Chapter 14 · Cain's Name

The hand wearing Mom's ring pulls me through.

I stumble into a room that smells like old smoke and leather. Not Mom. Just her ring, sitting on someone else's finger. A woman I don't recognize lets go of my wrist and disappears through a side door before I can even get a word out. The ring glints once under the dim overhead bulb and then she's gone.

What the hell.

I'm in some kind of archive. Metal shelves line the walls, packed with file boxes and binders that look like they haven't been touched in decades. Dust floats in the air. There's a table in the center covered in loose papers, some of them singed at the edges, some of them stained dark brown. Blood, maybe. Or rust. Hard to tell in this light.

I move toward the table because I don't know what else to do. My hands are still shaking from whatever the red door did to me. That voice. Mom's voice. Don't trust Cain. But Mom's been dead for six years and that ring should be buried with her, so I don't know what I'm supposed to believe anymore.

The papers on the table are pack records.