Inn on the Edge (22 page)

“His hands,” said Josh. “His hands aren’t the same.”

“I know. None of him is the same. Mr. Abiba is dangerous. We
have to escape.” I clutched at his arms. “Oh god, what are we going to do? Mr.
Abiba
loves me!
That makes it so much worse. Josh,
what are we going
to do
?”

His eyes darted this way and that, landing finally on the
door to our room. “We tried to escape once—I remember now. We made a break for
the front door but he wouldn’t let us leave.” He turned to me and his irises
were a shade of blue I’d never seen before, a shade I couldn’t even name, and
that scared me more than anything else. “He stopped us at the front entrance.
He was big and strong, and
wild
. Remember, Angie?”

I remembered. Oh yes, I remembered.

“He turned into a monster! A…a…fiend!” Josh’s voice rose.
“He’s a monster, damn it all—and we’re his prisoners!”

I was trembling, and it wasn’t from the cold. “We have to
get out of here.”

“But how, Angie? How do you propose we do that? Our rooms might
not be locked anymore, but the front door sure as fuck is. Have you even seen
any other entrances? Have you? Because I haven’t. And we’ll forget again. The
moment we step out of this dead zone and back into the room, we’ll start to
forget.”

I took his hand, looking out at our dark room, seeing the
chamber for what it really was—foreboding and dour, no longer the enchanting
North Tower I’d been so in love with. “Josh. The instant we walked through the
front door on Saturday night we were his captives. We didn’t stand a chance.
From the moment we signed his papers—bled on them—it was over.”

Josh shrank into himself. “God, Angie. I did this to us. I’m
so sorry. It’s all my fault.”

“No.” I hugged him as best I could in our cramped space.
“It’s not. It was me. My fault. You wanted to leave the inn, remember? Hell, you
didn’t even want to check in. You sensed something was wrong when you were
still in the damn parking lot. No, it was
me
. I wanted to stay. I just
had to spend the night in this fucking tower when all you wanted was to get the
hell out of here. It was me. It was
me
.”

“Jesus, Angie! Stop saying that.”

I swallowed. Nodded. Swallowed again. “Okay. But what are we
going to do?”

We fell silent. What
could
we do? It wasn’t only the
forgetting thing, the sand-filling-up-the-head thing. There was more to it. I
knew the moment Mr. Abiba put his hands on me again, I’d be lost. That would be
all it took. A few touches from him, a few murmured words, and I would turn
into witless putty.

After a while Josh spoke. “He’s not all-powerful, though.”

I stiffened. “What do you mean?”

“Well,” he said slowly, thinking, “you remembered what
Zenith told you. All afternoon and evening, you didn’t forget. You managed to
keep hold of it long enough to pass it on to me, right? And you—both of you—hid
it from Mr. Abiba.”

He was right. We had. At least I hoped we had.

“I kept my distance from him. Yes.”

“It worked. We have to remember that. And Zenith was
frightened enough to tell you that she thought you were in danger. She must
have broken the rules to do that.”

I nodded, hoping she wouldn’t get into trouble.

“And you. Even though you’re a fucking captive, you managed
to find this safe place in our room where we can talk.”

“If it
is
safe.”

“And that’s another thing! This inn he’s so proud of—it’s
not perfect. These dead zones can’t be what he was going after when he set the
place up, right? Something’s not right about them. I think they’re mistakes.
Overlooked spots. Places his influence doesn’t reach. That’s what I think.”

I looked at our feet, crammed together in the small space. I
shuddered. “Or traps.”

He was already moving on. “And I think the rules can be
broken, even if it’s just the little rules.” His words came more quickly.
“Here’s another thing. Mr. Abiba is still bringing people back into line when
they get antsy. Taking one or another of us aside for a talking-to. He took
Jonathan aside after breakfast. You weren’t there—you were already painting, so
you won’t remember—but I think Mr. Abiba has to work to keep us docile, to keep
us doing what he wants. He can’t allow anyone to get angry. That’s what I’m
saying. Right? You’ve seen it too?”

“Um, yeah. Tim had a fit,” I whispered. “The other morning.
Nikki told me.”

