Inside, the ceiling disappeared. The walls weren’t wooden. Instead, they were created from cages stacked upon cages, reaching up to the clouds from every side. In each cramped metal cell, faces plastered themselves against the bars.
“Mama, help me!”
“Please, Mommy, save me!”
“Don’t let him take me, Mama!”
Katarina staggered back. So many children pleading with her to save them. But where was her own child? “Bethany?”
She ran toward the closest row of cages, searching each face for her daughter. Before her eyes, the images contorted.
“Save me.” It was the woman known as Val. The same woman Kingsley had killed the night he’d escaped with Bethany.
“Save me.” Katarina jumped back just in time to avoid Clayne’s outstretched fingers grabbing for her through the bars. His eyes begged for mercy while his throat bled from the fatal wound she’d inflicted.
“Save me, save me, save me…”
Everywhere she turned were faces from her past. Her first kill. The adoptive parents Kingsley had murdered before taking her in. That man she’d killed in the hotel room with Eden. That long-haul trucker, Lucky, she’d sold at auction.
She clapped her hands over her ears. Not now. She couldn’t do this now. “Bethany? Bethany!”
A mocking laugh from behind sent chills racing across her skin. Katarina whirled, and her heart froze in her chest.
Bethany was tied to a chair. Quiet and pale, with gaping, bloody holes where her eyes had once been.
Almost worse, though, was her outfit. Her sweet baby was dressed the same way as Valerie had been before she died. Pink ruffled underwear, a pink cropped t-shirt, and little white socks.
“Oh, god.” Katarina tried to reach her, but her feet stuck to the floor. She opened her mouth to scream for help, but the cry locked in her chest.
The little girl’s sightless eyes turned toward her. “You lied. You promised you’d keep me safe, but you’re too late.”
As her daughter spoke, blood began spurting from her neck, from the same spot where Katarina had stabbed Clayne. Faster and faster, while Katarina screamed and screamed…
A hand closed around her shoulder. Katarina’s eyes jerked open, her gaze landing on the man’s face that hovered a few inches from hers.
With one foot still trapped in the nightmare, Katarina noted the familiar hairline and suspicious build. That was the trigger her instinct needed to kick in.
“You,” she breathed…one second before she lashed out and punched him in the throat.
While the doctor gasped for air and stumbled back, Katarina ripped off the sheets and bounded to her feet. “Where is she? What’d you do with my daughter?”
A sharp pain pinched and tugged the skin beneath her collarbone, and with a snarl, Katarina yanked on the rubber tube connected to her chest until the entire thing ripped free, spraying blood across the room.
The stranger in the white coat was still struggling to breathe when Katarina grabbed his collar and shoved him, hard enough that his spine slammed against the wall. A rolling desk careened away and crashed into the bed. She shoved her forearm across his throat, just beneath his Adam’s apple, and the wheezing rattling from his lips filled her with savage satisfaction.
“Tell me where Bethany is, or I’ll kill you right now.”
Her gaze pinballed around the room, landing on a counter bearing a yellow plastic bin and a white towel. Next to them was a small pair of scissors. She released the pressure on his neck just long enough to lunge for the makeshift weapon. The next moment, he was pinned to the wall again.
Katarina’s blood raced through her veins while visions of Bethany with her throat ripped and her eyes torn out flooded her. A strange buzzing filled her ears, banishing the weird beeps and voices and humming machines, infusing her with the calm she needed to force Kingsley to tell her the truth.
“Where. Is. My. Daughter?” She shoved the sharp tip of the scissors against his carotid, scraping the edge across his flesh with enough pressure to cause blood to well up along the scratch.
Through her red haze, she felt a firm tug on her shoulder. The pressure sent pain shooting through her chest. Surprised, she glanced down to find a red spot growing on the front of her blue shirt.
She frowned. Not a blue shirt. A hospital gown.
The pressure yanked on her shoulder again, and Katarina whirled and lashed out her hand, catching the wide-eyed woman in the upper arm. “Where’s Bethany?”
More people flooded into the space around them, wearing scrubs and white coats.
Katarina’s gaze bounced from face to face, but none of them was her daughter. “Where is she? Where?”
She punched and kicked with her bare feet, but there were too many of them. A big brute wrapped his arms around her from behind, trapping hers by her sides. “Calm down, you’re going to be okay.”
Katarina screamed and threw back her head, feeling the crunch when her skull connected with his nose. The second his grip loosened, she ducked down and wiggled free, her eyes locked on the doorway. That way. She had to escape this place and find Bethany.
Before it was too late.
Even though the pain in her chest spiraled and her gown stuck to her skin from all the blood, Katarina lowered her head and attempted to plow her way through. She made it a few steps before more hands grabbed hold, then made it one more before she felt a sharp pinch in her arm.
“I got her. She’ll calm down in a few seconds.”
Another hand reached across her face, so Katarina lunged and sank her teeth into the exposed skin.
“Jesus Christ!”
The person jumped away, leaving a narrow path to the hallway clear. On bare feet, Katarina darted for the opening, but her limbs grew more sluggish with every step. It was like someone had drained her blood and replaced it with cement.
The glaring white floors ahead began to spin and grow fuzzy. She stumbled, righted herself, and staggered another step toward freedom. “What did you do…where’s…Beth…”
“Catch her!”
That was the last thing Katarina heard before the
