47
Ted
Andy was happy as a clam the whole way back to the quarry. Kept reaching his hand inside the backpack and touching the bills. “ I ’ ll wait until we ’ re back to count it, bro. So you can watch. Make sure it ’ s all there. We can split it together, so you know everything ’ s even, ” he cooed.
“ Sounds good,” I said, making sure the tone of my voice matched his. However, the closer we got to the quarry, the tighter the knots in my stomach twisted.
Think, for shit ’ s sake, I begged my own brain. But the only ideas it spit back landed me in prison for the rest of my life—or put so much blood on my hands, I might as well lock myself up and throw away the key.
They were kids, for fuck ’ s sake. Kids.
For the first time, I didn ’ t try to push away the prickly feeling of regret trying to elbow its way into my fantasy about disappearing with my cash, starting a whole new life, and getting out of shithole Idaho. And once I gave that regret an inch, it slammed me in the chest so hard I could barely breathe.
Fucking apply yourself, Ted .
What if my mom was right, though? That I was just a stupid, reckless kid. That ’ s what the owner of the motorcycle I ’ d wrecked said when he testified at my hearing. As if he pitied me, even though he hated me, too.
I had no future, in any direction. I was trapped, just like those kids I ’ d put underground.
My mouth started to taste sickly sweet, the same way it did when I had too many beers and was gonna throw up. So I rolled down the window even though Andy started giving me shit because he had to close the backpack. “ I don ’ t wanna puke in your car,” was all I could think to say, and that shut him up for a few minutes at least.
All said and done, the quarry was a little more than an hour ’ s drive from Little Eddy campground, but it had felt like minutes while my mind spun.
What the hell was I going to do? My palms felt slick and clammy on the steering wheel, and the smell of Andy ’ s body odor—steeped into the Civic—was making my stomach churn even more.
Before I knew it, our headlights were reflecting off the rusted-out aluminum sign marking the back entrance to the quarry.
And I still didn ’ t have a plan.
Could I really kill somebody—or let them die, which was basically the same thing?
Not just somebody. There ’ s eleven somebodies down there, my mind insisted.
If you don ’ t do it, you ’ ll spend your entire life in prison , a deeper, darker part snarled.
I couldn ’ t go back to jail. I couldn ’ t. Even a few months felt like hell. Like forever. Like I was one of those dogs on an ASPCA commercial that somebody locked up in a tiny crate so long the animal turned all shaky and terrified and didn ’ t even know how to be a dog anymore. I could practically hear Sarah McLachlan singing in the background.
Those memories of jail brought me right back to square one.
It felt like there was a bomb strapped to my chest. I could either blow myself up, or I could unstrap it and throw it away from me—knowing exactly who it would hit: Those kids.
“ Should we count the money right here in the car, or should we like, spread it out on the van floor— ? ” Andy started to say the second I yanked the key out of the ignition.
He was still slurring a little bit. And I had no doubt he was going straight for the cooler to slug the last of the warm beers now that we ’ d returned with the ransom money, triumphant.
I felt so disgusted by him, by myself, that the bile in my throat actually spilled onto my tongue. Without a word, I unbuckled my seatbelt and lurched away from the car before the burning, sick mess in my stomach came up.
I thought I heard Andy snicker, but he stayed where he was in the passenger seat while I half-stumbled, half-ran in the direction of the buried bunker.
Then I doubled over and spewed my guts—a disgusting soup of peanut butter and jam sandwiches and beer.
I heaved again and again, blinking back hot tears I couldn ’ t stop from pouring down my face like when I got a really bad stomach bug. It was the only time I cried.
Then I sat on the dirt, wiped my mouth, and stared at the sheet metal.
Another wave of sick hit me, but not the kind that would make bile rise up in my throat again. The prickly, sweaty kind that won ’ t go away even if you vomit.
Because I ’ d just realized that something—something new—was very, very wrong.
The big piece of metal didn ’ t seem to be sitting quite the way it had the last time I ’ d seen it.