“And you had one too, during the calling card game. You were
mighty pissed off at Mr. Abiba,” Josh said, his head tilted. “And Valerian too,
apparently. Something happened in that ghost town. Geoffrey told me. I have no
idea how he remembered for long enough to pass it on.”

Holy
shit
.

Was it true? I’d been pissed off the day before and didn’t
even remember?

I clung to Josh, my breath coming in shallow spurts. The ghost
town! My time there—the fun part, anyway—was as clear as crystal in my memory,
even Mr. Abiba’s hug or whatever it had been at the very end. It was all there
except for the ugly parts. But now every awful detail came rushing back. I
cried out, remembering. Oh the humiliation! The resentment! The abrupt, ugly,
forced end to two of my lovely sexual encounters. Yes, I’d been furious all
right. I dug my fingers into Josh’s arm but he didn’t shake me off.

God
damn
it.

How much clearer could it be? I’d been worked over. I’d been
handled. Mr. Abiba had calmed me down. He’d persuaded me to “see reason”. The
bastard had probably been feeding from me the entire time he’d held me in his
arms. And when he’d thoroughly drained me—how ghastly, how repulsive—
he’d
made me want him
.

I thought I might throw up.

Josh ran a cool hand over my forehead, brushing back my
hair. “Babe, are you okay?”

I wiped my runny nose with my sleeve, leaving a shining
trail of thin snot behind. I stared at it, thinking,
Screw it. Who cares if
my sleeve is gross when our lives are in danger?
I took a shaky breath.
“No. I’m not okay. Not really. Are you?”

He hugged me to him, holding me, rocking me, petting me.
“Not at all. No.”

It was raining, out in the real world. I could hear it
battering the windows.

“You know what?” he said quietly, after the longest moments
I’d ever lived through, “his mind control of us—his conditioning of us—it must
wear off after a while. That’s why he has to do it over and over again.”

“You think?” I breathed.

“I do.”

Josh sneezed several times, his eyes screwed tightly shut.
“We’re going to catch pneumonia in here,” he said, a touch of a smile
flickering at the edges of his lips. He put his arms around me, rubbed his
hands up and down my arms, trying to warm me up. He was so gallant, trying to
make me feel better when he was just as screwed as I was. But his smile faded
almost as quickly as it had appeared. “You know, I think Mr. Abiba works very
hard at this. I think this private little orgy he’s running requires constant
maintenance from him. Maybe it’s not all that easy to keep this whole thing
going.”

I bit my lip. “I can totally see that. But what should we
do?”

“I don’t know,” he said, sighing.

We stared at each other.

I sneezed again.

Josh shivered in the chill air. He tightened his arms around
me, not that it helped. “Do you know what the scariest part is? Sometimes I
like the guy.”

I thought about that.

“Me too,” I admitted reluctantly. “It’s creepy.”

“Have you noticed that we’re all artists in one way or
another? Well, we are. Logan’s a filmmaker. Rhonda-Lynne is a fiber artist.
Jonathan’s a jeweler. Geoffrey’s a writer—did you know that? And then there’s
you and me, of course. A musician and a painter.”

“Yes,” I whispered.

“I think Mr. Abiba really does appreciate and love our
artwork.”

I remembered Mr. Abiba’s glowing face as he’d spoken with
Rhonda-Lynne about embroidery. “Yes,” I said again.

“And he tries to keep us happy. My guitar concert, for
example.”

“And me painting the Fine Arts Room!”

“Exactly. He can be very nice when he wants to be.”

“But he can also be cruel—so cruel. I’ve seen it, Josh.”

We stared at each other.

“What should we do?” he whispered.

We had no idea.

And that was where things stood when we heard a rapping at
the door.

It was Zenith, and she was crying. We could hear her through
the door.

Startled, apprehensive, Josh and I left the dead zone and
rushed to let her in. I pulled her into the North Tower as Josh stuck his head
outside the door. “There’s no one else around,” he whispered, closing it behind
him.

