Within These Walls

Life After Dark: 10 (WTW Sequel)

Shortly after dinner, I head upstairs to the guest bedroom I'll be sharing with Willow. She said it'd be easier than sharing a room with Janie, whose mood has drastically gotten worse over the course of the night, or with the two other girls I don't know—who have been giving me wary looks since I met them—so I agreed.

Willow is still downstairs in an intense and secretive conversation with Marcus, so I take the opportunity to call Davey. He picks up on the second ring and answers breathlessly, "Hey."

"Um, hi." I settle on the edge of the bed, one leg curled beneath me. "How are you?"

I hear his panting for a few seconds. "Sorry, I'm winded. Had to get Carson up three flights of stairs in this dingy motel. Otherwise, I'm doing okay. Can't say the same for him though."

My brow furrows. "What happened?"

"It's nothing new, but he's been giving me a hard time today. He refused to eat breakfast and lunch. He'll swallow but sometimes he'll refuse to chew, which means I have to shovel soft foods down his throat or he'll starve to death. I try not to get too close to his teeth, so I'm always using a fork or spoon, and that just makes things even harder."

Is Carson aware of any of it? Has he been insentient for the last eight months or is he trapped inside his own body, forced to suffer and watch the suffering of his loved ones? I promised I'd save him, but what have I done for him so far? Instead, all I've done is chase my own tail and get nowhere.

"I miss him," I say softly.

"I miss him, too. I take back all those times I wished as a kid that he wasn't born so I wouldn't have to share my toys with him." Davey tries to add humor to his voice, but all I hear is his pain and it tears at me. Nothing I feel could ever compare to how much he's hurting. He sighs in an exhausted way before continuing, "How are things on your end?"

His voice is soft, with that slight southern lilt, and it makes me feel comforted. I don't know if it's because it reminds me of Carson or because some part of me that I've lost thanks to Willow recognizes a deeper connection with him. "It hasn't been a great day," I admit, sliding back on the bed until my back is pressed against the wall. I brush a hand through my disheveled locks and try not to visualize the image of Matthew strung up on that tree.

Davey listens while I recount my day and whistles at the end. "Damn. That's brutal. Why would the Shroud kill him like that?"

"He was a message for us, I'd bet. Willow told me earlier that this has never happened before. Sometimes we find the flippers in time, other times we get there too late and find their bodies. They're usually shot or stabbed to death, not hanging from a tree. This murder feels . . . deliberate. It takes a lot of forethought and intent to carry someone out into the middle of a dark woods and tie a noose around his neck."

"So what changed?" he asks.

I start to say I'm the last person who can answer that, but I stop and frown. "Well, the only thing that's changed is that I lost my memories."

"You think the two things are related?"

My heart thuds unevenly at the thought. "It would mean that the Shroud is aware that I can't remember. More disturbing is that it would mean they know me."

"Jesus, that's terrifying."

No kidding. I pull my knees into my chest. The quaint room with its cheery pastel walls and light drapes suddenly feels threatening. "A-anyway, if that wasn't bad enough, Gardiner had to show up and screw things up even more for us. Alec was in charge of them. He's someone we left back at the facility when we got away."