I rose from a crouch, trying to convince myself that my eyes were playing tricks on me in the dark. The sun had just barely set, so it wasn ’ t fully dark yet. There were still faint shadows around the edges of the sheet metal. One of those shadows was bigger than the rest, though.
Big enough that, as I got closer, it looked less like a shadow and more like a hole.
It couldn ’ t be a hole. There was no way. The buzzing, electric feeling in my chest got stronger, sharper, like there were invisible nails pushing down all over my skin.
I took a step closer and leaned down, so my face was just a couple of feet away from that suspicious shadow. “ Fucking hell.”
It was a hole.
The car door slammed behind me. Andy ’ s footsteps were heading toward the lean-to and the cooler of beer. He was saying something, but I couldn ’ t focus on the words.
I couldn ’ t focus on anything but that hole. It was just big enough for a small person—a kid—to squeeze through.
Then my gaze wandered to the right and I saw the faint, muddy footprints in the damp, hard-packed dirt, leading toward the edge of the trash pile—and the road.
The sight of those imprints, barely visible in the darkness, snapped me out of that frozen, prickly feeling, and I whipped my head left and right.
Andy ’ s footsteps were crunching toward me now. I heard the pop of a beer ’ s tab and loud slurping. He was saying something, but I didn ’ t listen. Instead, I followed the path of the footprints toward the edge of the junk pile, searching the shadows, scanning past the angular shapes of random rubble and broken equipment.
I walked for maybe fifty yards, until I got to the far edge of The Pit, where the hulking frame of a half-broken excavator leaned at an angle, its tires hanging onto the edge of the dirt road that led out of the quarry. It was the same excavator we ’ d used to dig out the hole for the bunker. Same one we ’ d scavenged for its door.
And then, so quiet I would have missed it if my senses weren ’ t suddenly sharp as knives, came a quiet shuffling sound from behind it. Like somebody was shifting their weight.
I darted toward the sound.
“ Dude, where are you? Your puke stinks—” Andy was saying from the darkness behind me.
I ignored him. Because my eyes had just locked onto a shadow that moved—while the rest of the shapes in the junk pile stayed put.
I took four quick steps forward, around the excavator ’ s frame.
Then I saw her.
A tall, skinny girl covered from head to toe in dirt—and something dark that must have been blood on her hands, arms, and even smeared across her face. I didn ’ t know her name, but I knew who she was immediately: one of the kids I ’ d recognized from when I drove the bus. And there was absolutely no doubt now, as we locked eyes, that she recognized me, too.
Her knees were bent in a slight crouch, and I could tell I ’ d caught her right as she was about to launch into a run. But now, she stared at me frozen, like a gangly baby deer in the headlights.
“ Dude, where are you?” Andy ’ s voice came from behind me again, loud and annoyed and headed toward mean-drunk. He clearly hadn ’ t seen the new hole or the faint muddy footprints leading away from the buried bunker.
The girl ’ s eyes, already huge like a doll ’ s, widened so you could see the whites all the way around her pupils. There were pale lines streaking down the dark gunk on her cheeks from crying.
She leaned away from me, coiling like a spring.
“ Mr. Edward,” she said, her voice all shaky and whispery. That was all she said, but it was enough to make my guts seize up so violently that I nearly doubled over again.
“ Please, ” she begged, putting her hands in front of her body. Her eyes flitted toward the dirt road.
If I jumped forward, I was pretty sure I could grab her. Honestly, I didn ’ t know why she hadn ’ t already bolted.
I took a small step forward, and she darted her eyes to her foot.
I followed her gaze and suddenly realized that her foot was caught in some tangle of dirty Styrofoam and broken cement behind her at the edge of The Pit. “ Please,” she said again, slowly reaching her bloody hands to her ankle to pull it free.
As she did that, her eyes moved away from the road, looking past me. At first, I thought she was afraid of Andy—who was making a racket in the direction of the bunker. He must have seen the dug-out spot by now, because from the grunting and clanging, he was trying to move the sheet metal by himself to get inside the hole.
