Trapped (10 page)

Chapter
9 - Consequences

“Emily? Em? Wake up, Emily!”

“
Shh, girls. Just give her a little bit of space.”

“Is she okay?”

“She’s…she’s going to be fine. Let’s just give her some water.”

I feel rounded plastic touch my lips, then a slow trickle of water flow
s into my mouth. I swallow convulsively, trying to open my eyes.

“Emily!”

Michelle and Suzanne are kneeling down beside me, holding onto my hand. Michelle has lost her cap somewhere. The sleeve on Suzanne’s dress is torn, and she has a small bruise on her upper arm.

I turn my head to the other side, meeting Chris’s compassionate eyes.
Or one of them. The other is ringed with purple and black.

I struggle to sit up, cringing at the effort as my shoulder
is sliced with sudden pain. We’re somewhere…somewhere small and enclosed, sitting up off the ground.

“Are we in a van?” I ask, looking out the rear hatch to the rest of the tunnel. I can see the middle section, where the fight had been – chairs overturned, a deck of cards scattered on the ground, and a couple other men looking as bruised and battered as I feel.

“Lay down, Emily,” Chris says gently, leaning me back. “Mrs. Potts let me carry you to the back of her Expedition. Everyone is over by the town car, reporting the full story to the Governor. There was a, umm, a bit of a fight. You dove in to get the twins out.”

I turn to look at the girls. “You two okay?”

They nod quickly, telling me their own versions of the story. The hiker brothers were fighting the plumbers for food. Suzie was knocked down. Michelle had hidden behind a rock. I had tried to get Suzanne out, received a blow to the side of my face.

“
Ow,” I say, remembering. My fingers gently touch my right cheekbone, feeling the raw skin there.

“Yeah, it hurt!” Michelle says, continuing. “And then you got kicked in the shoulder, and then someone like trampled your head!”

“They stepped on your braid, Emily!” Suzanne chimes in, her eyes going wide. “And we can’t even wash your hair down here!”

“And then,” Michelle picks the story back up, “Chris dove in and picked you right up, carrying you straight out of the fight! But they all just kept fighting – like a movie!”

“I think it went on for a little longer,” Chris tells me. “But we got you and the girls out of it. Hopefully the rest of them worked out their anger enough to get along for a while.”

I look back toward the bruised men still sitting in the middle of the tunnel. They sure look like they worked out a lot of anger.

“Who broke it up?” I ask him.

“Bernard and
Governor Rosings, if you can believe it,” Chris says. “They swooped right in. Bernard strong-armed a few guys, and the Governor grabbed Phil by the collar, said a few words. He backed down pretty quickly.”

I nod, thinking.
“You don’t think anything…
crazy
…will happen?” I ask Chris, not sure how to phrase my question in front of the girls. If the plumbers thought anything other than hunger drove Jason and Kevin, I’m not sure what would happen.

“They won’t do anything,” he assures me. “
There was bound to be some sort of fight, I think. Everyone’s hungry and tired. But we should only have a few more days to wait.”

We watch as Bernard walks up, carrying a small paper bag. He stops at the opening of the Expedition, passing the bag to me.

“Here,” he says. “The Governor was worried about your recovery – he sent you some food.”

I nod, thanking him before he turn
s and walks away. I open the bag, astonished to find an apple and a couple of packs of crackers.

“How does he still have so much food?” I say, turning to Chris.

He shrugs, looking in the bag. “A lot of people had food in their cars, especially if they were starting on long drives. Maybe the Governor’s just been extra careful with his.”

I pass a pack of
orange crackers each to the girls, who tear into them with gusto. Chris helps me open the third bag of crackers, refusing when I try to share some with him.

“You need it, Champ. And you earned it. Eat up.”

We munch in silence for a while, saving what we can of the crackers for later. The apple we eat now, though, and even Chris takes a bite. Fresh food is too hard to come by to waste.

We eat every piece of the apple, right down to the core. I let the girls finish it, meeting Chris’s eyes.

“I was really worried about you,” he says quietly, reaching down to touch my unscarred cheek. His eyes trace the other one, and with gentle fingers he brushes away bits of dirt from my scrape.

“Think I’ll get a bruise to match yours?” I ask quietly, looking at the purple skin under his left eye.

“You already do, Champ,” he smiles, touching the skin gently.

I lean in to his hand, so relieved to be talking to him again that I’m almost grateful for the fight.
But there’s still no telling where he and I stand. Allies, still. Friends, maybe.

But more?
The way his hand feels on my cheek, I could only hope.

After a while I
try to sit up again, groaning when I put weight on my arm.

