Illusions (The Missing #1) (2 page)

Forgotten things.

There was something uncomfortably familiar about the smell and silence. The stench of neglect tickled my memory and I fought like hell to reach out and grab the elusive strings, but I couldn’t quite grasp them. It was like the subtle twinges of déjà vu; absolutely frustrating.

I turned in a circle again, twisting my knee in the process. My leg buckled and I fell back to the ground. I gasped as I made contact with the cold, hard floor and rubbed the injury. It felt bruised and throbbed from the impact and my weight baring down on top of it.

I was having a hard time breathing. Dust caught and clung to my hair and eyelashes. Every inch of my skin felt tight and bruised like I had been in some sort of fight and come out the very obvious loser.

Think, Nora! How did this happen?

I opened my mind and thought back to the last twenty-four hours. I tried to think about the days that led up to this point.

And I was met by an endless sea of confusion
.

Soft brown hair blowing in the wind.

Angry voices screaming as I ran . . .

Rage.

Hate.

Longing.

Discombobulated images, disconnected feelings. None of it made sense. I felt as though I had been cut up into tiny, little bits. The aching physical pain was nothing compared to
this.

The misery in my heart.

Again I got to my feet, bracing my knee as best as I could. My weak leg shook under the strain, but I was finally able to stand upright without toppling. I shuffled towards the wall and flattened my palm against the wooden slates. Old wood. Splintered and broken in places, it felt as though it had been there for a long time. A strange smell wafted from it. I leaned in close and sniffed. Mold and something else tickled my nose.

Gasoline? And burnt wood?

I frowned and smelled the wood again. This time I could only get a whiff of decomposition and age. I disregarded the earlier smells as olfactory hallucinations. It was the only thing that made sense in this insanity.

Feeling along the wall, I made my way around the outer parameter. The room didn’t feel overly large. But it was, for the most part, empty. Too empty. Like a crypt.

I bent over, shaking and dizzy. I was going to be sick.

I swallowed, my parched mouth and throat burning at the effort. With trembling limbs, I leaned against the wall.

There was nothing to give me any sort of indication as to where I was. Only a twinge of familiarity that, at this point, I believed to be all in my head. Did I really recognize this non-descript room? How could I when I could barely see a foot in front of me?

I had no clues. No ideas. Only a memory full of holes with no substance I was a battered body and a reeling mind.

I covered my mouth with my hand and bit back the scream that crept up my throat like vomit.

But I couldn’t just stand there like an idiot and not do anything. I felt the need to do something.
Anything!

“H-hello?” I called out, my voice scratchy and low. I stumbled towards the middle of the moon, tripping over my shoelaces. My bad knee threatened to give out again.

I barely registered the tears running down my face. I didn’t want to think about how weak they made me. How much I hated the wetness growing sticky on my cheeks.

“Nora! Come back!”

I startled at the unbidden memory. A deep, frantic voice. Scary. Demanding

I shivered in the oppressive heat. My foot made contact with an object I hadn’t noticed before. I kicked it over and it rolled across the floor.

“What the—?” I dropped to my knees and patted around on the ground, hissing at the pain in my leg.

My hand wrapped around cool plastic. I lifted it up in front of my face and saw that it was a full bottle of water.

I didn’t bother to stave the tears. With a choked sob, I uncapped the top and quickly downed as much as my burning, uncomfortable throat could tolerate. I had never tasted anything so amazing in my entire life.

Water sloshed around the side of my mouth, dampening the collar of my T-shirt. I didn’t care. In that bleak, horrible moment, it was my only salvation.

An inconsequential thing that meant absolutely
everything.

When I finished, I dropped it on the floor and then proceeded to berate myself endlessly.

It’s what I did best.

Why did I drink it all? Who knows when I’ll get more!

And that very realistic thought opened me to the panic I had been carefully keeping at bay.

I’m going to starve.

I’m going to dehydrate.

I’m going to die . . .

“I’m going to die,” I rasped, my teeth chattering and my body clenching in pain and hysteria.

“Help me!” I wailed and flinched at the sound of my shrill voice in the deadened silence.

Nothing.

Always nothing.

Always alone.

I shouldn’t be surprised.

I was used to being left. Being unimportant.

Discarded.

Ignored . . .

I gripped the side of my head and pressed my fingers to my temples. The pressure and discomfort helped to clear my mind.

I just wished I could see. My eyes had adjusted to the gloom, but everything was fuzzy. Indistinct. I had been almost legally blind for years now. It was frustrating at the best of times.

At the worst, sitting in this stifling room with no visible escape, it was petrifying.

“Hello?” I repeated, this time a little bit louder. I slowly got to my feet again and made my way toward what appeared to be a door.

I pushed up the sleeves of my shirt trying to get some relief from the still and stuffy air. It was so hot. Like a furnace. It felt as though the walls were closing in on me. Sweat dripped down between my breasts and beaded along the top of my lip. The hair was damp at my temples. I ripped the stocking cap I had been wearing off my head and threw it across the room where it fell somewhere in the shadows.

