[Quinn 03] - Shadow of Betrayal

realized nothing was there. Blind? No, of course not, she told herself. It was just dark, darker even than the tiny space in the wall of Frau Roslyn’s orphanage.

“Iris.” The name slipped from her mouth.

She reached around her bed in the dark trying to find the girl. Not a bed, really. Not even a mattress, more a thick piece of foam. There was no sheet. No blanket.

No Iris.

Marion began working her way across the floor, feeling every inch of the cold concrete surface.

“Iris!” She clung to the hope the child had just wandered off and fallen asleep, but the desperation in her harsh whisper betrayed what she really believed.

Her fingers touched the far wall a half-second before her head did. A spike of white-hot pain lanced her skull, forcing her into a near blackout before she was able to regain control.

She reached out and touched it again, but this time using it as a crutch to help her stand. Her head was still pounding from the blow, but she fought through it, willing herself to push the pain as far away as she could.

“Iris?” she said again.

She finished her search of the floor by shuffling her feet forward. The room wasn’t that big. She figured no more than eight feet by ten. She found a door along the wall near the foot of the mattress. It was made of metal, solid, cold, and flush to the floor. There was absolutely no light seeping around the edges.

But other than the door and the mattress and the cold walls, there was nothing else.

Her memories of the last hours—days, maybe?—were sketchy at best. The parking garage she remembered. The man with the accent. But after that nothing was clear. Lights, darkness, a constant hum, someone helping her to walk, then another hum, louder this time, more powerful. Then …

Then nothing until now.

She felt around the walls, looking for a window. Maybe there was one that was covered. Or if she had gone blind, maybe it was filling the room with light she could not see. Either way, it was a possible route of escape. But there was no window. Nothing but solid wall.

And a door.

And a mattress.

She wanted to lie back down, curl up, and let the tears that were screaming to pour out stream down her face. But she couldn’t let herself, she just couldn’t.

Iris.

Iris needed her. God knows what they had done to the child. If anything happened to Iris, it would be Marion’s fault. There was no other way for her to spin it. Iris’s life was Marion’s to care for, Marion’s responsibility. That was what Frau Roslyn expected.

Marion worked her way back to the door and felt for the knob, her palms moving frantically over the surface where it should have been. But there was no knob. She moved her hand along the edges of the door. No hinges, either. It must open outward, she realized.

So she did the only thing she could. She began pounding on the door.

“Help!” she yelled. “Help!”

Maybe she had been abandoned somewhere. Perhaps no one knew she was there.

“Help!” she screamed again.

Light. Faint, and seeping around the edges of the door. One second it hadn’t been there, then the next it was, like someone had flipped a switch.

“Let me out! Please, anyone. Let me out!”

Something banged against the door from the other side, loud and sharp, shocking her into silence.

“Step back,” a muffled voice said. It was male, and not sympathetic.

She shuffled backward and almost tripped over the mattress.

There were several clicks along the right edge of the door, then the distinct sound of a latch opening. Light streamed into the room, stinging Marion’s eyes and forcing her to cover them with her hands.

She heard steps, more than she could count, enter the room and approach her. She blinked again and peeked between her fingers. The light coming from behind her visitors was still too bright to make out anything more than several silhouettes. Three? Four?

She never saw the hand that slapped her cheek. It rocked her to the left. Her foot caught on the mattress and she went down to her knees. One of her hands grazed the wall as she tried to stop her fall, but she only bruised her palm and scraped the flesh at the base of her thumb.

Someone reached down, grabbed her, and pulled her to her feet. She tried to cover her face with her hands, not wanting to be slapped again, but her hands were shoved away.

She could see them now. Three, not four. All men. The two nearest her were big and unsmiling and unfamiliar. But the one behind them she had no trouble recognizing. It was the man from the parking garage, the one who had taken her.

He stared at her for a moment, then looked at the man nearest him. “Let’s go,” he said.

The two larger men grabbed Marion by the arms and pulled her toward the door.

“What do you want with me?” she said, voice trembling. “What are you going to do?”