“Easy there,” Chris says, helping me to lean against the back of the seat. “You took a blow to the shoulder, remember?”

“Is that bruised, too?” I grunt, trying to raise my arm up above my head.

“Here, let’s take a look.”

He gently pulls the fabric of my white shirt to the side, baring my shoulder to his view. The girls ooh and ahh over the bruise that’s forming there – a large, ugly one, by their expressions. But I’m surprised as Chris’s cheeks flush, his fingers wandering carefully over the bare skin of my shoulder and collar bone, brushing over the strap of my tanktop.

“Yep,
ahh, pretty bruised,” he says, covering my shoulder back up. His hands linger for a moment, high on my chest, before he whispers, “with an emphasis on the ‘pretty.’”

I feel my cheeks flush as well
, and at last his hands move away. The girls become occupied trying to figure out what to do with their apple seeds, and Chris settles down beside me. Hidden between our bodies, his hand reaches for mine, his fingers gently squeezing as we watch the rest of the tunnel.

The workmen seem to have recovered enough to set up
their chairs again, one of them on the ground searching for playing cards. The crowd around the town car has dispersed, with Simon Tara sitting on the hood of his truck again, staring at the plumbers as they work. My mom is walking over with Hannah Avery and Mrs. Potts, and the Rodriguez’s have gathered up their children, taking them back to the safety of their mini-van.

Chris
lets go of my hand, climbing out of the expedition abruptly. “I think I have to go check on something,” he says cryptically, meeting my eyes for a moment before turning away. I watch him go, my eyes tracing the broad lines of his shoulders, the thin frame of his waist, the way his long legs move swiftly as he sidesteps rocks. He walks straight up to Simon Tara, speaking with him in hushed tones.

“Emily,” Suzanne gets my attention, holding up the apple seeds for me to examine. “Do you think we can plant these when we get home? Do you think they’ll grow?”

“I don’t think it will work,” Michelle says, leaning forward. “Our soil is too tough. Am I right, Emily?”

I examine the seeds intently, smiling at my sisters. “It’s worth a shot, don’t you think? We can plant them as soon as we get home.”

“Where did you get those?” My mom’s voice is shrill as she races the last few feet to the car. I look up at her warily, noting her scowl. And Mrs. Potts’s matching one.

I slide discreetly over to hide the brown paper sack from their view. It has the last of our crackers in it, and I’m not ready to give them up. “
Governor Rosings gave me an apple, to help me recover, I guess.”

My mom crosses her arms over her chest. “You couldn’t even save some for me, Emily? How selfish of you. You know how starving I am.”

I lower my eyes, unwilling to make an apology.

“You can have some of our crackers, Mommy,” Suzanne says, and I cringe inside. She’s just trying to help, I know. Just trying to placate our mother.

But she just unwittingly gave up the last of our food.

“You got crackers, too, Emily? Were you going to
tell
me about them?”

I nod, still not meeting her eyes. There’
s no point. She knows I’m lying.

“Hand them to me, Suzanne,” our mom snaps, and the girls hurriedly reach behind me for the brown bag. I don’t know how many crackers are in there, but it’s enough to satisfy my mom for the moment. She turns to stomp back to our car, but Mrs. Potts stops her.

“Hold on, there, Mary,” she says, looming over her. I watch as Mrs. Potts peers inside the bag. “I let your daughter recover in my car. Those crackers are rightfully mine.”

“She would’ve been fine lying on the ground, Amelia. I don’t owe you anything.”

She snatches the bag, and my mom snatches it back. For a moment I’m not sure if another fight is going to break out. My hands reach for the girls, bringing them further into the back of the Expedition. Into safety.

“I gave you food earlier, too. I want that bag, Mary.”

My mom shakes her head, clutching the bag to her.

Mrs. Potts grabs her by the arm, crushing her fingers into my mom’s skin. The girls whimper, but I won’t let them out.

“Half,” my mom grits out. “We’ll split it, Amelia.”

It’s enough to get Mrs. Potts to let go. My mom carefully pulls cracker after cracker out, handing them over to Mrs. Potts.

“That’s not half, Mary,” she says when my mom stops. My mom’s expression says that it is – that it’s more than half – but still she pulls out a few more, not stopping until Mrs. Potts lets her.

When their bargaining is over, Mrs. Potts slams herself into the front of her car, digging greedily into the remainder of our crackers. We scramble out of the back, reluctantly walking to our car, where my mom is crying in the driver’s seat.

“She only left me two,” my mom sobs, rubbing at her bruised arm. “Just two crackers. And I’m so hungry.”