Zenith, leaning on me, her face swollen and shiny with
tears, let me lead her to the bed, cradling a bandaged hand against her belly.
Her hand was hurt. Badly. Her
left
hand—the same hand with which she’d
made love to me. Her special hand. Her perfect, slender, beautifully talented,
magical hand. I didn’t want to look but I couldn’t take my eyes off the
bandage. There was blood on it. Lots of it. Blood on her shirt too. And a smear
on her cheek.

She was howling—great heaving, shuddering sobs.

My stomach lurched. “What happened?”

“Look,” she yelped, her voice breaking. “Look what he did to
me.”

We looked. Damn it, but we looked.

Slowly, her face white with pain, she held out her trembling
arm. Even bandaged, the pinky was all wrong. Josh and I gazed at it, numb with
horror, not believing what we could see with our own eyes. But there was no way
around it. Her pinky finger, her sweet little finger with the round nail shaped
like a petal, was
too short
.

It can’t be…

But the blood, the blood, the blood!

By an inch at least…

All wrong all wrong all wrong!

“My
god
,” said Josh, turning away, swallowing hard,
“the brute!”

Zenith dissolved into heaving hysterics.

I lurched over the far side of the bed, grabbing my stomach,
and vomited violently onto the floor. Zenith! Her hand!
How could this be?
Fingers didn’t get chopped off in real life. How could everything have gone so wrong?
I retched again and again as Zenith sobbed in the background. Josh sat down
next to her and pulled her head onto his shoulder. Carefully, he put his arm
around her, rocking her just as he’d rocked me not five minutes before.
Brilliant drops seeped onto his pants leg. “When?” he asked, his voice deadly
quiet.

“A few minutes ago,” she managed to croak.

He peered at her hand, then searched her face. “You’re still
bleeding. Does it need a tourniquet or something?”

“Got one.”

“Why, Zenith? Why?”

She wailed then, a keening both thin and sharp, a sound so
heartbreaking that I knew it would be with me for the rest of my life.

“Take your time,” said Josh. “We’re here for you.”

I gagged again, then wiped my lips with my sleeve—the poor
sleeve was getting a lot of abuse. Then I lowered myself gently onto the bed to
sit on Zenith’s other side. I ran my hand down her back. Pulled her snarled
hair from her face. Straightened the bedraggled yellow flower pinned to her
blouse—a pathetic representation of the broken woman who wore it. “Zenith,” I
whispered, “we love you. You don’t have to tell us if you don’t want to.”

“I have to,” she said, through sobs of pain. “I
have
to!”

Josh and I looked at each other over her bowed head. She had
to?

“It’s a message from him.”

I closed my eyes. I was going to throw up again. Or faint.
Or both.

“He says…”

We waited, holding our breath.

“He says that I told secrets that weren’t mine to tell.”

I gasped.

“And he wants you to know that…people who hide from him go…over
the edge.”

Josh threw a hand over his mouth.

“And that’s not all,” she cried, her chest heaving in,
heaving out. “He wants you to know that…hiding from him…hurts the people you
love the most.”

“He did this to you because of
us
?” I said, leaping
up from the bed and lunging for the door, not even noticing her sharp, pained
intake of breath. “I’ll kill him! I’ll kill him!”

“Angie!”

It was Josh. Somehow he’d managed to get to the door at the
same time I did. “Do not leave this room. I mean it.
Stay here
.”

I stood shaking at the door, livid with rage.

“Don’t do it,” cried Zenith, “Please!”

I turned around. She stared at me in alarm, her face pale.
“Okay. I won’t kill him. Yet.” I bit my lip, forcing myself to calm down. I
didn’t need to make things worse than they already were. “I’ll stay. But we
have to get you medical attention.”

“She’s right,” said Josh, frowning.

“
He
promised to fix me up,” Zenith spat, “as soon as
I delivered my message. He’s a fucking doctor, remember?” She heaved herself up
to a standing position, gasping, wavering on her feet. Her shoulder hung low.
Her bandage was seeping. A scarlet drip fell onto the carpet. “Have to go.
Can’t take much more.”

We rushed to her side. Josh took her elbow and helped her to
the door. “We’ll come with you. We’ll help you down the stairs. You look like
you might faint any second.”

