Page 112 of Sharing Silence

“I can show you.” He opens the door and steps inside the humidity, and I stay in place, watching him disappear beyond the rich greens and steamed glass. Bullet looks up at me, and I mumble at him to stay, worried what the heat might do to him. The floor of the greenhouse is remarkably clean, so this place must still be used regularly. “Some plants are believed to be impossible to grow out of their habitat,” Ryker says, rubbing a leaf between his forefinger and thumb. He moves to another plant, one behind a plastic covering. He gestures at me to approach, and I do, slowly. “The Dendrocnide moroides. Otherwise known as the suicide plant. You touch it and it causes intense, burning pain that can last weeks.”

It doesn’t look out the ordinary. A heart-shaped leaf, that’s all, one you could easily mistake as harmless.

“So, what? They’d rub this on prisoners for information?”

“Sometimes. In later years, they were able to harvest its sting in a liquid and inject it directly into them or put it in their food.” A few plants down is a small refrigerator stocked with vials of clear liquid. “They’d feel like they were burning from the inside out.”

I look up at him. “That’s horrific.”

“Yes. But it worked.” He admires the vials for a moment. “A tasteless, odorless liquid into a soup, and then …” He snaps his fingers. “Agony.”

This is beyond creepy. Greenhouses are supposed to breathe life into things, to produce oxygen and warmth and growth. Not torture devices.

“I want to go.”

He shrugs. “If you insist.”

We continue through the house until we reach a kitchen. What I’ve noticed is that … there’s no one else here. Or if there is, I haven’t seen them. No cook, no staff, no men with guns. It’s totally empty.

“Bullet has to stay up here.”

I blink, looking down at the dog. “Why?”

“Because we’re going into the basement. The stairs are slippery. He might struggle.”

Bullet shifts closer to me. “You can carry him down.”

“He doesn’t like me.”

“He’s not the only one.”

Ryker frowns but doesn’t respond. I wish I could carry Bullet—he’s my only protection, but he’s heavy. If I somehow managed to lift him and I slipped, we might end up injured. The last thing I need is another obstacle.

“Fine. Stay here, boy, okay? I’ll be right back.”

Bullet watches as we approach a wooden door. It’s old, but solid, and Ryker shoves the lock aside and pulls it open.

I’m immediately greeted with the smell of damp, and I wrinkle my nose. Ryker goes first, and when I reach the doorway, I peek down. It’s dark. Almost pitch black. The stone stairs are damp, shining with what I hope is rainwater.

I could lock him in. Throw the door closed. Get the hell out of here.

But what if Zayden, Xavier, and Yale are in that basement? What if he has them tied up, and if I lock them in, he kills them?

“Rose,” Ryker says gently. “Do you want me to lift you so your feet don’t get cold?”

“No,” I snap, stepping forward. A chill sweeps across my sole, but I ignore it as I descend the stairs, keeping distance between Ryker and me. I try to crouch and see what’s at the bottom, but it’s a hallway with a bend.

When I reach the bottom step, Ryker faces me. “Do you think you could love me again?”

“No.”

Genuine pain flashes across his eyes. “But … you loved me before them.”

“And they’ve never hurt me.”

He huffs a cold laugh, then gestures ahead of him. “Ladies first.”

“No way. You go.”