Then the girl, her voice small and trembling, said, “ The walls caved in from mud. My sister and the kids and Ms. Jessa … they don ’ t have any more air. Help them. Please.”
I blinked at her as she pulled her foot free.
No, that was impossible. She was just trying to distract me and get away.
But then Andy crowed, “ Holy shit, the hole ’ s filled up with dirt.”
He didn ’ t sound upset, necessarily. Just astonished.
The girl mouthed “ Please” one more time.
I parted my lips to scream for Andy to help me grab her, then figure out what the hell had happened.
But the part of me that had just spewed my guts all over the dirt, the part of me that heard her say my name with that pleading look, kept me rooted where I stood, even as the little girl took two steps away from me. She finally managed to kick her foot free of the debris, backing onto the road now. If it hadn ’ t been for the excavator ’ s frame, and the settling darkness, Andy would have seen her by now, too.
“ What the hell are you doing over there, you dumbass?” Andy ’ s voice, and the crunch of his footsteps, were getting closer now. The little girl ’ s eyes turned to saucers.
And then she ran.
Fucking booked it.
Chase her, my brain screamed. Do something.
I just stood there, though.
“ Hello? Asshole ? ” Andy called as he came around the dump truck. He was wearing the ransom backpack, and he was talking fast and excited as the fresh beer buzzed him up. “ Bro, the whole thing collapsed . At first I thought one of the little shits got out, because the dirt is all caved-in on one side. I guess not, though. God stepped in and decided for us. They ’ re probably dead down there.”
I blinked at him, feeling my mouth twitch but unable to make words. Then I turned my head to stare back down the dark, dirt road, and along the deep shadows of the steep quarry walls. I couldn ’ t see the little girl anymore. Had she already gotten that far?
Apparently, Andy hadn ’ t noticed the faint, muddy footprints. He didn ’ t know that, right this second, there was a blood-and-dust-covered skinny little girl running as fast as she could down the dirt road away from us.
“ Come on. I counted out all the cash. Your half ’ s in the cooler. We gotta get out of here, see if that bitch made the Bitcoin transfer,” Andy was saying, adjusting the pack on his back and moving away from me again.
Tell him.
No, keep your mouth shut.
But the other kids might still be alive down there. Not for long, though.
No! Get the hell out of here and don ’ t look back.
On the outside, I was numb and frozen, but the inside of my head was a whirlwind of contradicting demands coming hard and fast.
Earlier, when I saw that little hole scratched into the paint on the van ’ s back windows, I thought the plan was spiraling out of control.
But things were much, much worse now.
Andy ’ s footsteps stopped when I didn ’ t follow him. “ Did you have a stroke or something? Stay here all night if you want I guess, but I ’ m getting out of—” Then he sucked in his breath. “ What the hell is that?”
I didn ’ t have to ask what he meant. When I followed his gaze, I could see it too.
The silhouette of a skinny person—tall enough to be an adult, but so painfully childlike in the way she pumped her arms and legs like a gangly baby horse, that there was no mistaking what she was even in the near-dark.
“ One of them got out? One of them GOT OUT, and you let her go?” he roared. Andy ripped the gun from his waistband, sprinting past me in a stumbling mad-dash. “ Help me, you fuckup,” he screamed over his shoulder when I didn ’ t follow, nearly tripping on a piece of plywood.
“ Fuck you,” I seethed, loud enough for him to hear.
Because I knew it would make him turn around.
And because I meant it. “ Fuck you. ”
He slammed to a stop, pointed the gun at my head, and held it there.
I didn ’ t move a muscle, though. His eyes widened in shock, like he ’ d expected me to cower—and then help him. When I did neither, he cocked the gun, hesitated in confusion, then whipped his head around and ran. Because she was getting away.
Run , my brain screamed. Run as fast as you can.
Once for myself, and once for that terrified little girl.