Page 44 of Shatter

It isn't there.

It's somewhere at the clubhouse, stiff with my blood, with fifty-two dollars still zipped in the pocket.

The walk-in door is at the back, big and silver with a heavy latch.

I stop in front of it.

My hand won't come up to the handle.

"Katie." Hakon's voice is low, right behind me. "We've got maybe eight minutes."

"I know." I don't move.

He doesn't touch me.

He steps around me and pulls the latch, and the door swings open with a sigh of cold air, raising goose bumps along my arms under the hoodie.

Then he stands there holding it, his back against the steel, and waits.

I walk in, and the compressor hums overhead.

My breath clouds in front of my face, and the cold bites through the thin cotton of my borrowed jeans.

Shelves loom on both sides of me, stacked with milk crates and tubs of coleslaw.

Third panel from the left, above the milk crates.

I look up.

The ceiling is higher than I remember.

When I put it there, I stood on a stack of three crates and stretched on my toes.

I grab the edge of a crate with my good hand and try to drag it into position.

My rib screams, and a sound escapes me before I can bite it back.

I let go.

I stand there with my arm wrapped around my side, breathing in short, sharp pants, each one fogging the air.

"Let me." Hakon's voice comes from the doorway.

"No." I grip the edge of the shelf.

"You're going to rip your stitches." He doesn't come any closer.

"I said no." My voice cracks, too loud in the small space. "I can't."

I can't let him see where.

If he knows where it is, he knows what it is.

If he knows what it is, he can take it.

Everybody who's ever known what I was worth has taken it.

"Okay." He doesn't move from the doorway. "Then tell me what you need, and I'll do exactly that, and nothing else."