I stumbled back, catching myself just in time, and looked down. A few of the floorboards were pried up. Maybe it wouldn’t have normally been of importance, except that Elliot’s hat was lying beside them.
I crouched down and picked it up, turning it over in my hands. Then I peered down into the space in the floor.
There was a large mail sack sitting in there. I frowned and reached my hands inside, hoping nothing was in there ready to bite them off. I pulled out the burlap sack and started rifling through it.
Inside there was nothing but letters upon letters upon letters. Curiously, every single one of them had already been opened, some ripped in two, some neatly sliced along the top.
I picked up a letter in an orange envelope, closest to the top, and turned it over in my hands. It was written in the faded scrawl of a child’s writing and addressed to Mrs. Valerie Wolfe in Seattle, Washington, from Elliot Wolfe.
I opened up the letter and pulled the paper out.
It wasn’t very long and seemed to be written in an ink that had almost all but faded, but I could still make out the gist of it.
Dear mommy,
I hope I can visit you sooner now. The doctors here say they are closer to a cure. We can’t speak about it but we all know. My friends Sam and Phillip died the other day. I think they were left outside in the cold here for too long. It gets really cold at night. Please send me some slippers and socks. Love Elliot.
I blinked a few times, reading it over and over. I put it aside and picked up another letter. This was also from Elliot, addressed to his mother.
Dear mommy,
Please come get me. I am very scared. I think that nurse Amy wants to kill me. I think she killed Susan. I don’t want to be here anymore. Everyone is scared that Amy will come after them next. She didn’t let me eat dinner for all of last week until I started crying. Please come get me and take me home. I love you. Elliot.
I swallowed hard and brought out another letter from the bag. This one said Mildred Wachman from Gold Beach, Oregon on the envelope but had no return address. Inside the letter though, it was obvious who it was from.
Dear Aunt Mildred,
I keep writing you every day but I still haven’t gotten a response. You never call or write or visit and I’m so scared. After father died, I’ve had no one to turn to and no one to talk to. We are not allowed to talk about death at Sea Crest, and yet that’s all I see, all day long. The nurses promise me that I’ll be allowed to go free, but the other day one of them told me that I would need to be moved up to the fourth floor in order to make room. I don’t want to go up there, that’s where the children go to die. I don’t want to die, in fact I feel better each day. Oh, please come see me Aunt Mildred and take me out of here. You’re all I have left.
Love, Shawna.
I exhaled slowly, trying to wrap my head around it all. My heart was still galloping from the escape, my nerves still buzzing along on adrenaline. And yet, the crazy thing was that the minute I found the bag, the fear seemed to blow away from me, like the wind that was howling at the windows. All these letters were from children pleading to be taken away, that they were in danger and scared for their lives, letters that were never mailed.
And souls that were never found.
CHAPTER SIXTEEN
I just couldn’t believe it. I sat cross-legged on the floor and rifled through the rest of the bag but it was all the same. So much loss in one place.
Suddenly the door to the body chute swung open, snapping me back to the danger, to the fear, and I screamed as I tried to get to my feet, nearly falling into the hole.
“Perry!” Dex cried out as he appeared in the doorway, looking down at me in amazement, flashlight in hand. “Are you hurt? Oh, thank fuck you’re here,” he said as he took a step toward me.
“Get back!” I screeched, trying to get to my feet. I put my hands out in front of me. “Stay away from me!”
He looked absolutely bewildered, sticking the flashlight into his jacket pocket, but I wasn’t buying it.
“Baby, it’s me.”
I narrowed my eyes at him, my heart getting another workout. “Yeah, well I thought it was you earlier too.”
“I ran into Rebecca,” he said. “She’s gathering up our stuff and meeting us down here. She told me what you guys saw. You saw my doppelgänger.”
“How do I know you’re not the doppelgänger?”
He cocked his head and frowned. “Because, baby, I’m me. And I’m yours. Ask me anything if you have to. Or fuck, let me tell you a few things.”
“Stay away, I’m warning you.”
“You know, you’re awfully cute when you get all threatening and stuff.”
“I mean it.” And I did. I think.
“That doesn’t mean I won’t start flapping my mouth. I know you, Perry Palomino.”
He took two steps forward, eyes never leaving my face, and I staggered backward only to hit my back against a counter. He raised his palms at me. “I can tell you that you hum Twinkle, Twinkle Little Star to yourself as you brush your teeth and I think it’s completely adorable. I can tell you that when you eat, you like to get equal amounts of each different food on your fork with every single bite. Drives me fucking crazy. I can tell you—or show you—exactly how you like to be kissed, how you like to be touched, what I do to make you come in five seconds flat.”
With his palms still up, he came forward another step. “I can tell you that I’m head over heels in love with you. That this…” He paused and breathed in deeply, his eyes glittering. “What we have, it consumes me. It devours me. And it scares me more than anything we have ever encountered, because if I ever lost you, if I ever had to live without you, I wouldn’t be whole. You, Perry, have my heart. You are my heart.”