Chapter 34 #2
I can't make him accept the truth. I can choose which lie keeps his fingers away from the trigger.
My eyes move to the faded ticket booth past the carousel. A string of new bulbs runs from its roof into a wide adjoining hall. I can see the silver rails of an old bumper-car floor beyond the archway, along with one concrete operator station built waist-high at the edge.
"You wanted me to find out tonight," I say.
He watches while I finish. "This should be about you. You made dinner and brought me somewhere that matters to you. If you spend the whole night talking about Konstantin and he still owns the date."
The last sentence reaches him.
He removes his hand from his jacket. "He doesn't own anything here."
"Prove it."
The challenge tastes reckless. It is also the first lever he has given me.
He crosses to the control station. I track each step without turning my head too quickly. His body blocks my view of the switch box, though the camera feeds remain visible around him.
The main entrance remains empty. So does the hotel corridor. Snow gathers against a metal door in the loading court.
On one road feed, the picture has become a rush of white so thick that the dark trees appear only in brief flashes. The storm may hide a vehicle or stop one. I can't build hope from static.
He types a code into a smaller panel. Somewhere beyond the carousel, a motor coughs awake. The sound travels through the floor under my boots.
Several monitor feeds change. Red markers brighten across the stable corridors. On a lower corner screen, a service stairwell ends at a locked metal cage. The image lasts only a moment before he closes it.
I store what I can.
The markers sit at corridor entrances rather than inside the attractions. One loading feed turns black whenever the wind strikes.
The detail gives me one more way to remain inside my own mind while rescue remains only a hope.
"Stand up," he says.
My knees resist after the cold chair. I push myself upright without letting the blanket fall. The room tilts, then steadies. Smoke has left a copper taste at the back of my throat.
He notices my hand on the table. "Are you sick?"
"I told you my stomach is unsettled."
His gaze drops to my middle.
The blanket hides the shape that hardly exists yet. He knows about the pregnancy from the video, from the messages, from whatever he stole through Anton's people. I have no idea what place the baby occupies in the future he imagines. Asking would give him permission to explain.
He steps closer.
I move around the opposite side of the table as if making room for him to lead.
"You said there was more," I remind him.
His pleasure returns. It has the needy shine of a child applauded for a trick no one wanted to see.
"This park was magnificent before the owners ruined it," he says. "My uncle brought us here after negotiations. Everyone else remembered the rides. I remembered how the building worked."
"You learned the cameras."
"I learned everything."
Almost, I think, though he has mistaken access for understanding before.
He gestures toward the archway. A row of bulbs clicks on one after another, carrying light into the adjoining hall. Dust turns in their glow. Faded murals cover the walls, all bright planets and smiling rockets. Beneath them, bumper cars sit in crooked lines across a metal floor.
One car begins moving with no one inside it.
It jerks forward, strikes another and then spins away under the sparking ceiling grid. The damaged tune crackles from hidden speakers. Its false brightness makes the empty room grotesque.
His jacket shifts when he raises one arm. A gray remote is clipped inside the waistband beside his pistol. Three black buttons sit beneath a red spring-loaded bar protected by a plastic ridge.
The remote travels with him, more immediate than the switch box.
I ask whether he restored the cars.
"I restored four, while the others needed parts." He sounds offended by machinery that did not survive nine years of neglect for his convenience. He points to a blue car near the gate.
"That one is yours."
The gate stands between two steel posts.
Once I cross it, I'll be on an open floor under a live electrical grid.
The concrete operator station waits six yards to the right, blocking sight from the carousel.
Its swinging door has fallen from one hinge.
A narrow aisle runs behind it toward a yellow-painted service door half hidden by shadow.
I let my attention rest on the car as though I'm deciding whether its color suits me. "You expect me to drive after that car ride?"
"This is different."
"My ribs don't know that."
He considers me with an impatience I can use, then gestures toward another attraction instead of ending the performance. Every ruined pleasure gives him one more reason to keep me watching.
If I keep him explaining, I gain minutes. If I keep him proud, I may gain choices.
I think of Grandma refusing to replace a toaster until it has failed in three separate ways. I think of Konstantin outside the bedroom door after I asked him to leave. The memories remind me that the world extends beyond this room, full of people whose lives will continue if I can reach them.
He smiles at the attraction with proprietary pleasure.
Outside, the road vanishes beneath the snowfall while he turns the whole dead pavilion on for our date, filling nine years of darkness with light no sane woman would mistake for welcome.