Folegandros dock. East side of the island
8 a.m.
ADMIT ONE. No cell phones.
56
LILAH
I leftthe house with nothing but my knife, tucked into the waistband of my jeans. I walked to the end of the drive as the sun inched above the horizon, then started down the long road toward town, where I was eventually picked up by a local woman in a beat-up van on her way to the fish market.
I knew what I was doing was risky. I wasn’t stupid.
But after weeks of trying to gain access to the Imperium Fratrum site, I had to know, so I’d left my cell phone on the kitchen counter with a note for the Bastards that read:I’ll be back. Don’t worry.
Telling them where I was going meant they might try to stop me before I got to the dock, attention that might serve to cut me off for good from whoever was behind Imperium Fratrum.
I was on a runaway train now. I was going to ride it.
Besides, I had my knife.
My heart pounded as the woman dropped me at the dock. In my imagination it had been like the docks in town, crowded with tourists, sleek white motorboats pulling up to pick up well-heeled tourists who’d stepped off their superyachts for dinner intown. But this dock was small and rickety, a single wooden boat tied to one of its cleats, bobbing in the water.
After some confused conversation and wild gesturing by the woman, I finally understood that she was confirming this was, in fact, the place: the only dock on the east side of the island.
I watched her drive away before walking down a sloping hill to a narrow staircase leading to the dock. It was weird not having my phone, being so cut off from the rest of the world. The last time I’d been so isolated I’d been at Oak Hill, and that hadn’t exactly been a pleasant experience.
But defying the instructions on the Imperium Fratrum site was too risky. I had the sense that the rules weren’t optional, that if I put a foot wrong I’d be left standing on the dock without the answers I was so desperate to find.
And I was desperate. Figuring out what had happened to the girls who’d gone missing had become about more than getting my old life back. It had become about all the girls like me who were invisible to society, the ones who walked a tightrope with deep cracks on either side, cracks so dark no one would ever find us if we fell into them.
In another universe, I was one of those girls. I’d never made it out of the woods the night Vic and the other men had chased me on snowmobiles. Maybe they’d caught up to me, disappeared me like the other girls. Or maybe I’d just frozen to death, my broken heart slowing until it stopped completely.
In that universe I hadn’t stumbled on the mountain house. I hadn’t been taken in by the Bastards. I hadn’t been taken care of by them. In that universe there was no one to notice that I’d fallen off my tightrope and into one of the cracks.
I looked up as the hum of a motor traveled over the water while a white speedboat headed for the dock. I shielded my eyes from the sun, ready to run if the driver looked super shady, the boat equivalent of a creeper in a kidnapper van.
But as the boat got closer I saw that a woman was steering it. She slowed as she approached the dock, then cut the engine and let it drift toward the pilings as she moved to the side of the boat.
And now I saw that she was older, probably about my mom’s age, and wearing a crisp white uniform, the kind I’d seen on a reality TV show I watched about employees on a superyacht chartered by rich people.
She held on to the dock, stabilizing the boat as she looked up at me. “Lilah Abbott?”
Her voice was crisp and professional, with what sounded like a German accent. More like a receptionist in an office than someone about to chop me into a million pieces.
“Yes.”
“Turn out your pockets,” she said.
“Excuse me?”
“Turn out your pockets. We don’t allow cell phones or other recording devices on the boat.”
I did what she asked, glad I’d stashed my knife in the waistband of my jeans as I turned out their pockets and showed her that my front hoodie pocket was also empty.
“Very good,” she said. “You may board.”
“Where are we going?” I asked. “Who am I seeing?”