"Over here—" Lily screamed, running toward Ian's motionless body.
They'd been pounding the floor area between the pool and the tub when an opening had appeared in the wall across the room and Ian had fallen through.
Already blood was seeping and forming a puddle around his body. He lay on his back, propped up by the oxygen tank.
"Check him for wounds—" Mike shouted from behind her.
"Why was he in the tank?" she gasped, dropping to her knees beside him. Mike reached her and followed suit.
"I don't know"—he said gruffly—"ask him later. For now, find out where all this blood is coming from. Help me take off this wetsuit and tank."
With trembling fingers, she pulled the wetsuit back off Ian's wet head and tugged the tank straps from each shoulder. She pulled his right arm through and scooted around to his other side to do the same with his left, slipping on the blood. The suit was shredded on this arm, spurting lacerations showing through.
Mike removed the tank delicately as Chris appeared and hurried toward them.
"Call an ambulance, Chris—" she shouted.
"No—" a female voice responded nearby.
Lily glanced over her shoulder. Hannah was standing a few feet away; a stern look on her face, hands on her hips.
"No?"
Hannah shook her head. "Auguste—your grandfather, told me that no doctor was ever to touch Ian. Even when he was found as a child . . . so ill . . . we nursed him back to health ourselves."
"What! But why? That's insane—Call a doctor now!"
"Stop wasting time," Hannah snapped, approaching them with an air of authority. "Mike—go find some scissors."
Mike took off and left the room by the east wing exit.
"But Hannah"—Lily cried—"we've got to call an ambulance!"
Hannah knelt down beside her and touched Ian's pale cheek tenderly. "No. He would have wanted it this way."
Ian's eyes were shut, hair soaked and plastered to his head.
"But—he'll die." She touched the glossy material covering his shoulder and quickly withdrew her hand. A tear slipped down her cheek, pulse pounding out of control. "He's bleeding all over the floor—" Already her hands and jeans were saturated with blood.
Ian's blood.
She could hardly breathe.
At the sound of footsteps on the nearby stone stairs, Mike burst into the room with scissors in one hand and a First Aid box in the other. Chris, who'd just been standing by like a lost puppy, joined Mike's side with a sudden look of determination and took the First Aid kit from him.
"Lily—hold the material off Ian's wounds while Mike cuts it," Hannah instructed, her white apron stained crimson.
Focusing on steadying her breathing, Lily held the sleeve as Mike sliced through it. Now that Ian's arm was free from the tightness of the suit, blood spurted violently from the ring of holes in his skin and muscle.
"Out of my way now, please." Hannah moved Lily aside. "Chris—gimme some disinfectant. And Mike—get Lily out of here."
Before she could even protest, Mike was helping Lily to her feet and hurrying her from the room, her skimmers slipping and sliding on the bloodied glass floor.
Lily sat bolt upright in bed.
Visions of Ian's bloody arm and white face flooded her mind like a strobe light. But that wasn't what had awoken her.
Someone was crying softly.
In the hallway.
And the cries were growing fainter still, moving away, going down the stairs.
Several hours earlier, Hannah had come up from the basement to announce that Ian was awake and doing well. It was difficult to believe and Lily hadn't been allowed to see him either, despite her pleadings. The evening that had thus followed stretched long and lonely. She'd spent it pacing in her bedroom; skipping dinner due to anxiety.
So, who was crying in the middle of the night? Was it Hannah?
Lily climbed out of bed and went to the chest of drawers in the dark; groping around for a pair of track pants and a hoodie sweatshirt, along with her skimmers—which though thoroughly scrubbed, still bore traces of Ian's blood. She then retrieved a pocket flashlight from her purse and fastened her wristwatch, noting the time: half past one.
She slipped out into the hall and tip-toed down the stairs to the front entrance with the aid of her flashlight. She then stood in the chilly corridor with only a faint flower-shaped beam of moonlight lighting it from the quatrefoil window, and listened for any sound of crying.
A muted sound from the end of the corridor.
Indiscernible.
