The Isle Of Sin And Shadows - Keri Lake Page 0,114

to the cold tickle in my chest, tells me it isn’t just anxiety. It’s been hours since my last pill.

Rummaging through drawers in the bathroom shows no sign of them there, either, and I search the room, a stab of realization hitting my gut when I don’t find them anywhere.

He took them. Oh, God, he took them!

Darting toward the closed door, I turn the handle, and find it locked. Locked! He locked the fucking door.

Pounding my fist against the wooden panels, I try not to think about twenty-four hours from now, when I’ll either be writhing on the floor in pain from withdrawals, or shitting my pants with all the vivid hallucinations. “Hey! I need my pills! Please! Thierry!”

No answer.

Pounding harder, I breathe through my nose to calm the panic bubbling up from my gut. “Thierry! Please!”

For the next hour, I pound and kick at the wood, until my fists are bruised, knuckles bleeding, and my toe is throbbing. Exhaustion weighs heavy, but I can’t close my eyes. I can’t sleep. Not the slightest movement, or sound, from the other side of the door.

Did he leave me on this boat alone?

I search the room for some means of escape. Aside from a small porthole, there’s only those damn vented windows lining the wall, their gaps way too narrow to climb through.

Another sweep of the room shows no sign of my pills.

I pace.

I search.

Plundering the cupboards for something else I can take instead, I notice he’s removed the mouthwash that was stored there the night before, along with the bottle of aspirin. Every over-the-counter medication has been stripped away, and that’s when a sickening realization settles over me.

This was absolutely intentional.

In addition to the medications, he’s also removed the razors. Anything remotely sharp enough to pick the lock. The guy has me set up for the very worst of withdrawals. Tears fill my eyes, and a cold, numbing fear branches beneath my skin. It’s only a matter of time before the hallucinations will kick in. The nightmares. The voices.

Then he’ll regret taking those damn pills away.

But first comes the god awful withdrawals. Ones I’ve read about. Ones I’ve dipped my toes into, the few times I’ve run out of my supply, only to put myself in a desperate scramble for more.

Backing myself out of the bathroom, I scan the walls of the room in search of the shadows, and crawl into bed, beneath the covers.

“There is a box. A box full of marbles.” Rocking back and forth on the bed, I keep my gaze toward the brightly-lit bathroom, ignoring the eyes that watch me from the corner of the room. In my periphery, I see the skull. The horns. His voice echoes in my head, but I keep my attention on the light ahead of me. “All but two are red. All but two are green. All but two are blue. How many marbles are in the box?” The riddle is from a book that I used to keep near my bed back at the cabin, one I would read just before I fell asleep. If I woke up from nightmares, I would try to recall the riddles, which would distract me from the hallucinations. “Three. Three marbles are in the box.”

I imagine the soft tap of each one falling into the box.

Tap, tap, tap.

Three, two, one.

A glance toward the wall still shows the ominous glow of bleached white bone, and I snap my gaze away. It’s not working. The riddles, the cue, it always makes the visuals go away, but tonight it’s not working!

“There is a box. A box full of marbles.”

It’s after four in the morning. The sun will be up soon, and I’m hoping the shadows will dissipate. Perhaps Thierry will bring me my pills once he’s seen that I haven’t slept since waking at two. A couple more hours. I can wait it out. I’ve waited it out before, when my supply went dry.

“All but two are red. All but two are green. All but two are blue …”

Drip. Drip. Drip.

Water leaks from the bathroom faucet, the sound of it resonating inside my skull. Pitch blackness hangs on the fringes, threatening to pull me under, but that steady drip rips me back into my nightmarish reality. My head is plagued by errant thoughts that have no place right now. Ones that seem to hover on the outskirts with sharp hooks that tug for my attention.

Why didn’t my father come back for me? Why didn’t he knock three