Private 12 - Vanished (17 page)

I woke up with a start and cried out in pain. My face was on fire. I yanked it away from the cold bark on which it was resting and winced as my delicate skin tore. Ripping off one glove, I reached up to touch my face. It was all mottled and dented and raw. When I pulled my hand back, there was blood on my fingertips. I had fallen asleep with my face pressed into the trunk of a tree, and now I was bleeding.

I had fallen asleep.

“Sonofa—”

I jumped up and smacked my head into a branch. At least it was a soft, bendy one and not one of the hard thick ones. But still, I momentarily saw stars. Sitting down again to take a breath and get my bearings, I heard something crinkle. There was a stark, white envelope sticking out from under my butt. It practically glowed in the dark.

Where the hell had that come from?

My frigid fingers were barely able to tear the thing open, but I managed to extract the small card inside. Unfortunately, it was still dark out, and as much as I squinted, I couldn’t make out the writing.

Letting out a string of curses that would have sent my mom sprinting for a bar of soap to shove in my mouth, I crawled out of my hiding space and into the woods. It was slightly lighter out here. The sun was starting to come up. How the hell long had I slept? Unbelievable. I couldn’t seem to pass out in my own bed no matter how hard I tried, but in the middle of the freezing cold woods? No
problem. Just call me Reed Van Winkle.

I walked, squinting and feeling my way through the trees and the underbrush, until I came to a slight clearing where the dim light of morning filtered through the trees. I held the card out in front of me, angling it until I could read it.

WALK EAST SEVEN MILES. YOU WILL COME TO AN OBSERVATORY.
THERE YOU WILL FIND YOUR FRIEND.

My heart slammed into my ribcage. Finally. Finally I knew where to find Noelle. But then, just as suddenly, a realization hit me in the gut. Someone had left this note for me. Someone had crept up beside me while I was sleeping. Someone out here was following me. And they had gotten disturbingly close right when I was at my most vulnerable. Was it Officer Gruff? Zit Lady? Cheese Breath? All three of them? Were they all out there right now, watching me, ready to pounce?

Terrified, I turned around and started walking. All I wanted to do was get away from my stalkers as quickly as possible. Show these people they hadn’t gotten to me, that I wasn’t freaked. Even though I so was. Then, suddenly, I paused. There was, of course, just one small problem.

Which way was east?

I looked up at the wan sunlight. The sun rises in the east and sets in the west, right? But with all the trees surrounding me, I couldn’t
tell for sure which direction the light was coming from. If I had my phone, I could probably download some compass app, but I didn’t have my phone. My phone was dead.

My phone was dead and my hands were frozen and my nose was running and my cheek was bleeding and I couldn’t feel the middle toe on either foot, which just could
not
be a good sign. My creaky fingers curled into fists, crumpling the card and the envelope inside my reddened palms. I’d had just about enough of this crazy-ass game of scavenger hunt.

“Hey!” I shouted, startling a few birds out of the trees overhead. A couple of squirrels skittered out from behind a tree and ran up the trunk, their little claws scraping irritatingly as they went. “Hey, you! I know you’re out there! Somebody left these instructions for me!”

I turned in a slow circle, staring into the dusky, gray forest of trees around me. Feeling as if I could rush and tackle the first person who dared step out into view. “Well, guess what, people!? I would just
love
to keep you entertained with my wild–goose chase abilities, but there’s the tiny issue of not having a clue which way east is!” I took a breath, gulping in the cold, dry air. “So if you want to throw me a clue here, give me some kind of sign? That would be really frickin’ great, because my feet are about to freeze off and in about five minutes I’m going to be no good to you at all!”

I stopped yelling and looked around. Listened for the sound of footsteps, laughter, breathing. But I heard nothing.

“No? You’re not gonna help me out here!?” I demanded of the
forest. “Because then we’re just going to have to wait until the sun rises some more and I can tell which direction it’s coming from. Are you prepared to wait that long?”

I closed my eyes and listened. Said a little prayer. Nothing. No response. The frustration mounting inside of me was too much to bear. I leaned forward and let out a guttural scream totally worthy of some big-screen, multimillion-dollar cavewoman production. Like I was summoning my army of mastodons to come trample the enemy.

I wished.

“Fine!” I shouted when I was done. “Fine. I guess we just sit here, then.”

I turned around, sat down on the first rock I saw, and obstinately waited for the sun to guide my way.

Hours had passed. Days. Weeks. And I was still walking toward the sun. Shoving aside branches, tripping over stones and fallen limbs, sweating down my back and under my arms, while my cheeks and fingertips and toes froze to numbness. How far had I come? How far was seven miles? I knew I could run a mile on a wide-open track in about seven minutes. How long did it take to walk just one through underbrush and overbrush and mud and muck and ice?

My only ray of hope, the only small change in my fortunes that gave me a smidgen of optimism, was the fact that for the past half hour or so I’d been going uphill. It was murder on my thighs and glutes, and there was a lot more slipping and sliding involved than when I’d been on flat terrain, but at least it was something. Because if there was, in fact, an observatory out here somewhere, it would have to be at the top of a hill. A hill meant I was getting somewhere, that I was getting closer to Noelle.

The hill suddenly grew steeper. So steep that I found myself grabbing on to tree trunks to speed my way, hoisting myself upward with the help of a few sturdy branches. It was nice to use my arm muscles for a little while, give the legs a bit of a break, but soon I started to pant from the exertion. Then, just as suddenly as the incline had begun, it leveled out. I squinted through the trees up ahead. Was that a building in the distance? My heart skipped an excited beat. I’d found it. I’d found her.

