Chapter 17 Megan
MEGAN
The cabins on the mountainside are either empty or occupied by Bruno’s men.
I don’t question how Gio organized this; I’m simply grateful to him for making this easier.
Cynthia, the woman we spoke to in Stowe, didn’t see Amber’s father enter one of the properties, she couldn’t even give us a description of the person she saw, but it’s the only lead we have right now, a potential sighting from a woman who couldn’t sleep.
We start at the highest cabin and work our way down, swarming the rooms like mini tornados, opening closets, ripping panels from the sides of bathtubs, checking the roof space, and lifting floorboards.
When we leave the first cabin behind, staring down the slope towards the resort, I’m crushed by the fear that we overlooked a hidden cupboard or secret reading nook, a space just large enough for a small child to hide in.
I peer back at the closed door. What if Amber was watching me the whole time but couldn’t call out?
I hurry back and open the door, scanning the living space one last time.
“I’m leaving the door open, Amber,” I call out.
There’s no answer, no familiar voice crying, “You’ll never find me, Meggie.
” But at least I don’t feel like I’m locking her inside and walking away like you see in the movies when the hero is a breath away from finding their loved one and gets stopped by the bad guy, the audience silently crying Noooooo.
I’m still battling with the relentless waves of nausea, but I keep telling myself that I’m not sick. I’m not sick. I’m not!
Evening bleeds into night. The stars are watching us, and for the first time since our mom disappeared, I can look over my shoulder, knowing that he isn’t out there somewhere.
Once I’ve found Amber, I can start to build a new life around us, one that isn’t driven by fear but by love.
The life that should’ve been ours all along if only it hadn’t been distorted by one man and his shriveled heart.
My foot is throbbing, and when I sit down to remove the shoe around my cast, my toes are swollen and a mottled shade of purple.
“You should go back and rest. We’ve got this.” Demi stands in front of me, hands on hips, but there’s no conviction in her tone; she already knows I’m not going anywhere until we’ve turned this mountain slope inside out.
I stand up, reaching for her hand as I put my weight back onto my foot, gritting my teeth through the pain. “We’re not finished yet.”
We work our way methodically through the cabins on the lower half of the slope until all that remains is the war room, and the cabin allocated to me and Amber when we first arrived.
The hope that sparked inside me when Cynthia sought us out in town earlier has slowly fizzled away with each cabin door that I leave open.
I was so certain that we would find her…
The guards are still posted outside the war room, still armed, still following our movements with their eyes.
Demi and I reconvene between the two cabins along with Bruno and his men.
“I want to search the war room.” The dull pain from my foot has spread up my spine and morphed into a hammering headache that feels as if my brain is pulsing against the inside of my skull.
Bruno shakes his head. “The cabin was searched when we first arrived. Amber isn’t in there.” His voice is gruff, but I hear kindness, nonetheless.
“You weren’t looking for Amber though.”
They were searching for the elusive Fish, and it’s possible that they overlooked the kind of tiny hiding places that only a child would find, a terrified child desperate to get away from her captor.
Bruno considers my point. Eventually, he says, “I want you to go back and get some rest.”
That’s it? I feel my heart clawing at my ribs to escape, yelling at me that now isn’t the time to give up. She must be here somewhere. Why would Cynthia have come forward if she didn’t believe that what she witnessed that night was relevant?
“No.” I’m already backing away from them, their dark eyes filled with pity as they follow me. “I’m not giving up. I’ll search all night, and all day tomorrow. I’ll keep searching until we find her.”
“Meggie,” Demi is the first to speak. “We’ve searched every cabin on the slope.”
“We haven’t searched this one. I want to go and see for myself.” I stare them out, all of them, daring them to deny me the privilege.
“I can’t let you in there.” Bruno stands firm.
“Why not?”
I already know the answer, but I’m hungry and cold and desperate, and I no longer care whose feathers I ruffle. I don’t care if the order came from Gio. Amber is somewhere on this mountain, and I intend to find her.
Unfazed by the question, Bruno says, “We’ll continue the search, but only if you go back to the cabin and sit down before you collapse.”
His comment is like something cold and slimy crawling down the inside of my sweater. I thought I’d hidden my fatigue well, but I was wrong, and the aches and the nausea and the panic all seem to hit me at once.