She shook her head. “No. You can’t. He said—” She gasped and
fell against the doorjamb, then gasped a second time from the jolt. “He said
it’ll go worse for me if I don’t come back alone…or if you or Angie leave the
room tonight.”

“
Fuck!
” Josh said, smashing the door with his fist.

But Zenith didn’t leave. She wavered on her feet, her lips
forming silent words.

“What is it?” I whispered.

“Follow my eyes,” she said so quietly that I could hardly
hear her. She blinked, looked at Josh and me, nodded slowly, then lowered her
eyes to gaze with laser-like intensity at her own pants. At the left front
pocket. She looked up again, her expression desperate with need.

I frowned. Was there something in the pocket?

She nodded. Her eyes pleaded.

I held out a tentative hand. Avoiding her bandaged arm, I
ran my index finger along the opening of her pocket. She nodded again,
groaning. Zenith was in pain—she was weaving on her feet.
Quick! Quick!
I wriggled my fingers into the tight pocket, following the contours of her hips
and stomach, my hand glancing over places on her body that I’d last touched in
the throes of passion.
How dare Mr. Abiba hurt my lover?
How dare he?
I felt her fierce trembling and nearly collapsed at her feet. No, I must not
let myself be lost to this horror. I must be strong for her. I must retrieve
whatever was in her pocket, then let her go, no matter how hard it was. After
too much time had passed, even though it had only been a matter of seconds, I
pulled out a tiny slip of crumpled paper.

Drops of blood splattered the floor between us.

Don’t look at them
, I told myself.

“Is this it?” I whispered.

She nodded. “I’ve got to go.” She sucked in a sharp breath,
then laughed bitterly. “He said he’s going to fix it. I bet he’ll cauterize it,
the bastard! He’s probably heating the tool as we speak.” She seethed with fear
and loathing, a different Zenith from the one we thought we knew. “And when
he’s finished,” she hissed, “he’ll use his damn magic on me and love me back to
complacency—I know he will! Do you suppose I’ll even remember any of this? Will
you?”

And then she was gone.

We stood at the open door watching her hunched form wobbling
its way down the stairs. We stared at the empty landing, then at each other.

“We should have gone with her,” I said, moving out of the
room. “I’m going.”

“No!” He grabbed my arm—too hard, hurting me—and pulled me roughly
back inside, slamming the door and blocking the way. He shoved me to the side,
then swung back his arm and punched the door once, twice, three times, making
me jerk each time. Seeing him like that, watching him ruin his beautifully
manicured and maintained musician’s hand, was almost as ghastly as seeing
Zenith’s blood splatters on his pants leg. Almost but not quite. “You
can’t
go—I won’t let you! You heard what she said.”

I twisted away. “But she needs me!”

He leaned against the door where we’d once made love, his
burst of anger spent for now. “Don’t you think I know that? Zenith needs me
too.” He turned his head away but I saw the tears. I saw them.
“I love her
too!”

“I know,” I said, taking his hand.

He winced. “How is it possible to love someone this much in
only four days?”

“I don’t know how.” My throat felt as if it were stuffed
with cotton. Cotton soaked in vinegar. I swallowed, trying not to throw up
again. “But apparently it is. I love her too.”

He stared at his knuckles, which were already changing
color. He’d broken the skin in three places. “We’re a fine set of lovers,
aren’t we, you and I?” he said bitterly. “Letting the woman we love go off to who
knows what?”

I couldn’t answer.

“I’m such a coward.”

“You’re not a coward.”

His eyes flickered to mine, then settled on the window
beside the bed. “He’s got her, Angie. He’s got her.”

I wiped tears from my cheeks. “Yes. He has.”

He seemed to fold in on himself. “I couldn’t bear it if he
got you too. We have to be careful—so very careful. Promise me you’ll be
careful. Promise!”

“I will be. At least I’ll try. You too. You promise me too.”

“I’ll be careful.” He took a deep breath. “Because we can’t
help
her
if he gets to
us
.”

I looked across the room, at the dead zone. I took a step
toward it. “Should we—”

“No,” he said, cutting me off. “Absolutely not.”