That was when I heard the tree branch snap behind me. I whirled around, my eyes scanning the forest. I took a deep breath, waited a moment, and scanned, just to show my stalker I wasn’t afraid. Nothing. I turned and started moving again, faster this time. Better safe than sorry.

There. That crunch. That had definitely come from behind me. I upped my pace, glancing over my shoulder again. It had to be pushing noon by now, but the sun didn’t seem much stronger. The forest was still all shadowy and the shifting branches played tricks on my mind. For a second, I thought I saw someone lurking behind one of the fatter trees, but on second glance, it was only a huge knot in the trunk, protruding out from the side.

I turned around again, and started to run. At first all I could hear were my own footsteps pounding the ground beneath me, the sound of my own ragged breath. But then, I heard the unmistakable sounds of another runner. Someone else was behind me in the woods—someone who was gaining on me. An owl was frightened from its roost and took off with a series of angry hoots, its massive
wings making a racket up above. My heart vaulted into my mouth, but I kept running toward the edge of the woods, just praying I’d get there before whoever was behind me caught up.

I hurtled myself out of the tree line and into the clearing surrounding the observatory, expecting to be tackled or grabbed or smothered at any moment. But when I turned around again, there was no one there. Nothing but trees and snow.

My mind was messing with me. I’d imagined the whole thing.

Maybe.

Taking as deep of a breath as I could, I faced the white dome of the observatory. All around it, the sky was brightening, the morning blue chasing away the grays and pinks and purples of dawn. For a moment, I nearly sagged with relief over having found it, over having escaped the phantom stalker in the woods. But then I remembered: My mission wasn’t complete. Noelle was somewhere inside. The last time I’d seen her, she’d been terrified. She’d had a huge gash in her cheek. What if they’d done worse to her since then? What if she was inside this place, beaten and bruised and bleeding and crying?

With one last shot of adrenaline, I raced to the nearest door, a big, blue metal one marked
deliveries only
. I yanked at it and it opened with a wail. The warmth of the indoors rushed over me. From scalp to toe I felt nothing but relief, and I gave myself a moment to relish it. My eyes took a moment to adjust to the dark. When they finally did, I found myself in a long, stark hallway. I walked along quietly, unsure of which way to go, unsure of who
might be waiting for me when I got there. Finally I came to a set of doors. To my left was a storage room; to my right, a lab; straight ahead, the observatory dome, which housed the massive telescope.

Well, these kidnappers certainly had a flair for the dramatic, and I had a feeling the dome would be a more dramatic setting than either of my other two choices. I took a deep breath and pulled open the door in front of me.

A rush of cool air hit me in the face. Beneath my feet, thin, dark blue carpeting covered a shallow, circular staircase leading up. Quietly, carefully, I started up the stairs, holding on to the wooden railing along the wall. The place was deathly still, but I knew that I wasn’t alone. And for the first time in all of this, I started to feel real and total fear for my own life.

What was I doing here by myself? What was I going to find when I came around this bend? What if some sadistic serial killer with a fetish for brunette, teenaged soccer players had grabbed Noelle and murdered her and I was next? What did I think I was going to do if I was faced down by the kidnappers? What if I actually had to fight to save Noelle’s life, not to mention my own? Nobody knew where I was right then. Not a soul. The kidnappers had made me keep all of this a secret, so that no one would even be suspicious if I didn’t show up for breakfast. Except, maybe, for Josh. But thanks to task number four, it wasn’t like he was going to be looking for me anyway.

All of these horrifying, unanswerable things flooded my brain as I moved forward, as I continued to climb. But I had come this
far. I couldn’t turn back now. Even if I could, where would I go? How would I get there? I was injured and starving and exhausted with no phone and no idea where the hell I was. It was move forward, or just stop. And stopping was not an option.

Then, finally, breathlessly, I came to the top of the stairs. Looming high above was the most tremendous telescope I had ever seen, its tip pointing out through the massive hole in the dome ceiling high above. And sitting in a chair directly beneath the scope, her hands tied behind her back, her body drooping forward so that her hair hid her face entirely from view, was Noelle.

“Noelle!” I whisper-shouted, my voice hoarse. She didn’t look up. I ran across the cavernous dome and dropped down on my knees in front of her. “Noelle! Are you all right?”

My heart flooded with relief as she lifted her head. She was alive. Thank God!

“Come on! We have to get you out of—”

My words died in my throat. Wait. Noelle looked perfectly fine. She looked gorgeous, in fact. There was no cut on her cheek as there had been in the video I’d been sent. Her dark hair was glossy and freshly blown out. Her makeup had been carefully applied. She wore a dark pink silk top beneath a black cashmere cardigan, and when she removed her hands from behind her back and laid them in her lap, I saw that her fingernails were even manicured.

“Hi, Reed,” she said with a smile.

My empty, panicked stomach contracted so fast I thought I might implode. I stood up, my still frozen kneecaps creaking, and took a step back. As I did, I saw movement out of the corner of my eye. There were entry doors all around the circular room, and a dozen women stepped into view, each wearing a flowing black robe, and carrying a dark purple candle. Instantly, memories of Billings House rituals past flitted through my mind. The sisters in black, the neophytes in white. The candles, the circle, the vows. Bile rose up into the back of my throat. I felt so faint, I had to reach out and touch the protective railing around the telescope. It was ice cold beneath my already chilled fingers.