An overwhelming sadness enveloped her. Life was precious and Edmund's mental agony must have been exceptional to lead him to want to leave it.
Well, it was time to stop wondering and see if this so-called gift she possessed was only a fluke or if she could really find out the answers to those questions.
She drew a deep breath and turned off her flashlight. It was pitch-dark but in her mind's eye she could still see the bareness of the wall where the mirror had once hung.
Edmund.
She braced herself and slowly, tentatively, opened herself to the voices. Nothing. No whisper. No roar. Nothing.
Relief poured through her. She had tried. She had done what she had promised. It wasn't her fault that she couldn't hear anything. Perhaps it was a fluke after all.
And then they came.
A scream of agony so intense that it hurt Megan to the bone.
"Tell us. Don't be a fool, Gillem. Where's the Ledger?"
"No," a broken gasp. "I'll never tell you, Molino. You'd only kill me anyway."
"Perhaps not. Try me."
"No."
"Sienna, continue to persuade him." Another long drawn-out cry of pain.
"We know you don't have it here. Where have you hidden it?"
"I never... had the Ledger."
"But you know who does. Who has it now, Gillem?"
"I don't... know."
"Start on his testicals, Sienna."
Another shriek that made Megan press back against the wall as if the pain was being inflicted on her body, not Edmund's. Make it stop, Edmund. Tell them. Don't let them hurt you anymore.
"Why protect them, Gillem? They're only freaks. They wouldn't help you. Not those Finders or Listeners or Mind Readers. Probably most of them are phonies anyway."
"Then why do you want to find them?" Edmund gasped. Molino didn't answer. "Tell me about the Pandoras."
"I don't know what you're talking about."
"Who are they? How many?"
"I don't know—"
"I'm getting impatient. The Ledger. Sienna, do it." Edmund screamed again. But he didn't tell them.
The pain went on, the screams echoed on and on. "No," she whispered. She curled up in a ball on the floor.
"They're hurting us, Edmund. It's not worth it. Tell them." What could be so important that would keep him silent while enduring punishment like this? But it had been important enough to him. He could barely mutter his refusals now, but he wouldn't give them what they wanted.
Brave, she thought dimly, and good. Good men should not be tormented like this.
God, she wanted to close them all out. She felt as if she was joined to Edmund and the pain was unbearable.
She couldn't do it. She wouldn't do it. It was if they were joined and she could feel his terrible loneliness. "It's okay, Edmund. I won't leave you alone." She reached jerkily up and locked the door before burying her head in the crook of her arm. "Play it out. You're not by yourself this time. I'll stay with you... until the end."
HE HAD TO GET IN THERE. To hell with his promise.
Grady's nails bit into his palms as his hands clenched. Pain was swirling around Megan with tornado force.
"What's happening?" Harley was coming toward him. "You look as if you're about to tear the trailer apart."
"If I can, I will. She locked the damn door."
"And you're not trusting her to come out on her own?"
"She's hurting. I'm going to go back to the car and get a crowbar."
"That would take time. Let me see what I can do." He bent to examine the lock. "Did I tell you I was once a locksmith?"
"No."
"Good, it would have been a lie. But during my misspent youth I did dabble in safecracking."
"Hurry," Grady said harshly.
Harley's smile faded. "A few more seconds."
The lock sprang open.
Grady jerked open the door and was into the trailer.
Megan was curled into a tight ball on the floor. She was unconscious.
Or dead?
No, she was opening her eyes. "I had to stay until it was done. It's... over now, isn't... it?" Yes. "I'm... glad." Her eyes closed again. "He was hurting so..."
He didn't know if she was unconscious again but he wasn't going to wait to find out. He picked her up and carried her out of the trailer. "I'm taking her back to the inn, Harley. Close up the trailer and meet us there."
Harley nodded. "I'll be ten minutes behind you."
GRADY WAS SITTING BESIDE HER bed when Megan opened her eyes again. "You …didn't tell me they tortured him," she whispered. "I wasn't sure they did."
"But you suspected it."
"I thought there was a good possibility. Molino wants the Ledger."
"Yes, he does." She moistened her lips. "He did unspeakable things to Edmund. Molino and a man named Sienna."
"Sienna is Molino's second in command."
"I think Molino enjoyed it. It went on for a long time. He kept calling him a freak and telling him that how he was going to hurt him next. He wanted him to be afraid, to anticipate." She shuddered. "He's a terrible man."
"You knew that before we went into this."
"I knew about him, but I didn't know him. Edmund and I were lost in that filth and we couldn't get away."
"Edmund and you?"
"That's what it seemed like. It was different than before. I wanted to leave him, but I couldn't do it. He was all alone when he died and I didn't want to desert him. I knew I couldn't do anything, but it didn't matter." She shook her head. "It's hard to explain."
"You shouldn't have locked the door."
"I didn't want you to interrupt us. I thought you might know we were hurting."
"It wasn't Gillem hurting, it was you, dammit."
"It was both of us." She raised her hand and rubbed her aching temple. "You were right, Edmund was a good man. He deserved better than to die like that. He should have lived a long, long life."
"What do you mean, it was both of you?"
"I found out some answers about Listeners you can pass on to your friend, Michael Travis. One, Edmund could have been speaking Zulu and I would still have understood him. It's emotional transmission. Two, they didn't even have to speak. I knew what they were feeling, thinking." She closed her eyes as the emotions of the night bombarded her again. "I particularly know what Edmund was going through. He didn't want to die."