Chapter 17 Megan #2
I can’t believe I’m sitting here wondering how deep underground Amber might be when, twenty-four hours ago, Demi and I were preparing to hide out in a bunker with a bottle of wine and a couple of glasses.
You’ll never find her because you’re too attached.
What the fuck did he mean? Too attached? Too attached to see her when she’s right here?
I close my eyes and think of all the people we questioned in Stowe, skimming over the scenario with the lads who thought they’d take advantage of us because we were outnumbered.
I retrace our steps back to the slope, my memories dipping in and out of every cabin we searched, every closet ransacked, every carpet pulled back from solid floorboards.
My breathing grows shallow as the images in my head get closer and closer to where I am now, the sugar in my veins embellishing the rising panic in my chest. My anxiety spiked when Bruno and Demi insisted that I give up the search and get some rest. I should be out there.
Without thinking, I’m already shrugging off the blanket and preparing to leave when I work it out.
This is the same panic I felt when I was heading down to the bunker.
Because while I’m sitting here recharging on crumpets and hot chocolate, I’m not outside where I should be, devoting all my energy to finding my sister.
Or at least where I believe I should be.
“Ha!” The sound escapes my lips before I can stop it and I blink at Demi, still processing the thoughts shifting and jostling inside my head, while her forehead crinkles into a frown. “I know where she is.”
Her lips form the question that doesn’t reach my ears.
I stand up too quickly. Stars float about behind my eyelids while my hands grapple in the air trying to stop me from toppling face-first over the coffee table. I squeeze them shut and wait for the room to stop spinning before I look at her.
“The bunker.” I think I smile, but I can’t be sure.
She’s closer than you think.
The cabins were empty. I was in the mountain hut, afraid to breathe in case I detonated the explosives strapped to my chest. Ric was already dead, and I’ve no idea what happened to the rest of Gio’s men. Of all the places he could’ve hidden Amber, he brought her back to Gio’s cabin.
Now that it’s in my head, it makes perfect sense. He must’ve been watching us from a distance, knowing that she was right here in the last place we would think of looking, congratulating himself on another game well played.
“The bunker.” Demi stands up. “The fucking bunker. We were almost there…” Her voice trails off.
I don’t wait around.
I reach the steps leading underground before Demi. This time, lowering myself through the hatch, I’m not afraid that I’m doing the wrong thing. I’m right, I must be. Because if this turns out to be another dead end, I don’t know what I’ll do.
We move underground in silence, reaching the entrance to the bunker together. Demi starts punching in the numbers on the keypad. Her finger slips, and she mutters, “Shit!” A whisper.
She tries again, and nothing happens.
“What is it?” My heart is trying to escape, I’m so desperate to find Amber.
Demi studies the keypad, her forehead pressed up against the wall as if trying to see behind it. “He changed the fucking code, of course he did.”
“What? How?”
“There are ways.” She’s thinking out loud. “Stand back.”
Demi doesn’t wait around. She uses the handle of her gun to smash the alarm, jagged shards scattering everywhere. Peering inside the broken remains, she pulls out some thin wires, breathing heavily as she studies them.
“What are you doing?”
“Trying to remember what my first boyfriend taught me.”
I don’t ask. I don’t even care as long as we can get inside and find Amber.
The seconds drag, until Demi pulls a thin card from her pocket and forces it between the door and the frame.
I gasp out loud when it finally opens with a gentle click. I don’t know what we’ll find, but it feels like I’ve waited forever for this moment, and I don’t protest when Demi gestures for me to enter behind her.
The lights react to our presence as we make our way along a narrow corridor to another door that must lead to the main area of the bunker. Demi pushes it open cautiously, scanning the room before we enter.
It’s larger than I expected it to be. Functional narrow cots are attached to the far wall, complete with thin pillows and rolled up blankets. There’s no sign that anyone has been sleeping here, and my stomach gripes angrily.
