Lisa Gardner - The Survivors Club

Libby reached into her pocket. She held out the canister with a trembling, liver-spotted hand. She looked at her last daughter with open concern. Then she sighed and dropped the canister into Jillian's palm.

Jillian kissed her mother's cheek.

Then she turned and ran for the door.

MEG HAD DRIFTED OFF AGAIN. SHE WAS AT HOME, IN Molly's pink-colored room. They were preparing Barbie for her big wedding day, except this time Pooh's cape was blood red. Meg was trying to get the cape off when she looked down to see that Pooh's fuzzy cheeks had morphed into David Price's smirking face.

“Daddy!” Molly cried in delight.

Meg jerked awake with a scream. Her legs had given out beneath her, and her arms screamed at the sudden impact of her dead weight. Hastily she scrambled to get her footing on the rough dirt floor. Perversely enough, her arms and shoulders ached worse.

A sound. Up above. A door opening. Footsteps moving quickly across a wooden floor.

Meg couldn't help herself. The College Hill Rapist was back, and she was grateful. Her bloody wrists stung, her bound ankles hurt. She couldn't stand the feel of her urine-soaked jeans plastered against her skin. She wanted down. She wanted out. She wished… she wished so badly to feel human again.

She turned her head to where she believed the staircase was, and held her breath in anticipation of his approach.

Another click, the door opening at the top of the stairs. And then, “Hi, honey,” David Price's voice sang out clearly, “I'm home!”

Through her gag, Meg started to scream.

Five blocks from Griffin's old home, Fitz hit the brakes. Adrenaline demanded that they roar up to the front door and leap out, guns blazing. Prudence advised a different course. The three men gazed studiously around the neighborhood for any sign of David Price while Fitz drove a grid.

Up one street, down another. Around this block, around another. Clock ticking, tension mounting. Griffin could feel the knots bulging in his shoulders, while Waters cracked his knuckles incessantly.

The streets were quiet. The sun was beginning to sink and firing the sky bright orange and deep crimson.

They got within one block of Griffin's former home, where he had lived and loved and lost his wife. Then Fitz pulled over.

“How many points of entry?” he asked quietly.

“Three. Front door, side patio door and basement bulkhead.”

“We split up,” Waters murmured.

“Finesse job,” Griffin said. “David's armed and he won't hesitate to use Meg as a shield. Basically, it's a hostage situation that, given the neighborhood, could rapidly grow worse.”

“Contain him,” Fitz muttered.

“Yeah. Meg is bad enough. We don't want him to end up in another home, with an entire family to torment.”

No one asked the next logical question-at what point did they sacrifice Meg to contain Price? They had to hope it wouldn't come down to that.

“All right,” Griffin said.

They got out of the car, got out their firearms, and one by one disappeared into the fiery dusk.

The doctors poured in. Kids, really, in oversized lab coats raced into Carol's room and surrounded Dan's wife. Her left leg was twitching, her right arm thrashing. The machine beeped and the doctors shouted strange codes to the nurses, who were already pushing Dan aside as they scrambled for more equipment and one helluva big syringe.

“Carol, Carol, Carol…”

“You need to leave, sir.”

“My wife…”

“A doctor will be with you shortly, sir.”

“Carol-”

The nurse shut him firmly out of the room. He stood outside, alone in the hallway, while the doctors yelled, the machine beeped and his wife's body convulsed on the bed.

David touched her. His fingers stroked Meg's cheek and gently feathered back her hair. She tried to turn away, but she couldn't escape. He had taken off her blindfold first thing. All the better to see you, my dear, he'd crooned. The sudden glare of the bare overhead light hurt her eyes.

“You grew up,” David said now. “Pity.”

He ran one finger up her arm, then raised it to his lips and sucked her blood off his fingertip.

“You've been busy, my dear. Look at the mess you've made. It didn't help you at all, but it's sweet that you tried. Did Ronnie tell you I was coming, Meg? Did you work yourself into such a state, simply for me?”

She still had the gag in her mouth, so she didn't bother to reply.

“Well, I really can't delay too long,” David said briskly. “So let's get you unhooked and down to business.”

Meg eyed him warily. She could see the butt of a gun sticking up from the waistband of his pants. One side of his shirt carried a red stain, and his right cheek was flecked with blood. He reeked of gunpowder and death. She had no illusions what that meant.

He slipped his hand behind his back. It emerged with an ugly, black-sheathed knife.

“Courtesy of Jerry,” he told her, though she didn't understand whom he meant.

She watched him unsnap the leather sheath. She watched the large, serrated hunting knife slide into view, the overhead light caressing the menacing edge. She should've worked the wall anchor more. She should've tried harder. Who cares that her arms and shoulders had ached. Whatever David did to her now was going to hurt far, far worse.

He rested the tip of the blade against her collarbone. It felt cool and sharp against her sweat-soaked skin.

She closed her eyes, pressed her back against the wall and tried to tell herself it couldn't hurt forever. Everything, even pain, had to end. Poor Molly. Poor Mom and Dad. Poor Jillian and Carol… Poor Meg. She had been getting things together. Really, even without a memory, she had been looking forward to getting on with her life. And now… The knife moved. She whimpered helplessly…

And David cut her down.

Her arms fell forward abruptly, her bound hands hitting her stomach like a rock. In the next instant, blood flow returned to her strained limbs, prickling nerve endings to sudden life, and she nearly screamed at the sudden whomp of pain.

Watching her, David laughed. “Yeah, sometimes the recovery is worse than the injury. You know, I've spent the last year getting into yoga. Take it from me, if you had conditioned your muscles properly to begin with, it wouldn't hurt so much now. Jesus, Meg, did you wet your pants?”

She wanted to hit him. She couldn't move her arms. They felt strange and rubbery, as if they no longer belonged to her. And her shoulders felt different, overly loose. Parts were assembled, but someone hadn't done the wiring right.

“I had planned on playing here for a while,” David announced matter-of-factly, “but the fact that Ronnie's absent leads me to believe he might have been detained, and if Ronnie's been detained, then this house is no longer safe. In the good-news department, I see he's already procured a car. What do you say, Meg? Let's go for a ride. For no reason at all, I'm going to have you start the engine first.”

He stepped toward the stairs and when she didn't automatically follow, he looked back at her with a frown. “Come on, don't be shy.” Then his gaze fell and he finally noticed her bound ankles. “Well, well, looks like Ronnie didn't like to leave anything to chance. Believe me when I say I know exactly how you feel. Come on, I need you to walk.”

David got the knife back out. He bent and started sawing through the latex ties. The material finally snapped free. He looked up at her with a smile.

Meg smiled back. And then she drove her knee as hard as she could into the underside of his chin. His jaw cracked sharply. His face went bone-white as the pain ricocheted up to his forehead. David stumbled back, still gripping the knife.