Chapter 269
It was 3:00 AM. The hospital had settled into the deep, heavy silence of the graveyard shift.
Hilliard sat in a chair wedged between two beds. On his left, Cailin slept, sedated, her breathing shallow and slow. On his right, Elia lay in a tangle of warming blankets and tubes.
Her core temperature was up. The frostbite on her fingers was superficial. But she hadn’t woken up.
Until now.
A small hand twitched against the sheet.
Hilliard was out of his chair instantly, leaning over the rail.
“Elia?”
Her eyelids fluttered — heavy, swollen. Slowly, agonizingly, they opened.
Green eyes looked up at him. Foggy. Confused.
Then recognition hit.
Elia gasped, shrinking back into the pillows and pulling her knees to her chest.
“No… cold…”
“It’s okay,” Hilliard said, his voice cracking. He reached out a hand, then stopped short of touching her, afraid he might shatter her. “You’re not in the cold anymore. I turned the heat up. Can you feel it?”
Elia shivered. Her eyes moved slowly around the room until they landed on Cailin in the next bed.
“Mommy?”
“She’s sleeping,” Hilliard said. “She’s hurt, but she’s okay.”
Elia looked back at him. “The Bad Lady said she was dead. She showed me the picture. The red grass.”
Hilliard gripped the bed rail until his knuckles turned white.
“The Bad Lady lied,” he said. “Who is the Bad Lady, Elia?” He needed to hear it. He needed the nail in the coffin.
Elia sniffled. “Charla.”
Hilliard reached into his pocket and pressed the record button on his phone. “What did Charla tell you?”
“She said…” Elia’s voice trembled. “She said Mommy was in the basement. In the cold room. She said if I didn’t go find her, the rats would eat Mommy’s body.”
Hilliard closed his eyes. A tear slipped out — hot and silent and furious.
“And she said… if I came back up… the Bad Man would kill me.” Elia studied him with wide, terrified eyes. “Are you the Bad Man?”
The question hit him harder than Cailin’s fists had.
“No,” Hilliard whispered. He knelt beside the bed until he was level with her. “I am the man who is going to make sure the Bad Lady never hurts you again. I promise.”
“Pinky promise?” Elia held out a trembling hand, her little finger wrapped in gauze.
Hilliard hooked his large finger around hers. “Pinky promise.”
Elia’s eyes drooped. The medication was pulling her back under.
“Okay,” she whispered. “Knight.”
Her hand went limp. Her breathing evened out.
Hilliard stood. He saved the recording and uploaded it to three different secure servers.
Vance appeared in the doorway, holding two coffees.
“She wake up?” Vance whispered.
“Yeah.” Hilliard’s voice was stripped of everything human — a machine running on cold purpose. “She confirmed it. Charla sent her down there.”
“Jesus,” Vance breathed. He looked at Hilliard, who was staring into the middle distance. “Hilliard. Are you okay?”