I try to feel sorry for her. And I do, in a way. But then I remember just the two small bites of
poptart I’d gotten from her a few days ago. There has been other food, too, that’s she’s gotten from Mrs. Potts without sharing.

My stomach content for the moment, I tuck the girls into the back of the car. Sleepy or not, we’re going to rest for the night.

Chapter 10 – The Countdown Begins

“Ma’am.”

Startled, I turn away from the mirror to look at Bernard. He’s bending down toward my window, his navy driver’s cap looking slightly rumpled in the
ever-present glare of the overhead lights.

“If you would
, please wake up your family. The Governor needs everyone to meet in the middle of the tunnel.”

“Of course,” I say, watching him as he turns to convey his message first to Hannah Avery’s car, and then
the tent with the hikers.

I look in the mirror one last time, touching the bruise on my cheek gently. The skin has turned from scrape to scab, and I try not to worry about infection – wishing, for the hundredth time, that my mom hadn’t taken my first
aid kit out of the car. The bruise on my cheek has lightened overnight from a dark purple to a hideous green, as has the one on my shoulder.

The girls should get a kick out of my new coloring, at least.

I fix my hair and attempt to smooth out my white blouse, but it’s hopeless. Where yesterday it had been just wrinkled and well-worn, today it is covered with dirt and blood, looking more like tan tie-dye than white.

“Forget this,” I mumble, shrugging out of it. My black tank top leaves my arms and
upper chest exposed, but it’s clean and decent enough. I ball up my white blouse and bury it under my seat, feeling better already.

The movement has freed some strands of blond hair from my braid, but I don’t bother fixing it. Instead I
gently tug at my mom’s arm, telling her about the meeting. She groans loudly, trying to stretch out in her cramped seat.

“Doesn’t
Governor Rosings realize I don’t have the energy for walking that far?” she says, rubbing her hand on her stomach. “I’m starving here. If he has so much food to share with you, he can share with me, too.”

I make some sounds of commiseration,
then turn to wake up the girls. They rub their eyes and sit up, messy brown hair standing up in every direction.

My instinct is to attempt
another hair-brushing battle. But it will just have to wait.

First, we have to go to this meeting. I get the girls up, and help my mom out of the car. Her lethargy seems exaggerated as
we walk, and she hooks an arm heavily over my shoulder. I struggle under her weight, wondering if she’s really doing as poorly as she seems, or if Mrs. Potts’s stealing her food –
my food
, I sigh – has destroyed her mental stamina.

Well, at least she chose my good shoulder to lean on instead of my bad one.

Chris’s eyes are bent in a deep frown as we walk up. My mom and I take the rock bench, and the girls sit close beside me. The Rodriguez family is huddled together near where Chris is standing, and the workmen are sitting in their usual seats. Hannah Avery and the hikers soon join our circle, and Mrs. Potts walks up with her two children.

The
Governor is standing against the railing, as he had that first day, with Bernard by his side.

He opens his mouth to speak, then hesitates, a deep sadness filling the lines of his face. “We’re almost free of this tunnel, I think,” he says quietly. “The last reports we heard on the radio said that the rescue mission is on track – and I’m pretty sure we only have
two more days until they break through.”

Though his words are positive, his voice is strained and tired.
I look toward Chris again, but he won’t meet my eyes.

“Yesterday we had a terrible blow to our morale,
” the Governor continues, “and today I’m afraid I have more bad news. The old gentleman in the pick-up truck passed away overnight. We believe it was the shock from the fighting and the strain of our circumstances that killed him.”

A collective gasp makes its way around the circle, and I hug the girls closer to me. This is not news to Chris, I see, though
his frown deepens perceptibly.

“Mr. Simon Tara was found on the ground outside of his truck early this morning. We checked his pulse, and discovered he’d gone. Out of concern for the,
ehm,
bodily processes
his body will soon be going through, I asked some of these kind gentlemen,” he indicates the plumbers, “to remove Mr. Tara to the empty ventilation system above. When the rescue workers arrive, we’ll be sure to let them know where he is, so that he can have a proper burial.”

I can feel the girls shaking beside me, and I realize they’re crying. They’ve never been this close to death before. Neither have I, for that matter. And though we’ve known abstractly that many others probably died in this cave-in, losing one of the survivors is a blow.

“Now I know the fighting yesterday was frightening, and the death of Mr. Tara is even more so,” the Governor says gently, looking at the twins. “But we only have two more days to wait. With patience and trust, they will pass quickly. We found a small amount of food and some water bottles in Mr. Tara’s car that I’m sure he would want us to divvy out to everyone. Bernard, if you will?”

