what remained was a cold knife between my ribs. Cold, and still, and calm. “I’m good,” I said. I blinked away the last haze of emotion and pulled away from Liam.
Mrs. Popova was staring at the door. She gave a sudden, jerky nod. “Right,” she said. “That will hold most of them off, but some of them can still think and reason. Especially the newer ones. They might find a way in.” She winced. “I hope Mikhail found his way to safety.”
“I’m sorry,” I said. I didn’t feel it beyond the surface level, but I knew it was true.
“None of this is your fault, dear,” Mrs. Popova replied with a sigh.
“I’m still sorry it’s happened,” I said. “I’m sorry this came to your island at all.”
Fists thumped against the door. It didn’t give, but we all drew away from it.
“They’ll hold. I’ll go check the rest,” Mrs. Popova said. “You two stay put.”
I almost protested, but then I saw Liam. He was pale. Exhausted and running out of adrenaline to keep him moving. He needed to sit down, and in my frigid clarity, I recognized the importance of rest. I didn’t have panic and desperation to convince me we needed to keep moving whatever the cost. I sank down onto one of the benches in the foyer as Mrs. Popova headed off, letting my own exhaustion be Liam’s excuse to rest. He sat beside me, shoulders slumped.
The thudding against the door stopped. They must have gone to find another entrance.
“We should . . .” Liam started, but I covered his hand with mine. I tried to think of the right thing to say, but that was the trouble with being empty. I knew what was practical to do, but without feeling anything myself, I couldn’t tell how to soothe his emotions.
Then my hand tightened over his. We weren’t alone.
My echo was standing down the hallway. Her hair was soaked, the golden strands darkened to brown. More water dripped from the hem of her skirt—one of Mikhail’s wife’s—and the cuffs of the LARC sweatshirt half-zipped over her thin frame. She smiled. It was a fragile smile, half-broken, tangled up in hope and in sadness. “Hello,” she said softly.
“Hi,” I replied, managing a small smile of my own. I tried to remember her, but every time I got close, my thoughts filled with dark water and my lungs began to burn.
“It knows you’re here now,” she said.
“Yeah, I’d say my cover’s been blown on all fronts,” I said.
“Sophia?” Liam asked, hesitant.
“It’s okay,” I assured him, standing up. And then I saw what she was holding. Abby’s camera. “Where did you get that?” I asked.
“She wanted me to bring it,” the other girl said. She held it out. “You have to see.”
I took it from her, shivering as my fingertips brushed against her skin. I opened it to check the data slot. There was an SD card inserted. Which meant . . .
“That’s it,” I said. “This is the data card we found at the LARC. Abby must have put it in her camera.” I turned on the camera. The screen might be cracked, but the innards were clearly still working, because I was able to pull up a list of video files.
Videos from 2003.
The files went on and on. Someone had started filming and stopped so many times, and the videos weren’t short. They’d filmed so much. What had happened? I needed to find the beginning of the thread.
I sat back down on the bench. Emotion boiled at the edge of my awareness, but I clung to the calm. Breathe steady. Don’t think, don’t feel. Because if I started to feel anything, I would feel it all, and I would truly drown.
Yet even with the hungry void, my hands were shaking. Liam reached over, resting his hand over my forearm to steady me. I tried to speak but my mouth was hopelessly dry. I swallowed down a sob, my control fracturing.
“This is it,” I said. “Whatever happened, it’s on this camera.”
“Play it,” Liam said.
“I can’t,” I said softly. As long as I didn’t know, anything could be true. She could be alive. Out there, waiting for me. As soon as I played those files, the possibilities would collapse into cruel truth.
“It’s okay,” Liam said. “I understand.” He took the camera from me gently and selected the first file.
We watched in silence as the tale unfolded in fragments, and my hope shattered piece by piece.
VIDEO EVIDENCE
Recorded by Joy Novak
AUGUST 14, 2003, TIME UNKNOWN