“He said his name was Abe Midus. He booked an appointment at my studio and brought in a saddle for repair. But I know nothing about him aside from he’s a religious guy. Conor is working on it.”

We run up the stairs to the second floor and head to the apartments that face our building, of which there are only three. We stop at the door at the end of the hall, the one most likely to align with our windows, and listen for sounds within. Nothing comes. I keep my gun pointed to the wood as Rose fits her tools into the keyhole. When the bolt gives, I motion at her to stand aside. Then I turn the handle and push the door in.

“Well,” Rose whispers as I lead the way over the threshold. “I think we got the right place.”

There’s no one here. But the evidence of his obsession is everywhere.

Charcoal drawings line the walls, images of crosses with quotes scribbled in margins, sketches of houses and unfamiliar places and people. There are several drawings of an older woman with a Bible spread open on her lap. Handwritten notes are piled on every surface. Times and dates and locations. A colorful strip of paper sticks out among the white ruled sheets, and I pick it up. KEX, with Lark Montague, the ticket says.

Fire fills my chest with a burning ache.

My phone rings and I scramble to pull it from my pocket. It’s Conor.

“Anything?” I say.

Rose watches from where she stands next to a scope mounted on a tripod, the lens pointed to our apartment.

“Nothing for an Abe Midus. He’s a ghost.”

“Did you check records for Texas?”

“I checked records for everywhere. There’s no one who’s feasibly within the range of your description.”

I let out a string of swears as Rose shoots me a worried look. She starts searching through a pile of syringes and vials arranged on a tray on a side table. Conor is rattling off different iterations of Abe’s name and everything that he’s searched as Rose opens a Bible that lies near the table’s edge. Her eyes go wide as she whips it off the surface and thrusts it toward me, pointing frantically at the name.

“We found something. It’s Abe Mead,” I say to Conor. The realization hits me right in the chest. “Oh shit. Mead. Harvey Mead is that bloke Rowan and Sloane killed in Texas. He must be related.”

Conor’s fingers tap furiously over the keyboard. There’s a brief pause that feels like an eternity. “It’s his brother,” Conor finally says. “I’m coming up with an address for Oregon. I’ll need to get to Leander’s and search from the office for anything more than the basics.”

“His history isn’t going to tell me where he’s taken Lark,” I bite out.

“No,” Rose says as she points to the closed front door behind us. There’s a map taped to the wood. “But maybe that will.”

We step closer.

Portsmouth, the title says.

I rip the map from the wood and throw the door open. Then I run down the hallway, feeling like I’m being burned alive, one cell at a time.

OceanofPDF.com

SCORCHED

Lark

I wake to darkness.

No sliver of light. No sound. Nothing to orient my brain as to where I am or how I got here.

Only a familiar smell, a vague recognition my brain can’t pull from the haze of whatever drug still swirls in my veins.

I slide my arm across a cold metal floor and tap my wrist to check the time. But my watch is gone.

“Fuck,” I whisper. The word is too thick on my tongue. I roll onto my back and blink at the dark, willing any filament of light to appear, but nothing comes. All I see is a blackness.

Every heartbeat pushes me to a cliff edge of panic.

My breath quickens. Bile roils in my stomach. I pat my pockets down for my phone. Nothing.

Memories surface through the haze of drugs. A man in my apartment. My dog snarling. Blood on my throbbing head. I touch my hair and there’s a crust of it clumped in the strands. I remember a pinprick of pain in the side of my neck. My trembling fingers drift down to the mark.

I press my eyes closed. I will myself not to cry. The drug still lingering in my veins is both a blessing and a curse, dulling the memories of another darkness. Even still, I see the red numbers of the clock through the slats in the door as I huddled with my sister in the closet. Those glowing lines are so clear in my mind despite the many years that have passed.

Five thirty-nine. “How much longer?” I’d whispered to my sister. It had been hours since we’d heard any sounds from the house, but we refused to disobey our mother. We saw the desperate fear in her eyes when she closed us in and demanded we keep our promise to stay hidden.

Ava held me close. Kept me warm. “Figure it out, Lark,” she said.

Figure it out, Lark.

My fingers land on a small circle of metal embedded into the floor. I push myself up to sit and trace it, looking for a latch. But there isn’t one. There’s just a smaller, raised metal circle with eight screws near its perimeter beneath me. The surface of the circle feels slicker than the surrounding floor. I try every inch of the circle, hoping for a solution, some kind of button or clue. Nothing. Just the roar of my heart and the tremor in my hands as I fight to keep my fear at bay.

I crawl forward with one hand reaching into the darkness and hit a wall. The metal is the same as that beneath me, but there are small slats in rows, precise openings in the wall just wide enough to stick my finger in. I can’t feel anything inside. After trying a few of the holes, I trace the length of the wall and reach the next one, then the next. Halfway through my progress to map the metal in the dark, my fingers land on glass.

A window.

I press my face close to it and try to look out, but there’s nothing on the other side. Just darkness.

My fist is weak when I ball my hand tight to pound on the narrow strip of glass. “Let me out.” My voice is gravelly, barely more than a rasp. I try again, putting as much strength as I can into my fist as I bang on the window. “Somebody let me out—”

Something is pulled away from the window and I take a startled step back. Suddenly, bright light flicks on behind the glass. In the window, there’s a man looking back at me with a lethal smile.

Abe Midus.

I fall back on my ass. The light goes off.

On. Off. On. Off. His silhouette is illuminated only to disappear in darkness with the metronomic pulse of light. My heart pounds so hard it feels like it’s crawling up my throat. But I put my hands on the floor and force myself to rise.

When I’m standing straight and facing him, Abe leaves the light on, a remote control clutched in his raised hand.

My eyes dart to my surroundings now washed in light.

I know exactly what this is. A rotary batch oven.

“And we know that in all things God works for the good of those who love Him, who have been called according to His purpose,” Abe says, his voice muffled by the heavy steel and thick glass. His lightless smile is triumphant. “It was God who provided me with the idea to bring you here. Through you.”

“Let me out.” Furious tears well in my eyes. I hold Abe’s unwavering gaze as I grip the handle I can now see on the inside of the door. I jostle it, but it doesn’t budge.

Abe rotates his arm to display bloody marks that weep through white gauze taped across his forearm. “Your dog made an admirable effort to defend you. So loyal.” Abe’s head tilts as his eyes scour my face. I curl my short nails into my palms. “Do you think your husband will be as loyal to you? Or do his loyalties lie elsewhere, I wonder?”

I say nothing. Fear is a spiral that coils tightly around my thoughts and traps them. I might not know what Abe’s plans are, but I can already tell they’re designed to test every boundary and burn through them. And if he’s asking this question, there’s a good chance my heart will be the first thing to break by his design.