
But what about the rest? The black magic, the ‘dark things’ he’d drawn at the crime scenes, the evil that supposedly powered the spell...that was pure superstition, right?
Except...I was remembering how creeped out I’d felt, just reading the equations on my computer, long before I knew they were a spell. There was something discordant and wrong about them. And at the crime scenes…. I glanced up at Calahan. He was scowling, trying to look as if didn’t believe a word of it, but he couldn’t hide his unease. He’d felt it at the crime scenes, too, the shadow of something truly bad, something that didn’t belong in our world. Maybe the LSD really had opened Josh’s mind. And that, together with his incredible brain, had let him make contact with something evil and very, very powerful?
What if—the hairs on the back of my neck rose and prickled—what if all of it was real? What if there really was a chance to undo everything? I’d have my legs, my job, my life back. Wasn’t that exactly what I’d been wishing for, ever since the accident?
“Yolanda?” Calahan’s voice was hoarse with fear.
If we undid the last year...God, he’d knock on my door that first time and I’d run—run!—to the door to open it. He’d meet the before me, just like I’d always wanted. My kids could have a mom who could dance with them and play tag and—
All I had to do was let my brother complete the spell. He could bleed me and write the fourth set of equations and it would be over. I’d die, like Daniel and Sharon, but when the spell worked I’d be alive again and everything would be fixed. All those people would be alive. My brother wouldn’t be a murderer. We wouldn’t even remember this whole nightmare because none of it would have happened.
I looked into Josh’s eyes again.
“You can’t seriously be buying into this,” spat Calahan. “Yolanda, he’s—” He broke off, not wanting to say crazy.
“You don’t have to trust me,” said Josh. “Just trust the math.”
I closed my eyes and thought of the equations. By now, I knew whole chunks of them by heart. And now I knew what the spell did, I could decipher the final parts. I was silent for long minutes, studying the equations as a whole for the first time. However many times I checked and double-checked, I came to the same conclusion.
My whole life, I’d put my faith in numbers. And the numbers said Josh was right.
I opened my eyes. “Okay,” I whispered.
There was an intake of breath above me. I looked up into Calahan’s terrified eyes. “He’s nuts,” Calahan growled.
“I’m not so sure he is,” I told him.
“I’m not letting him
kill you because he might be right!”
My eyes went hot. “I’m not letting three hundred people stay dead because I’m scared to take a chance. Remember Daniel Grier’s family? We can give him back to them! Remember Sharon Kubiak, lying there in that empty house? We can undo that!”
“You seriously believe this shit?!”
“The math checks out. I believe enough.” I gripped his arm. “It’s worth the risk. It’s worth risking...me.” I hung my head, unable to look at him. “I was ready to kill myself, just a couple of weeks ago. My life’s not precious.”
Calahan put his finger under my chin and lifted my head. He stared into my eyes, actually shaking with anger. “It’s fucking precious to me!” he spat.
I could feel tears starting to trickle down my cheeks. “I have to try. I couldn’t live with myself if I didn’t.”
“This stuff is bullshit!” he yelled. “It’s based on LSD trips and psychosis! How can you—”
“Sam, its three hundred people.”
He stared down at me, that strong chest swelling against me with each heavy, enraged breath. He tried to speak but the words died in his throat. I’d never seen him so torn apart. He couldn’t bear to let anything happen to me but, just like me, he couldn’t just discount hundreds of lives. He’d been there, that day on the bridge. He’d seen the bodies, the grieving families. He ran a hand through his hair. “Let’s get above ground,” he muttered. “You can figure all this out up there.”
“No,” said Josh. “We’re running out of time. We need to do this now.” He pointed to a doorway marked Command Center. “I have everything set up. The Command Centre is a few floors up. It’ll be hours before that part of the complex floods. We have time to finish the spell.”
Hold Me in the Dark Page 28
