The Rising (Darkness Rising 3)

"Well, I do." He straightened. "I'm sure of it."

I shook my head. "We were separated. Daniel didn't meet up with us. The only reason he'd do that is if he . . . couldn't."

"Temporarily. He'd have found you as soon as he could."

Rafe drew my gaze up to the vent. A microphone or camera, I was guessing. Rafe was warning me not to say anything that could lead them to Daniel. I nodded and leaned against his shoulder.

He put his arm around me. "Daniel's fine. You know he is."

I nodded, closed my eyes, and tried to believe it.

When I felt a little better, I looked around. I'd known I was in a bedroom. Now I noticed the double bed, closet, desk, and dresser. It looked--

I fought back a chill.

It looked like my room. Not exactly--there were no photos or mementos. The furniture was different. But it was the same kind of pieces in the same configuration. I hadn't recognized it because the most important part of my bedroom had not been duplicated. I had huge windows along two walls that opened onto the wraparound second-story balcony. Mom's design, one that let me feel like I was outdoors even when I wasn't.

There was, to my surprise, a window here. Just a normal-sized one. It looked out onto what seemed like an empty blue sky, but when I walked over to it, I could see the glass was opaque. It let in light, but wouldn't let me look out. I rapped the pane.

"Shatterproof," Rafe said. "Believe me, I've tried. Broke my desk chair throwing it at mine."

"What'd they do?"

"Gave me a stern talking-to about damaging property, while letting me know that they understood the urge to act out." He rolled his eyes. "It's like being in a group home. No one ever gets mad about anything. They take away privileges, but they don't get angry--they just want to talk about it."

"They don't want us feeling like we're in a prison."

"Sometimes I'd prefer a prison. This is just creepy." He walked over to stand beside me at the window. "They say that when we accept the situation, they'll replace these with glass we can actually see through."

"Really? And they'll make them breakable, too?"

He laughed and put his arm around my waist. "Not a chance. But we will get field trips. To the mall and stuff. Because I know you love going to the mall."

I shuddered. He laughed again and pulled me against him, our hips bumping, his fingers warm, his smell washing over me, a familiar musky scent, skin-walker scent. I relaxed a little, then stiffened.

"Field trips? So we're . . . stuck indoors. All the time?"

He rubbed down the goose bumps rising on my arm. "There's a yard. With a twelve-foot wood fence and guards with tranq guns. There's a rooftop exercise area, too. More walls that we can't see past or climb over. Like a big kitty playground, with huge balls of yarn and wind-up mice to chase."

I stared at him.

"I'm kidding. Kind of. They have a boxing ring and weights for the benandanti and balance beams and hurdles for us. It sounds awful, and I've been really tempted to ignore it, but the fresh air and the exercise . . . ?" He shrugged. "It helps keep me from going nuts while I figure out a way . . ."

He glanced at the vent and didn't finish.

"Any luck with that?" I murmured.

"Not really. Scoping the situation for now."

"So we're in . . . a lab? A compound of some sort?"

He shook his head. "A house. Huge mansion of a place. It doesn't smell like city, so I think we're outside Vancouver. They're still working on the house, but it was pretty much ready to go when we arrived, which makes me think the St. Clouds had been working on it for a while."

"A contingency plan in case we decided we didn't want to stay in Salmon Creek after we found out about the experiments. The Nasts must have bought it along with us. The lab rats and their habitat."

"Yeah. So for now I'm just taking stock and--"

A rap at the door. I waited for someone to enter, but Rafe had to call a "Come in" before it opened. He rolled his eyes at me.