“W-where are you going to search? In there?” I don’t even look behind me at the guarded cabin.
“No.” Bruno glances at Demi, who steps closer, her arms linking with mine.
“Come on, Meggie,” she says. “I think we could both use a cup of hot chocolate and some food.”
I untangle my arm, even though, for that fleeting moment, it felt good to have someone to lean on. “Where will you search? Do you think he…”
I can’t say it out loud. I can’t manifest the image of my little sister buried underneath the floorboards, fingers shredded from trying to scratch her way out while her father was being held captive in the room above.
Bruno hesitates. I’m not going to like what he’s about to say. “We’re going to search the gardens.”
“But…” I shake my head. “She’d have called out if she was hidden in a garden. She’d have heard us. She’d have found a way out…”
Comprehension sinks slowly like a boat with a hole in the bottom. He doesn’t mean that they’re going to climb trees and crawl into hollows. He’s going to search for something that resembles a recent burial site.
“No.” My pulse is racing, and I would stumble backwards if Demi wasn’t there to catch me. “No, she’s still alive. Amber!” I call out, praying that she’ll wander out of the shadows and end this crazy suggestion. “Amber!”
“Meggie, this isn’t helping.” Demi lowers her arms when I pull away from her.
“I want to search the sewer system.” Bruno hasn’t moved.
“It doesn’t mean we won’t find her alive,” Demi steps in.
“There’s a whole load of underground systems that we haven’t explored yet. But I’m not taking you down there.”
The images in my head of Amber crawling on her hands and knees through sewage is more than my fragile stomach can bear. I’m on my knees before I even realize what I’m doing, retching onto the grass and panting like a dog while Demi rubs my back.
At some point, while I’m dizzy with nausea, Bruno and his men head off. But Demi remains by my side, one hand on my back as if that will keep me grounded. Or prevent me from trying to break into the war room.
When I’m done, she helps me back onto my feet and, shaking violently, I let her guide me back to the warmth and security of the cabin where the lights are on, and everything is as we left it this morning.
It feels like weeks have passed since we set off to look for Amber. I feel as if I’ve aged years since we first set foot in LA. I lie down on the sofa and curl into a ball while Demi throws a blanket over me and makes hot chocolate in the kitchen.
I’m still shivering, my hands like lumps of ice beneath the cover, when she returns with our drinks and a plate of toasted crumpets dripping with butter.
“Eat.” She sets the plate down on the coffee table with the mugs of steaming chocolatey liquid and sits cross-legged on the floor.
She waits for me to sit up, the blanket wrapped around my shoulders like a shawl, before helping herself to a crumpet and sliding a tablet out of her pocket.
The first mouthful of food barely touches the sides, but it reignites my craving for hot melted butter, and I find myself licking my fingers and the side of my hand down to my wrist before reaching for a second crumpet.
Demi watches me without comment.
“What are you doing?” I already feel reinvigorated. “These are better than a can of Red Bull any day.”
She offers me a cursory glance before returning to the screen. “I’m looking at a map of the underground drainage system linking the mountain slopes to the main ducts in town.”
Doughy crumpet sticks to the back of my teeth, the butter suddenly coating my tongue and clogging my throat.
I swallow, and my food doesn’t go down, so I chase it with a mouthful of creamy hot chocolate.
The sugar surges around my body, but my limbs are heavy, trailing roots through the couch that will prevent me from moving if I sit here for too long.
“Do you think that’s where she is?”
She wrinkles her nose. “He said that she was closer than we think, but we’d never find her.”
It’s close enough, but she has omitted the last part of what the Fish said: we’ll never find her because we’re too attached.
Did he always talk in cryptic riddles when he was seeing my mom? Or did he save them for whenever shit got real, when his fucked-up games were approaching the finish line and he was giving it his final shot?
It makes sense, I guess. If Amber is underground, she could literally be feet away from us, and we would never know. I peer down at the carpet under my feet.
What’s under there? I’ve no idea what foundations are required to build a house on top.
Does the drainage system sit on top of whatever kind of slabs are holding the cabin up, or are the pipes buried underneath.
How far down do they even go? Is it true that rats and other rodents live in the sewer systems or is that the subways?