“She must be here, she must be here, she must be here.” My lips move, but no sound comes out.
There’s a seating area, practical benches positioned around a simple square table, one side of the room dedicated to preparing food with a kettle, microwave, and compact oven lined up on the counter.
There are no dirty dishes, no crumbs littering the work surface, no empty packets, half-eaten sandwiches, or spilt water.
Nothing.
Demi faces me and sighs heavily. “I’m so sorry, Meggie. I don’t think she’s here.”
I can’t meet her gaze. She’s closer than you think. As nauseous as his voice makes me feel, I can’t escape it. Why would he say that if it wasn’t a clue? He wasn’t like other people; the game was all important to him, but what was the point if we never discovered how close we were all along?
“She is here.” I crouch down and peer underneath the table and the counters in the food area. I crawl across the floor and check underneath the cots, lifting the mattresses as if she might’ve somehow squeezed herself between them and the frame.
I stand up, turn three-sixty, trying to put myself in Amber’s shoes.
All kids love to play hide-and-seek, and Amber is no exception.
When she was little, she would pull a blanket over her head or hide her head and shoulders behind a curtain and believe that I couldn’t see her because she couldn’t see me.
But when she started school, she learned to be a little smarter with her hiding places.
She would squeeze into tight corners, or hide behind the clothes rail in her bedroom, bunching the clothes up around her, or crawl into the cupboard under the kitchen sink with her knees pulled against her chest.
She would’ve been terrified that he’d come back for her.
When we hid in the basement of the thrift store, I told her not to come out of her hiding place, no matter what happened. But now I’m worried that she has taken my warning at face value, and she hasn’t come out for food or water.
Food. Survivalists construct bunkers in preparation for the end of the world, so where are the non-perishable cans of beans? Where are the packets of freeze-dried fruit, the bottles of water, the sealed pouches of jerky?
Then I spot a concealed door in the far corner of the room.
I didn’t think my heartbeat could thud any louder, but it proves me wrong as I cross the bunker and open the door to reveal a narrow pantry.
The sensory-operated light activates, plunging the walk-in cupboard into artificial brightness.
The walls are lined with shelves, each stacked high with the non-perishable items that would keep the inhabitants alive for a while.
“Amber?” I whisper.
Nothing.
Demi comes in filling the cramped space behind me.
“Amber?” I try again. “It’s me, Meggie.”
I want to howl with the disappointment cramming itself into my chest. Where is she?
Why isn’t she here? Did he seriously choose to leave his own daughter in the sewer system rather than a safe bunker?
Here, she would’ve been no less terrified, but at least she’d have had access to food and water and a clean dry bed.
A sob wells inside me like water gurgling through a crack in the ground, and I deflate like a punctured tire.
“Meggie?” Demi grabs my arm, her face close to mine. “Shh.”
I didn’t even realize that I was whimpering before Demi’s warning. Now, my sobs halt somewhere around my midriff, backing up, the calm before the onslaught.
“I heard something.” Demi releases me, unfurling her fingers from around my arm as she moves deeper into the pantry.
It was probably a mouse. I’m prepared to dart out of the cupboard at the first glimpse of tiny pink eyes and a long tail, but then, I hear it too. A faint rustling sound like a packet being replaced on the shelf.
Another step inside the pantry. I scan the shelves on my right, peering behind the tinned food stacked neatly at the front, trying to make sense of what I can see. It takes several moments of staring at a spot between two cans of haricot beans before it comes into focus and I jump involuntarily.
Two eyes are staring right back at me.
They don’t move as I swipe the shelf clear with one arm, cans and packets hitting the floor with an alarming clatter.
“Amber?” Tears are streaming down my face and neck. “Oh my God, Amber.”
I reach in with both arms and pull my sister out of her hiding place, her legs wrapping around my waist as I hold her tightly, shocked by how light and breakable she feels.
“It’s alright, Amber,” I murmur. “I’m here now. Everything is going to be alright.”