In the House of the Wicked: A Remy Chandler Novel by Thomas E. Sniegoski

Author:Thomas E. Sniegoski
Language: eng
Format: mobi, epub
ISBN: 9781101617243
Publisher: Penguin Group
Published: 2012-08-07T06:00:00+00:00

CHAPTER SEVENTEEN

Never talk to strangers.

Ashley heard her mother’s voice over and over again, echoing inside her skull, growing louder with every utterance until she felt as though she might scream until her throat bled.

But she had already done that.

When she’d awakened inside the metal cage.

She opened her eyes quickly, hoping that something—anything—might have changed, but she was still there.

Cramped inside a cage, stuck in the corner of a filthy room that had been decorated for a small child a very long time ago.

There was a part of her that still hoped something was wrong with her, that maybe she’d had some sort of horrible illness, a fever so high that it caused her to hallucinate, or maybe she’d been in a car accident and this was some kind of head trauma. She would even accept being drugged at a party, but she couldn’t remember the last time she’d even been to a party.

All she could remember was that afternoon, heading downtown and filling out job applications.

And the strange man.

Never talk to strangers.

She almost told her mother to shut up, but just the thought of her mother made her begin to cry, and she had been crying so often, for so long, that she barely had any tears left.

Ashley had first noticed the man in the antique store, watching her as she had petted the cat. She remembered how she was annoyed at first and then creeped out. She’d been tempted to tell the guy off, but instead she had moved on to the next on her list of potential employers.

Remy would have been proud of her, being aware of her surroundings and who was in them. He’d always drilled that into her: Pay attention to details, no matter how small. All good advice, like…

Don’t talk to strangers.

As she lay curled up on a dirty blanket draped across the bottom of the cage, Ashley realized that the alarms had stopped. The grating sounds had started suddenly and had seemed to go on and on for a very long time.

But they’d finally been silenced.

She had thought the alarms might have had something to do with her, that maybe somebody—Remy—had come to take her home.

But the alarms had stopped, and she was still here.

Remy hadn’t come.

She hadn’t a clue as to where she was or why she had been taken, so even though she didn’t want to relive it, she allowed the scene to replay in her mind. Maybe she had missed something.

She had finished her job search for the day and wanted something to drink. Knowing that there was nothing good back at the apartment, she had stopped at a convenience store not too far from her new home.

It was funny the details that she remembered leading up to…

Ashley began to tremble, pulling herself tighter into a ball. It was cold in the little kid’s room, and she reached out to pull a corner of the blanket over herself.

The convenience store had been empty. A song had been playing softly over the speakers.

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