With the beam of her flashlight penetrating the darkness, Lily wandered down the massive hallway toward the far end stairwell. All the doors flanking the corridor were closed; and hearing no sounds, she made no attempts to open them. She didn't feel nervous really, just curious. The crying had been distinctly female and was likely Hannah. Only, where had she gone? Reaching the stairwell room, Lily stood still a moment and considered whether to go upstairs to the as yet unexplored west wing, or to venture downstairs to the pool room. Had they cleaned up Ian's blood? She shuddered and tugged on the battle axe. The wall panel slid open.
Shining her flashlight down the stone steps, which smelled now of bleach and had clearly been scrubbed clean of crimson footsteps, Lily descended and opened the wooden door. Warm, chlorinated air wafted over her.
The pool room was lit by numerous blue night lights within the aquarium—the slow-moving water reflecting off the walls and ceiling. Much to her relief, the glass floor was completely washed and polished and there was no trace of blood anywhere.
The hidden panel on the right-hand side of the room that led into the scuba room was shut and invisible from where she stood. Just how many other hidden doors might there be in this place? And more importantly, why hadn't Mike told her about the scuba room when she'd asked about privacy? Was it possible that he didn't know about the room . . . or did he lie?
Aside from the rippling reflection of the water, all was still and unmoving.
She shuddered and wandered deeper into the room, beyond the empty bathtub, taking care not to tumble into it, until she reached the center of the aquarium. A chill ran up her spine at the memory of Ian's palms pressed up against the glass from underneath; reddish water all around him. There were several wedges in the floor where Mike had taken a crow bar to it. She got down on her knees and peered through the glass. The aquarium was deep here but there were several elongated shadows at the bottom; she wanted to see if it was the sharks.
It was—only they weren't moving.
Their bodies were sprawled over the bed of the tank, bobbing slightly in a mild current.
Dead.
Her throat clogged, back tensing. Why had they died?
A scuffling sound came from behind and she spun around as a shadow darted across the wall above the tropical plants.
"Who's there?" she said, pulse quickening. She jerked a glance around the room.
Nothing.
She took a deep breath and stood up. It must be her nerves getting to her after the trauma of that day. She left the center of the room and followed the perimeter back toward the east wing entrance; gripping her flashlight in her palm.
Another shadow darted across the far right wall. She scanned the entire room.
Nothing moved.
Were the shadows just random movements of fish swimming past the blue water lights and reflecting off the walls?
A deep, sighing breath rushed through the room—then went silent.
Lily dropped her flashlight and ducked around a marble angel, pressing her back against the wall. Inch by inch she headed toward the open door, heart hammering against her ribs. Surely she was just hearing things.
"Run, Lily, run," a disembodied female voice murmured from somewhere close by.
"H-Hannah?"
As soon as the question had left her lips the blue lights of the aquarium flickered out and the room went entirely black, save for the stream of her fallen flashlight. On the verge of panic, she felt her way along the wall with wooden fingers and nearly screamed when she bumped into a statue.
All she could hear was her own rasping breath.
She held it in to mute it and moved forward again only to freeze when she realized the rasping breathing hadn't stopped.
It wasn't her at all—it was someone beside her.
A heated breath flowed down the side of her cheek and neck sending waves of terror through her body like a static charge.
She tried to run toward the door but couldn't find anything with her outstretched hands. She scratched at the walls, desperate for the door and fully expecting to be grabbed from behind.
So this is how Ian must have felt, she thought suddenly, subconsciously—trapped in the depths of the aquarium, horror closing in—waiting to be snatched away at any moment.
Something scraped across the floor behind her and footsteps pounded to her right, no wait—behind. No—to the right. The whole room pulsated with footsteps, making it impossible to tell which direction they came from.
Before she could react, pain shot through her back as though something sharp had sliced her skin—and a wheezing moan sounded to her right.
Lily ran blindly to the left, forgetting she might tumble into the empty bathtub and break her neck—but finding a solid wall with her hands, she scrambled forward and rejoiced to touch the edge of the door frame.
Hands grabbed her sweatshirt, pulling her backward.
Instinctively, she jabbed her elbow into something soft—but the hands didn't let go. An arm wrapped around her waist and a hand clamped down over her mouth. She wanted to scream and bite as a smooth cheek pressed against hers.
"Hush." It was that female voice again.
Lily clawed at the dainty hand over her mouth and paused for a split second when she realized the sleeve of her captor was visible: a flowing white silk.
Something smacked hard against the back of her head and her body went limp.
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