“And take really bad selfies,” I murmur, letting the picture fall to the floor along with my hopes for today. How could Parrish be held here if there’s such constant activity? Justin could pay off a security guard or park employee, but he wouldn’t have allowed a group of random high school students to stumble on his captive.
I frown hard, but I haven’t given up yet.
Maybe I jumped the gun with this whole insane asylum thing? I keep telling Maxx that sometimes, you have to work on assumptions. Guess I just made an ass out of all of us. I know we’re looking for a meaningful place, something that pertains to Tess and Justin’s past. But here? What possible milestone could they have reached here? An hour and twenty minutes away from Medina.
But Justin was so upset about being labelled crazy, and the key matches the era of this place. Where else would a huge, iron skeleton key be used? Certainly not at the facility that’s still in operation, not at the birthing center. Am I assigning too much importance to this key?
“Well, we’re here so we may as well finish our sweep,” X offers up, but we’re all discouraged enough that we go quiet for the remainder of the upstairs search. The most interesting and really, the only promising clue is the fact that there’s no other staircase leading down from here.
Which means that the other staircase on the map might very well go into the basement.
We head back down, bypassing all the rooms we checked earlier, and then start on the next hallway, past the window that I broke. This particular hall is full of old lab rooms, some of which have sinks and counters, a few with ceiling-mounted lights that look like something an alien might use during an anal probe.
Gross.
We eventually reach the staircase at the end of the hall.
My heart leaps into my throat as I stare down the length of it. The steps turn sharply to the left, plunging into darkness.
“Be wary of meth heads,” Maxx warns, and then he’s taking a set of keys from his pocket and using a tiny—but surprisingly powerful—LED flashlight to light the way. It just isn’t worth it for us to bring our phones in here and have Justin looking and listening through them.
I follow him after X while Chasm takes up the rear of our little group. He also cops a feel of my ass, and I turn a dark glare over my shoulder at him. Except, I like it, and he knows it. Next time he gets in front of me, I’m grabbing his ass.
I take that as a good sign, like if he’s feeling cocky enough to grab my butt, then he thinks there’s something here to find? Then again, in the past, whenever he’s been nervous or stressed, Chas put on his ‘slutty bad boy persona’, the one that’s total bullshit. So maybe this is just him acting out?
We reach the bottom of the stairs only to run into a set of double doors with a chain wrapped securely around the handles.
“Fuck,” Maxx murmurs, lifting the flashlight up toward the small windows near the top of the door. As he moves the light, it flashes across a placard that says WARD 14.
Fourteen.
Fourteen years, fourteen victims, Justin appearing on the fourteenth day of Parrish’s disappearance.
My pulse quickens, and I suck in a sharp breath, drawing both boys’ attention over to me.
“Look at the ward number,” I whisper. “There’s no way that’s a coincidence.”
Maxx points the flashlight right at the placard and then sighs heavily.
“We need bolt cutters,” he muses, and I feel this hot, angry surge of frustration.
Haven’t we waited long enough for this moment? Haven’t we suffered enough?
“Let’s get this done quick,” Chasm agrees, and even though it kills me to leave that place, I follow the boys back up the stairs and into the car. A quick stop at a farm supply store gives us exactly what we need—even if the cashier offers up a suspiciously raised eyebrow at three teenagers purchasing a pair of bolt cutters with a debit card.
“We’re doing work on my grandmother’s garden,” X lies, and even though he’s the king of honest discussions, he does it easily and believably. The cashier doesn’t look convinced, but what can he do?
On the drive back to the hospital, Chasm tightens his hands on the wheel as he mulls something over.
“Do you think we could get a gun somewhere?’ he asks, and Maxx makes a scoffing sound in the backseat.
“Doesn’t your dad have, like, a massive gun collection? Why are you asking us that? Go steal one from him.”
“He keeps that shit locked up and under a completely off-grid alarm system. There’s no way I’m getting in there. What about you? Your parents go hunting a lot, right?” Chas glances up in the rearview mirror just in time to see Maxx shrug.