“But how can we talk?”

He laughed, a cold, lifeless thing. “We can’t. That’s the
point.” He turned even whiter. “I’ve gotto sit down or I’m going to
faint.” Avoiding the splattered blood on the floor, Josh stumbled back to the
bed. I sat beside him, holding the crumpled bit of paper, not saying anything.
Then he put his head in his hands. “What have we got ourselves into, Angie?”

I didn’t answer.

“And it gets worse. He thinks he loves you. Fucking hell.”

What could I say? I looked down at my lap, holding my
breath, hoping Mr. Abiba wasn’t listening in. Fucking hell indeed. In more ways
than one.

After a moment Josh gestured at the paper. “Let’s take a
look.”

I spread out the postage stamp-sized bit of wrinkled paper
as best I could over my knee, smoothing it gently with my fingertips. It looked
as if Zenith had torn the corner off a tea napkin. We bent over, squinting.

He’s losing it
.

Written in miniscule block letters in blue ink.

We sat frozen on the bed, staring at her message. She had to
have written the note before he hurt her. Had she known what was coming? How
terrified she must have been. Poor, sweet, vivacious, nurturing Zenith. Not a
mean bone in her body. How could anyone hurt her? I wiped tears from my face.

He’s losing it.

What did it mean? My knee jiggled uncontrollably—my entire
body was beginning to shake, just like Josh’s. Shock? Were we in shock? If this
was shock, then what must Zenith be feeling? I hugged myself. Words repeated
over and over in my head.
Zenith. Zenith. Zenith
. And then other words.
He’s
losing it. He’s losing it. He’s losing it.
She must mean Mr. Abiba. It had
to be Mr. Abiba. Who else could it be? I fought down another rush of nausea.
What was Mr. Abiba losing? His sanity? His control? Was he losing control of
the inn? Control of his Guides? Control of his guests?

Control of
me
?

Which was worse—a crazy man holding us captive, or a man
driven by fear?

I shuddered.

If only I could talk to Josh. If only we could go back into
our dead zone and discuss this horrid turn of events. But our little dead zone
wasn’t safe after all. Not for us. Not for Zenith. Not for anyone.

Josh made a
flip-it-over
motion with his hand.

I flipped the note over.

Eat a petal every hour.

Written in even tinier block letters, with a pencil.

Our heads shot up. We spun around on the bed, both of us
staring at the bouquets on our bedside tables. Those flowers? Those petals? Was
that what she meant? She wanted us to
eat
them? Then I remembered—she’d
been wearing one. And hadn’t it been missing a few petals? There’d been a bloom
pinned to her shirt earlier in the afternoon as well. I frowned, trying to
remember whether she’d worn one at breakfast. Were any of the other Guides
wearing them? Had Vane been wearing one when he’d come to us for our Lesson?

I thought so but I couldn’t be sure.

Josh scooted off the bed and drew a stem from the vase. I
joined him at the head of the bed, standing near the dead zone but not in
it—no, I wasn’t that stupid—watching as he twirled the bloom in his fingers. He
looked at me. I nodded. First he plucked a petal from the bloom, then I did.
Moving in synchrony, our eyes never leaving each other, we placed the narrow
yellow morsels on our tongues. My petal wilted in my mouth, shrinking down to
almost nothing. It tasted like Josh’s shampoo smelled. I swallowed the tiny
slip of a thing. Why were we supposed to eat them? What would they do? Would it
help us in some way? There was nothing to do but wait.

It was 3:52 in the morning.

Josh dug his wristwatch out of his suitcase where he’d
tossed it on Saturday evening, on our first day at the inn, as per Mr. Abiba’s
request. Following the rules, always following the rules…we were such
good
little guests. He strapped it on.

“Now what?” I asked.

He shrugged and looked at the door. “I have no idea.”

We lay on the bed, on top of the covers. He reached for my
hand.

And then we heard it.

A scream.

Zenith. Having her finger cauterized. Or something. Just one
scream, her voice breaking in the middle, and long—oh god, how
long
that
scream went on.

Josh cried out.