Chapter 38
Emma jerked awake.
Boom. Boom-boom. Boom.
That’s gunfire!
It kept going. She curled into a ball and pushed across the dirt floor into the corner farthest from the door. The shots weren’t close, but they weren’t far away either.
After what felt like an eternity, but was probably less than two minutes, they stopped. She waited, straining to hear more sounds. It was silent.
She exhaled and slumped back down on the ground, suddenly exhausted and wanting to go back to sleep, but her brain wouldn’t slow down.
How long have I been here?
She suspected she’d spent two nights in the cell. Twice she had slept for what seemed like long periods. And once, someone had come in.
He’d yelled at her to get away from the door and stand against the far wall. Said he had a gun and would shoot her if she didn’t obey. She’d stood where he said. The door slowly opened, and the tip of a pistol showed, then a face.
She didn’t know him. He was probably in his mid-twenties. Short. Thin. Acne. His gaze was apprehensive, as if he expected her to lunge at him.
“Take one step and I’ll shoot!”
“I won’t move.”
He’d tossed a small bag to one side and more protein bars spilled out.
“Hand me the water,” he’d said to someone still outside the door.
Several gallon jugs of water followed the bars.
He’d gestured at her nasty-smelling bucket.
“Pick that up and put it in the middle of the room, then go back to your position.” She’d done as he asked, and he’d carefully come forward to grab it, never taking his gaze from her.
“I’m not going—”
“Shut up!” He’d waved the gun and grabbed the plastic bucket, walking backward to the door. He’d set the bucket outside the door. “Give me the other one,” he’d said, and another’s handle had been placed in his hand. He’d thrown it across the room at her, and she’d jerked out of the way.
“Watch out!” she’d snapped at him.
A second man had suddenly appeared in the hall behind the first. He was older. Probably forty. He had a graying beard, and his shoulders seemed as wide as the doorway. He’d scowled and looked her up and down. “What’d you do?” he’d said to the first man.
“Nothing.” His gaze had warned her not to say anything.
The man with the beard had looked to one side in the hall and jerked his head. “Come look.”
Then Uncle Tommy appeared.
Emma couldn’t breathe. Her eyes had locked with his, and he had a gash on one cheek.
“She’s doing great,” said the large man.
Uncle Tommy had said nothing. The first man had stepped out of the room and slammed the door shut. Locks slid and clanked.
Emma had launched herself across the room and beaten on the door with both hands. “Uncle Tommy!” she’d shrieked, yelling his name over and over.
No one ever came back.
The gunfire abruptly started again.
Boom! Boom! Boom-boom!
Emma plugged her ears but could still hear it. Then it stopped.
She waited for more, wondering if people were target shooting, but it’d sounded like a lot of weapons had started firing at once, over and over. The gunfire had been the first noise she’d heard since the man took her bucket and she’d seen Uncle Tommy.
She asked herself for the millionth time why he hadn’t said anything, why he hadn’t told them to let her go.
It doesn’t make sense.
She’d pondered the cut on his cheek but had no answers. He could have gotten in a fight or walked into something. He’d looked fine other than that.
The sounds of locks sliding and clicking caught her attention. “Get against the far wall!” yelled someone. “Face the wall. If you don’t, I will shoot you dead!”
The voice was different from that of the young man who’d taken her bucket. She did as he said and faced the wall. A second later the door squeaked as it opened. “Don’t move!” he ordered.
She wanted to peek over her shoulder.
“Put your hands behind your back.”
Emma paused. It sounded like something a police officer would say.
“Do it!”
She did it. He grabbed her hands. She felt something wrap around them and then heard the distinctive sounds of a zip tie. Then a strip of fabric came around and pressed against her mouth.
“Open up.”
They’re gagging me!
She opened, and the cloth went between her teeth. The man tied it at the back of her head. Her tongue touched and pushed it, and then bile rose in her throat. Emma breathed through her nose, trying to stay calm and pretend the gag wasn’t about to make her throw up.
“Let’s go.” He grabbed one elbow and turned her around. The young man with the acne was at the door, his pistol aimed her way. The man holding her elbow seemed about the same age but was taller. Both men wore heavy canvas coats, camo pants, and leather work boots.
Outside her cell, they walked down a short, dark hallway that smelled as musty as her room.
At the end, one pushed open a door, and light streamed in.
Emma winced and her lids screwed shut at the brightness of the snow and sun.
The men pulled on her arms, and she stumbled forward, trying to force one eye open, then the other.
“She’s a kid,” muttered the taller man. “It’s not right.”
“He said no one would get hurt, Ezra,” said Acne Man.
“There shouldn’t be kids,” Ezra mumbled under his breath.
Emma nearly corrected them by saying that she was eighteen. But something in their hushed tones kept her quiet.
The snow was well trampled. Lots of boot prints.
She glanced over her shoulder and saw they’d come out from the bottom level of an old cabin built into a steep hill.
She’d been right: Her cell’s walls were against dirt.
The cabin had a thick layer of moss on its roof, and the few windows she could see were dark with dust and dirt.
The roof over the front porch sagged, and steps were missing.
But a lot of vehicles were parked around it, so several people had to be inside.
There were probably ten pickups and SUVs.
Acne Man jerked on her arm to make her face forward as they continued through the snow and between the tall pines.
“Where are we going?” she mumbled through her gag.
“None of your business,” said Ezra.
