Read Online The Doll by Taylor Stevens - Free Book Online Page A

of a finger in place of speaking, Lumani summoned and a young boy approached with a cardboard box.
    Lumani took it and glanced at the contents, then held it out to Munroe.
    She didn’t move.
    “For your hair,” he said.
    He paused, then pointing toward the bathroom added, “In your hands, that mirror is a dangerous weapon, yes? You could kill me. Kill a few others. I take this risk. You understand that anything you do will come back to hurt Logan?”
    Munroe, eyes steady on his, nodded.
    “My uncle deals harshly with failure,” he said. “You understand?”
    This young man, Lumani, this
boy
, had no right to Logan’s name, to spit it out so casually, with such familiarity, as if he were some long-lost acquaintance.
    Munroe took the box, turned her back to him, and shut the door.
    Slumped to the floor. The pit of blackness welcomed her to let go and fall into the murky depths where conscience and pain ceased to exist.
    Hands to her head, face to the stone, screaming without sound, she pushed back hard. For nine months she’d tasted happiness, a chance at the closest thing she’d known to peace and a real life. For nine months the rage and violence that had defined so many of her years had finally ebbed, and now those who had no right had come with impunity to rip her out of this newfound calm, throwing her into an impossible situation where no matter what she did or what she chose, the end result would be a return to madness.
    She breathed in rapid gulps. Needed time to think, to sortthrough details that made no sense; needed to find a way to reach Bradford and tell him to find Logan, to unloose her shackles, to buy her options, to buy her time.
    Lumani pounded on the door.
    “A minute,” she said. “Toilet first.”
    She stood and flushed. Opened the box and found hair clippers. Located an electrical socket and plugged in the appliance. These people knew what drove her, knew what mattered, appeared to know everything there was to know about her, yet strangely they didn’t suspect she understood their language. How could they not? Albania and Macedonia shared a border—Albanian was frequently spoken in Macedonia, especially among the border cities. It was an oversight so basic that no one from this part of the world could have made it unless everything they knew about her had been fed secondhand from someone who wasn’t fully aware of the geographical implications of wars and borders and centuries of conflict.
    Munroe flipped on the buzzer and stared at the broken, chipped reflection in the mirror. With hands skilled from practice and familiar with routine, she ran the buzzer from forehead to back, side to top, changing and adjusting blade guard heights as needed. Strands of dark hair fell away, shed into the sink. In the mirror’s reflection a young man with a military buzz cut and civilian clothes stared out with bloodshot eyes.
    To create the gender roles and slip between them was a tool of the trade so long utilized in her working life that it had become as natural as blinking, and like her gift for language, was a skill with which her captors were familiar and clearly intended to put to use.
    They
knew
.
    Munroe straightened and tucked the clippers away.
    Box in hand, she still studied the image in the mirror when Lumani opened the door. He hadn’t bothered to knock. She turned toward him, her eyes the last part of her face to leave the reflection.
    He hesitated. Surprise faded into a grin that surfaced and spread slowly while he scanned her with the same blatant curiosity with which he’d first watched her in the cell. Finally he nodded, apparently satisfied.
    “The clippers,” he said, and Munroe handed the box to him.
    “You go to my uncle,” he said, and she understood then that inthe twisted way of this crazy world, the creature in the cell below was the doll of which the Doll Man had spoken.
    Arben and his nameless counterpart flanked her again for the brief journey across the work floor to the