“I saw the news reports.” Sebastian looked at Eve. “And put some of it together. I know my word is difficult for you to take, but you have my word Dorian didn’t remember until I showed her Mina’s picture.”
“I have no reason to doubt that.” Not when she’d lived it. “It’s hard, Dorian. I’m going to need to get as many details as you can remember about where they held you. Any names—other girls, the people who work there. I need the exact location where Mouser found you, so we can try retracing your steps. We’re going to stop them, we’re going to help all the others. You’re going to make sure that happens. You and Mina are why we’re going to be able to stop them.”
“Auntie has a partner.” Dorian sniffled, wiped at tears. “Mina heard her talking to him. Mina was good at pretending, and Auntie liked her. She was like a favorite.”
“Do you know the partner’s name?”
“No. Nobody used names. I was Trainee 238. I was a number.”
“They only tried to make you believe that.” Roarke spoke for the first time. “You’ve never been a number. You’re an incredibly brave young woman, and you bested them.”
“They killed Mina.”
“We’ll make them very sorry for it.”
“Tell me about the tunnels.”
Dorian looked back at Eve. “They were big, I guess, and dark, like a yellowy light. We just guessed which way to go, because we didn’t know. I don’t remember. I just don’t. And they were coming, we could hear them coming, so we ran and tried to be quiet. And there was the ladder, but it was old and slippery, and I fell.”
“What was it like when you came up?”
“It was raining really hard, and we couldn’t see, and we were scared. There were buildings, but we didn’t know where we were, okay? There was all this old wood and stuff.”
“Wood?”
“Like broken boards or whatever, I don’t know. We tried to hide, but we could hear them, and they were looking for us. And Mina told me to stay down, stay quiet, and she’d run. She picked up one of the boards, a pointy one. I said no, but she said she’d run fast and get her parents, but…”
“Like a construction site?” Eve prompted. “Like a place where they pull old stuff out of old buildings and pile it up?”
“I guess maybe. I don’t know!”
“Okay, okay. You fell down again,” Eve reminded her. “And hit your head. When you woke up, what did you do?”
“It’s all fuzzed up. I hurt so bad, everywhere, and I didn’t know what happened, or where I was. I felt really sick, and I … I used one of the boards, I think, like a crutch so I could walk, and I walked. I don’t know where. I kept walking, and I stole the meds, and I kept walking because I wanted to hide. I just knew I had to hide.”
“All right. Okay, let’s go back some. Tell me more about this Auntie.”
“She’s mean and horrible and everybody’s scared of her. She pretends to be nice, if you do everything she wants, but she’s not.”
“Can you describe her? How old, Black, white, Asian, mixed, anything. How tall, anything.”
Dorian sat back and sucked on the fizzy. “I guess. I can see her in my head. I’m always going to see her in my head. She’s taller than me. Taller than the night matron bitch.”
Eve got to her feet. “Taller than me?”
Dorian angled her head to the side. “Maybe about the same, but bigger. I mean, you’re kind of skinny. She isn’t. Big boobs and all. White, I think. Maybe a little mixed, but mostly white, with really blond hair she always wore kind of pulled back.”
“What color are her eyes?”
“They’re blue, but not like his.” She looked at Roarke. “They’re dark and mean.”
“Good. Here’s what I need. I have somebody who can draw her if you describe her.”
“I don’t know how—”
“He does. It’s what he does. He’s not mean. And if he can draw her picture, we’ll get her name. We’ll find her.”
“Just from that?”
“It’ll go a long way. And if you can describe anyone else, but we’re going to start with her. She’s in charge.”
“Totally. She has an office, and she wears fancy suits, and everybody does what she says.”
“Okay. Here’s what else. I have some pictures, and I need you to look at them. If you recognize anybody, if any of them were or are at this Academy, you can tell us.”