76
TWILL
Twill pulled at the handle, and the refrigerator door opened with a sucking sound.
A blast of cold air rolled out at her, a plume of white mist. She didn’t realize how thirsty she was until she saw the rack full of bottled water.
She grabbed one, wrestled off the cap, and chugged.
She washed the bile back down her throat and chugged some more.
When the bottle was empty, she tossed it to the ground and was about to grab another when she spotted the camera inside the refrigerator.
It was small, like the ones in the fake hospital room.
Built into the plastic molding next to the light in the top left corner.
A small red light was on next to the dark lens.
Like someone wanted her to know it was there. Wanted her to know they were watching.
Twill leaned in closer. “Who the fuck are you?”
No reply came. She didn’t expect one. Only the blank stare of that black lens. The unblinking red light.
While the top rack of the refrigerator was stocked with bottled water, the two lower shelves contained plastic Tupperware containers.
No different than the ones her last foster mother had filled religiously with things like meatloaf, spaghetti, and lasagna, which would have been okay had she been a good cook, but she was anything but, and Twill and the other four kids never dared open those containers unless there was nothing else to eat in the house.
Even then, it was a last resort, when the stomach pains became too unbearable.
Like Twill’s last foster mother, whoever left these containers had labeled each in a neat script worthy of a typewriter.
They didn’t say meatloaf, spaghetti, or lasagna, though, and as Twill read the labels, the contents of her stomach twisted into a knot worse than the one she had felt at the sink.
Each container bore the name “Cullen, Amanda” on the first line, but it was the second line of each that caused Twill’s body to go cold.
“Kidney.”
“Liver.”
“Spleen.”
“Intestine (lower).”
“Intestine (upper).”
“Pancreas.”
“Heart.”
The lids were askew. Opened and not resealed properly. Like someone had scooped out the contents and returned the empty containers.
While that middle shelf with the Tupperware containers was bad, the bottom shelf was worse.
The contents of the bottom shelf caused Twill to stumble back and nearly fall, her hand covering her mouth, but unable to stifle the gasp.
There were dozens of glass jars, each sealed with a metal lid and the same neat script on the labels.
“Cerveau - Dickson, Andrew.”
“Cerveau - Cormack, Emily.”
“Cerveau - Cullen, Amanda.”
Other names. Names Twill recognized from the wall in the cafeteria at the Quick.
Twill didn’t speak French, but she had picked up an intro to French CD once at a bus stop in Albany and listened to it on the long ride to Charlotte about a year before arriving in Charleston.
Had someone asked her what she recalled of that CD twenty-four hours ago, she would have said nothing, but that single word came into her head now.
It came in with the force of a truck barreling down on a brick wall.
She could even hear the woman’s voice as she spoke it—“cerveau”—as she pronounced it with a perfect French accent a moment before uttering the English translation—”brain. ”
Twill stumbled back several more feet, then froze when she heard Langdon’s voice from behind her. “There you are . . .”
She didn’t turn. She didn’t face him. Instead, she watched the refrigerator door slowly close with a soft click. “They’re not going to let us go, Langdon.”
“Bullshit.”
“They don’t let anyone go. Look around you. What do you think they do here?”
This time, Twill did turn, but she did so slowly.
Partly because she didn’t want to spook him, and partly because her body had begun trembling so bad that when she tried to move, her muscles went stiff and fought her.
As if any sudden movement was what caused those other people to find themselves in that hospital bed, on the operating table, in the refrigerator.
Langdon’s eyes were deranged, wild. His face and neck were bruised.
He was favoring his left leg; his right had taken the bulk of the hit from the cage door when she slammed it on him.
He was flexing the fingers of both his hands at his sides like a car revving its engine, ready to jump from the starting line.
He’d kill her if he reached her; that was written all over his face.
It only took a few hours for the quiet software mogul to go primal.
“If you kill me, you’re still not getting out,” she told him. “If you kill me, you’re probably never getting out.”
“Bullshit,” he said again in a gruff voice. His grasp of language was devolving as quickly as his mind. “They want me to kill you. That’s why they ignored the safe word. I get it now. It’s all part of the game.” He drew closer, a grimace filling his face when he put weight on his right leg.
“Don’t.” Twill stepped back until she was against the sink with nowhere else to go. “Let’s talk about this.”
“Sure. Let’s pop a squat and have a little chat.
” He looked around the room, seemingly for the first time, then recognition hit as he realized where he was.
A grin edged his cracked lips. “Oh man, you should have seen the things he did to this one. When I get out of here, I’ll watch it again.
She had no clue, not until the very end.
She was a stupid little bitch, just like you.
Way more fun than the boy. She thought she was getting out.
They all do. I’m sure you do too, right?
You think you’ll figure this out? That’s the best part.
The way you all cling onto hope right until the very end. ”
He took another step.
Her back against the sink, Twill slipped her left hand down into the filth.
She did it slowly, inconspicuously. When the tip of her index finger brushed against cold steel, then something soft and slimy embedded within the teeth of that steel, she ignored the acid churn in her gut and held Langdon’s gaze.
Even when those hungry flies found her hand and started to crawl across her flesh, she refused to flinch.
She didn’t even shake them off. She gripped the handle of the blade.
“What the hell kind of safe word is ‘longhorn,’ anyway?”
Saw in hand, Twill was about to lunge at him when a short man in glasses and an argyle sweater stepped out of the shadows behind Langdon. “I’m afraid the safe word was my idea.”
Langdon started to turn toward the new voice, but not before the little man produced a gun, pointed it at Langdon’s temple, and pulled the trigger.