“I think if you’re making me go somewhere, then it is my business.” The snarky, almost unintelligible words out of her mouth surprised her. She’d never been one for back talk.
“Shut up,” said Acne Man, with a sharp jerk on her arm.
They fed me. They gave me water. Uncle Tommy is here somewhere.
She didn’t think they would hurt her.
They plodded on for a few minutes. Emma kept her eye on the trail, wondering how many people had tromped through the snow.
The roofline of another cabin started to show through the trees.
As they drew closer, Emma saw it was newer than the one they’d left and much bigger.
In fact, it was huge. A covered porch wrapped around the two sides in her view, and rocking chairs and little tables dotted it, inviting people to relax and enjoy the outdoors.
It had a green metal roof and windows that were gigantic and shiny and clean.
The trail they’d been following split. Some boot prints went toward the back of the home, but the men followed the footprints that went toward the front.
They went up a bit of a hill and reached the cabin’s driveway.
The vehicles in the driveway were in a different class from the ones she’d seen at the old place. Mercedes, BMW, Land Rover. All SUVs.
No pickups here.
They took her up the steps to the front door, stomping their feet to shake off the snow. And then Emma noticed the man on the porch. He must have been watching them from the moment they’d come out of the woods. He wore a rifle slung over his shoulder and a pistol on his thigh.
He’s a guard.
“Mark’s waiting for her,” Acne Man said to the guard. The guard looked her over and opened the double front doors. They stepped into a grand entry, its walls lined with pale wood and soaring to high ceilings and a huge chandelier.
Emma gawked. She’d never been inside such a nice place.
Ezra pulled on her arm, and she followed them down a wide hall.
Ahead were tall windows with an amazing view.
And she heard someone speaking loudly, as if lecturing a class.
“Unchecked authority should not exist! That leads to unjust decisions! So many of us have been victims of this abuse of power!”
As they reached the end of the hall, Emma was suddenly in a huge room with big windows, where she stared at a half dozen men sitting on the floor, their arms tied behind them and gags in their mouths.
Their gazes were full of fear.
Then she realized more people were looking at her. A dozen or so more men stood in the room, all with a rifle or pistol or both.
The men on the floor are prisoners.
“There she is,” said one of the standing men, whom she recognized as having been in the hall when Acne Man threw the bucket at her.
His voice had been the one declaiming abuse of power.
He was a large man, and his bulk gave the impression that there was muscle under his coat, not fat.
“See, Mac?” He stroked his graying beard as he grinned.
Emma followed his gaze to where Uncle Tommy sat on a barstool at a gigantic kitchen island. He leaned on the island, a cup of coffee before him. Looking as if this were the most normal situation in the world. “I see her, Mark,” he said in a monotone. And sipped his coffee.
What is happening?
“Sit her over there,” said the large man.
“You don’t want her with the others?” asked Acne Man.
“I said over there.”
Emma was pushed into a large easy chair near the line of men sitting on the floor.
She frowned at the debris of white chunks and powder all over the floor and her chair.
She looked up and saw several holes in the ceiling.
They were everywhere. Some of the men on the floor had white powder in their hair.
They shot at the ceiling to make them behave.
She shifted, trying to get her hands, still behind her back, into a better position in the chair. It was impossible. She scooted forward until she was perched on the end of its seat.
“Cut her hands,” said Uncle Tommy. “She can’t sit like that.”
Acne Man looked to the man with the beard whom Tommy had called Mark. “Do it.”
He took out a knife and sliced the zip tie behind her back. Her arms fell to her sides, and she sighed, rubbing her wrists. The gag was still in her mouth, and she looked from Uncle Tommy to the bearded man, hoping one of them would tell someone to remove it.
“The gag stays,” said Mark. “Any movement from you and the zip ties go back on.”
“In the front,” added Uncle Tommy.
Mark glared at him but agreed, “In the front.” He cleared his throat and continued his speech about abuse of power.
“We’re here to show that they can be reached!
That they can be knocked down! That they are vulnerable.
” He paced through the big room, one hand on his rifle, staring at each of the men on the floor.
“The weak will step down; the strong will rise.” At times he’d turn to Uncle Tommy and say, “Right, Mac?” and Uncle Tommy would agree.
Uncle Tommy sounds as if he’s lying, just pacifying Mark.
Emma studied every person in the room. The men who were standing had weapons and held the power. But something very nervous lurked in their eyes. They shifted their feet and occasionally glanced at one another. Not one of them would meet her gaze.
On the kitchen island was a clear food-storage container full of cell phones.
Two of the men sitting on the floor had split lips and dried blood on their chins.
Those have to be their phones.
Some were dressed in T-shirts and flannel pajama pants, as if they’d been pulled out of bed. Something about them was different.
They’re city.
Those are their vehicles out front.
Emma had spent 90 percent of her life around people who lived in rural areas. She looked at the standing men and knew they belonged to the pickups at the old cabin.
A baby’s wail sounded through the house.
Astonishment shot through her, and the men on the floor all shifted, concern emanating from them.
“Tell her to keep it quiet,” said Mark, and he pointed at Ezra, who’d helped escort Emma to the house. Ezra turned and went through the kitchen, past Uncle Tommy, and opened a door on the other side.
Emma choked behind her gag.
When the door opened, she’d had a glimpse of three small children and two women. She knew instinctively that there were more locked in the room.
What is happening here?