The first book in the Evil series

It was cold.

She could feel the wind tugging at her hair, hear it whining around the eaves and rattling what sounded like a loose piece of tin somewhere. The cold, moistureladen air left her skin clammy and chilled her all the way to her bones.

She supposed she was in shock. It was an odd sensation, shock. A curious sort of limbo where nothing disturbed her very much.

So it must have been instinct rather than concern that prompted her to move, to pull herself forward despite the pain. The unevenness of the floor was both a help and a torture, providing fingerholds even as it cruelly scraped her skin and gouged her body.

She felt one of her fingernails tear painfully and was conscious of dirt and crusted blood underneath the few that were left undamaged. I'm probably corrupting evidence or something. Probably really screwing things up.

But that didn't seem important either. She focused on what was. Just keep reaching out, one hand at a time. Hold on to something, no matter how much it hurts. Pull yourself forward, no matter how much it hurts.

It became automatic, mechanical. Reach. Grab. Pull. Reach. Grab. Pull. There went another fingernail. Damn. Reach. Grab. Pull.

When her reaching fingers abruptly encountered thin air, it took her several minutes of fumbling exploration to realize she was at the top of the stairs. Stairs.

Just the thought of her aching body bumping down rough step after rough step made her shudder, and she heard a thin sound of dread hardly louder than a whimper escape her swollen lips. It was going to hurt like hell. It did.

Somewhere near the bottom, her strength gave out, and she slid over the last few steps in an agonizing rush that left her sprawled, limp and sobbing quietly, on the ancient tile floor that smelled of dirt and cooked cabbage and urine.