With that
Governor Rosings dismisses himself, and Bernard walks around, passing out packs of crackers – one for everyone in the circle, it seems, and a bottle of water for each family. When he reaches us, we accept the gifts gratefully. The crackers seem like the same brand the Governor had given us yesterday – orange, with peanut butter filling. They must be more popular than I realized, I think, digging into mine. I tell the girls to finish their packs, and I finish mine as well. No point risking them getting taken from us again.

After she’s finished, my mom wanders off
to the car again, latching onto Hannah Avery as they walk in the same direction. I wonder if yesterday’s incident will mean the end of my mom’s friendship with Mrs. Potts. With only two days left, it probably won’t be worth repairing to either of them.

“How’s your cheek,” Chris asks me as he walks over, taking my mom’s place on the rock bench.

“Fine,” I say, swallowing the last of my crackers. “How’s your eye?”

“Fine,” he smiles. It looks to be the same greenish-yellow that my cheek is today. “How’s your shoulder?”

“Fine,” I say. “How are your legs?”

“Fine,” he laughs.
“I seem to get a new scrape or bruise every time I’m around you, Champ.”

“I have a bruise, too!” Suzanne pipes up, indicating the faint tinge on her upper arm.

“So I see,” Chris says. “What about you, Michelle?”

She shakes her head, lowering her eyes. “I didn’t get any.”

“Don’t worry, you’ll get one someday,” Chris smiles at her, then reaches around me to pass them something. “Why don’t you girls split my crackers? I’m all crackered-out at the moment.”

They tear into his pack with relish, spilling more orange crumbs over their clothes. He
takes in my change of shirt, his eyes lingering on the visible bruising on my shoulder. After a long moment he meets my eyes again, and I can tell he wishes we could talk.

“You doing okay, Champ?”

I nod. “A full recovery. Except for my coloring.”

“I mean…well…about Mr. Tara…”

I turn my eyes away. “It’s…sad…” I say, though I mean more than that. It’s sad that he’s passed away, but it’s strange, too. If he had all these crackers left, and at least six bottles of water, he couldn’t have been doing that bad physically. And he didn’t seem very affected by the fighting yesterday – he seemed like his normal, grumpy, stand-offish self. Mr. Simon Tara was not the type to get emotional over a little fighting. Even though he had been stuck down here for more than half a week, he seemed to have the toughest constitution of all of us.

“It’s…crazy, that he should pass away,” Chris says, and my eyes flash to his. He’d chosen his words with care, using the
same one I had used yesterday when discussing my fear of the workmen –
crazy.
He thinks…he thinks the workmen killed him.

Our eyes pass a million thoughts between us, and I feel my breath come short. They must have killed him overnight, and then left his body for
Governor Rosings or Bernard to find this morning. Then the Governor had asked…he’d actually asked Mr. Tara’s
murderers
to move his body, to hide it from view.

But why?
Why kill him? I feel my eyebrows bend, mirroring my question. Chris’s eyes answer me unknowingly, looking down at his hands, shadowing his face.

Because he knew, too.

Mr. Simon Tara had found out about the workmen as well, had realized their role in the cave-in.
That’s what he and Chris had been talking about. Mr. Tara must have confronted them…and…and he’d paid for it.

I look down quickly as well. If the workmen had discovered that one survivor knows their secret, they’re probably already wondering if more do.

And Chris…Chris is the only one that’s talked to Mr. Tara.

Is Chris in danger? Though he’s befriended the workmen, more or less, they wouldn’t hesitate to kill again, not if it meant protecting themselves.

The thought of what could happen to him…the idea that we could meet again tomorrow to receive the same news about Chris…it makes my chest ache in a deep, painful way. We’re friends – we’re allies. But the way I feel about him is much stronger than that. I care for him – I need his smiles and his teasing, and his secret understanding. He’s been so great, so perfect, right from the beginning. Taking care of me, finding food for my sisters. Understanding the situation between me and my mom, and never making me say a thing about it. Knowing what’s truly happening in this tunnel…and wanting nothing more than to protect us all from it. He means more to me than anyone ever has, and I haven’t even known him a week.

My hand sneaks into his, right there, in the middle of the tunnel, and our fingers squeeze tight.
The way his thumb snakes around mine, rubbing the skin on my hand softly, I have to think that I matter to him, too.

Tears sting my eyes, the corners burning just slightly.
I can hear the girls talking beside us, completely ignorant of everything else going on. I turn to look at them, to try to hide my expression.

And I see Phil staring at us.

Just standing there. Staring.