I felt like such an idiot for dressing the way that I did. Who wears a winter hat in the summer anyway?

I scratched at what seemed to be dried blood on my cheek. The skin stung, and I could feel uneven cuts.

What happened?

That seemed the more important question.

More important than the
where
.

Or the
who.

Or even the
why.

The
what
bounced around inside my head, demanding to be answered.

I finally reached the door and felt around for a handle. The door seemed solid and smooth. I carefully felt along the seams and hinges, flattening my palms so that I touched every single inch.

I finally located the handle. It was curved and I thought I could make out a large, metal plate that it was attached to. Using all of my strength I pulled, jarring my shoulder.

It didn’t budge. I pulled again, this time using both hands. It was locked tight. The only way to open it was from the
outside.

I was trapped.

Like a dog in a cage. A hot, airless cage.

I couldn’t get out, and it was obvious that I wasn’t supposed to.

I banged my fists against the wood. “Hello? Is anyone there? Where am I?” I called out, recognizing my increasing hysteria.

“Hello?” I called again. “Can anyone hear me?” I all but shrieked.

Nothing.

Silence.

Of course.

I dropped my forehead to the door and banged my head several times against the hard surface. “No one’s there, Nora,” I muttered. “No one is going to let you out.”

And then I laughed. Manically. Strained and tight. I laughed and laughed and laughed. Totally inappropriate but completely unstoppable. The laughter bubbled out of me, and I didn’t bother to try to stop it.

Then the laughter died off and the fear replaced it. The bone deep dread that took root and wouldn’t budge.

“Answer me!” I screamed, caving to the terror. “Please!” I begged. “What have I done? Why am I here? Just tell me!”

I banged my head against the wall again. Over and over. “Who are you?” I mouthed.

The shadows were filled with boogeymen and monsters I couldn’t see.

“Let me out!” I gasped, clutching my throat. Wrapping my hands around the thin column of my neck and squeezing. Just enough to ground and center. The panic attack hit hard.

“I want to go home!” I sobbed, doubling over.

I never thought I’d experience a time when I
yearned
for home. That I could think about the cold rooms with any sort of affection.

But in that moment I wanted nothing more than to walk through the front door and hear my mother’s clipped, disappointed voice telling me to go to my room so she wouldn’t have to look at me.

I reminisced wistfully about my bedroom that had, in the last few years, become my prison.

“I want to go home,” I whispered.

So much.

I thought about my house.

My mother.

Her hard, hard eyes and downturned lips.

I remembered my face in the broken mirror. A disfigured image in cracked glass.

A thousand, minute recollections clouded my mind.

But I couldn’t remember what had happened
before.

“I h-have to get out of h-here,” I stuttered. Desperate words wrenched from a desperate woman.

I beat at the door as hard as I could with my hands and feet, pulling on an energy that I hadn’t known I possessed. “Let me out!” I yelled over and over again.

In the rational part of my mind, I knew that it was useless.

I knew that no one would ever hear me.

Logically, I knew that my pleas didn’t matter.

I could stand there and scream and scream until I was exhausted and hoarse, and it wouldn’t make any difference at all.

But I couldn’t stop. Once I had let the panic loose, it was impossible to bottle back up again.

I kept shouting.

I kept slamming my hands into the hard, hard wood until the skin split, and I felt the blood drip down my wrists.

I kicked and kicked until my feet hurt and my legs trembled.

I pulled on the handle with every ounce of strength that I had left. I’d break the door down if I had to. I’d claw through the wood with my bare hands.

But then my body gave out. Exhaustion was my undoing. My brain shut down, and I couldn’t deal with any of it. I collapsed into a ball on the dirty, dirty floor.

Wrecked. Scared. Sick and tormented.

Lost.

“What happened?” I whispered, raking fingernails over my stinging cheeks, piercing flesh, scouring. Scarring. Covered with marks both temporary and permanent.

“What happened to me?” I demanded a forgetful mind.

I remembered who I was.

Nora Gilbert.

I remembered my life.

Unhappy.

I even remembered where I had been.

Waverly Park.

I tried to remember who I loved.

My brain recoiled. My heart withdrew.

Then I saw
his
face.

“Nora! You don’t understand! Please!”

I shivered in the hot, stifling room. Sweat and fear mixing together on my skin. Joy that came from a remembered face. A brutally, beloved face. And eyes that always saw what I wished they wouldn’t.

Dead eyes.

I began to shake uncontrollably.

“What happened to me?” I rasped, my voice gone. Ineffective. It didn’t matter in this place. In this hell.

The
what
plagued me.

And
his
face.

Dead, green eyes.

Smiling, angry mouth.

Grasping fingers pulling me closer. Hateful, horrible words slamming against my skull.

I remembered
him.

As if I could forget.

Don’t forget, Nora. Never, ever forget.

But what about me?

What happened to poor Nora Gilbert?

I hadn’t run fast enough when the monsters chased me.

I had thought I was so smart. One step ahead.

When really I had always been two steps behind.

Not so smart after all.

Poor, poor Nora Gilbert.