Towering - By Alex Flinn Page 0,75

if he’s d—gone, he doesn’t know.”

“We don’t care about Zach,” Carl said. “We want the daughter.”

“Daughter?” I tried to look confused.

“The daughter. The one you’ve been visiting. She’s hidden somewhere, and you know where she is.” Henry was there again, with his knife. They wanted Rachel. Would they really kill me to get to her?

I wasn’t telling them. I didn’t know what they wanted with Rachel, but I knew it wasn’t good. If they were looking for her because one of them was her long-lost grandpa, they wouldn’t have lured me here, and they wouldn’t be threatening murder.

I made my choice. I would do what I hadn’t done with Tyler and Nikki. I would be brave. They wanted Rachel for some bad reason, and I wasn’t going to let them have her.

I looked at Carl, felt the knife digging into my neck, and said, “I don’t know what you’re talking about. I go out to ski with a girl named Astrid. That’s all.”

And then, I closed my eyes and waited.

But instead of the sound of a cut to the jugular, I felt a rough hand on my arm. Carl’s voice said, “Well, let’s see if you remember after a few hours downstairs.”

He grabbed me, opened a door I’d thought was a closet. Instead, there were stairs, leading to gray darkness. Henry took my other arm, and they frog-marched me down.

44

Rachel

Mama was the lady Wyatt had been living with, the lady Wyatt called Mrs. Greenwood. And, since Mama was Danielle’s mother, that made her my own grandmother, my real, true grandmother. My face was warm, yet I was shivering. I drew my mother’s coat out from its hiding place and wrapped it once more around me. I inhaled deeply, the scent of my mother’s house, my grandmother’s. How I longed to go there. I felt, finally, that I had a history. If only I could see them.

But Mama would be angry if she knew. She did not want me to see, to talk to anyone. A boy climbing through my window would still be strictly forbidden. But perhaps, the fact that Mama knew him, knew that he was kind and good, would make up for the fact that he had entered my bedroom.

Probably not.

And that he kissed me.

Definitely not.

And yet, I wanted desperately to talk to her, to someone. Even more than I usually wanted to talk to someone.

Where was Wyatt?

It was very early, still. I knew I was being unreasonable. But those who are not trapped in towers could not possibly understand the special concern of those of us who are. We get lonely.

Still, I walked over to my window, opened it, and leaned out.

The cold air on my face made me feel alive. Below, the coat warmed me. I scanned the snowy ground below to see if he was coming. No one there except a bird, perhaps a hawk, circling overhead, looking for its morning meal. I wondered if hawks ever got lonely. They did not flock together, as other types of birds did, crows or blue jays. No, a hawk’s life was a solitary life. Like mine.

I threw my head back and yelled his name: “Wyatt!”

The sound was swallowed by the morning. No one heard, not even the hawk.

Still, I stood, staring, watching the still, silent, painted world until I started to shiver and had to close the window.

Now, the clock said ten. He had said he would come early. Where was he?

45

Wyatt

I struggled against them, but they were strong, freakishly strong for such old guys. Did they have some kind of magical strength? I couldn’t resist them. I had expected the stairs to lead to a cellar, or even something smaller, a hole in the ground, or an abandoned well like the one the killer in The Silence of the Lambs used to imprison his victims, small and dark.

The landing of the stairs was dark, but Carl immediately turned me and led me to a door, which opened on to another stair.

“Where are you taking me?”

For all the world, it looked like hell. When the door opened, a dull, red light pervaded the room, and it was warm, warmer than I’d been in weeks. The door slammed behind me, and I continued down the dark, creaky stairs. I struggled, but struggle was no good. It only made me more afraid of falling. Henry had a knife, and they both were strong, stronger than I’d imagined.

The stairway seemed blocks long, creaky, hollow, and as I trudged farther, the