Chapter 25
Chapter Twenty-Five
The Cornerstone
The masked figure raises his palms before stepping backwards, and Atlas says dryly, “Did he just lock us in?”
Leon flattens against the door’s window, looking down at the handle.
There’s an incredulous giggle to his voice.
“They’ve switched the fucking interior handle with the exterior.
” The curl of his lips is maniacal. He launches himself towards the handle, rattling it up and down, barging his shoulder into it, shaking the entire storefront.
He pulls out his handgun, setting his aim on the faceless figure.
“Man! You’ve got three seconds to unlock that! ”
A new sound—a bold, enduring hiss—grows, twisting my ears as I strain to pinpoint it.
“… Three!”
The figure lunges forward. “Don’t shoot! It’s laminated glass! The bullet will ricochet!”
Leon holsters his gun, then throws a wooden soapbox towards the glass, and it bounces off the window, which shivers and bends like solid plastic.
I stretch my ears again to dissect the hissing noise, and it finally draws my attention to a fine mist curling around our feet, crawling.
It seems sentient as it gathers around my boots, like a cat brushing against my leg for attention as it creeps along the tiled floor.
“Leon!” I step away, but it is filtering in through multiple points.
Leon reluctantly turns his sights from the figure, and his rage is pacified by the new threat.
The smoke rolls along the floor with the same hypnotic curls as an extinguished birthday candle.
And with its acceleration, it rises. Atlas drops down, throwing his jacket over a vent, but the air is turning thinner, while the vapours of the gas are clearly invading my lungs.
Zeke pushes his jacket against a rear vent, rips off his white T-shirt, and presses it to my face as he pulls his vest over his own nose.
Leon grabs the wooden bench, and Atlas, realizing his intentions, grabs the other side to use it as a battering ram against the window.
They bang and bounce against the glass, desperately repeating until it shatters within its solid seal.
It is still secure, but has frosted internally with the impact.
And in their panicked rage, they continue cracking all the windowpanes into obscurity.
The guys are coughing as Leon turns to Zeke. “The back door?!”
“It’s bolted and sealed!”
Atlas bangs on the windows with his fists, barking at the figure outside. “Coward! Trapping us and poisoning us! You dirty coward!” He breaks into a cough as his strength drains, while his fist thuds against the glass. Slower. Weaker.
“It’s a sedative. Please don’t worry. You will come to no harm,” the figure says calmly while his mosaic shadow projects against the broken glass. “Please relax, and we’ll get you to the final destination.”
Atlas takes a knee, the whites of his eyes rolling as he grunts while trying to bring himself back to his feet.
Beads of sweat roll from Leon’s forehead, and the salty filter of Zeke’s shirt steadies my breath.
Now Atlas is deflating to the floor as his eyelids threaten to close, while Leon paces in the small space, trying to shove and move anything he can, but it’s inevitable.
A trap was set, and we walked straight into it.
I steady Leon by his wrist, and he finally stops. “Leon … this is it. There’s nothing we can do.” My breath halts in my throat, burning as I strain to hold back tears.
His saddened stare drifts with defeat, but he shakes his head, seeming to rouse into focus. “No… No… We need to… Here!” He pulls a pair of cuffs from his pocket, slaps one side onto my wrist, and closes the other cuff on his own arm.
I drop the shirt from my face, and before I can even ask what he’s doing, there’s cold metal against my other wrist as Zeke connects another pair of cuffs. He coughs before dropping his vest, leaving his mouth uncovered. “Everlee, I’ll stay with you to the end.”
My heart clenches at the sentiment. My already sore eyes burn as I continue to hold back tears.
The fear is chilling, making the warmth of Leon and Zeke’s closeness all the more welcome.
My breathing slows as I allow the hypnotic air to fill my lungs, and I usher the guys to the floor.
We resign, resting our backs against the machines.
Leon is ailing as he reaches into a sleeping Atlas’s pocket and heaves his weighted arm to cuff him to me.
“He’d hate to be left out,” Leon says.
Now that we’re on the floor, the effects speed up, and my vision doubles as I stretch my lids open, my decelerating breath quivering.
Zeke sways, slowly folding beside me as if time has slowed.
I lay his head on my lap while lugging his resting arm.
With my back and head resting against the machines, I feel so tired, and Leon’s lashes tremble as he fights unconsciousness.
“It’s okay, Leon.” I twist my wrist to hold his hand.
He nods, slowly allowing himself to sleep as he leans against the machines at my side. His baseball cap lifts as his face smushes into the Perspex groove of a dryer door.
I look at my sleeping friends, but a rush of adrenaline urges my eyes open when shadows move against the storefront glass.
I’m unsure if it’s real or in my frazzled mind, but I reach down to Zeke’s belt.
With the last bit of strength, I pull his knife, gripping it with my sweaty palm around the hilt as the shadows gather around the door. The lock clicks.
I urge my heavy eyelids to resist closure.
Each eyelash feels like a needle with their strain.
The shadow peeks through the crack of the door.
I raise the knife, pointing it towards the dark, blurred figure, and there’s a surge of panic escaping with a groaning series of “No’s,” but the echoing slaps of rubber boots on the tiled floor drum me to sleep.
I say “No” one last time, and with a long, quaking exhale, I relinquish consciousness.
It is as if I was in one place—blinked—and I am somewhere else.
I lift my hand to rub my eyes, trying to sharpen my blurry vision, but I no longer have the weight of my friends’ arms. My wrists are still cuffed, but the chains have been severed.
I bound to my feet, becoming unsteady as dizziness strikes.
I had been laid in a bed, alone. I steady myself, desperately trying to deduce my situation.
Fresh linens cover the bed, and the room is spotless, entirely new, but it doesn’t feel like a typical house, since the floor is hollow beneath my step.
My jacket and boots have been taken, along with my knife, leaving me weaponless.
I sneak around, checking the drawers filled with clothes, rifling through to find anything I can use against my captors.
These are all women’s clothes, and another drawer has products: soaps, and lotions.
I gently lift the shade from a lamp, unplugging it before cautiously approaching the window.
The sun has passed its peak, so it can’t have been long since they moved us.
An hour or two, maybe? Outside are rows and rows of trailers… I’m in a trailer park?
I dive out of sight when two men walk by with rifles slung over their shoulders. I edge cautiously towards the room’s door, left ajar. My heart feels audible as I pull the door open and creep along the hallway.
Three men sit around a table in what looks like an open-plan kitchen, distracted and hunched over a mess of papers.
All I know is they are between me and my friends.
I roll my feet along the soft-pile carpet, shifting my weight slowly with every step.
I crouch with quelled breath, a couple of metres from them, when the one with his back to me rises from his chair.
He must have heard me. I lunge towards him, lamp raised to meet his head as he turns—but I freeze.
His dark chestnut eyes look back at me. The creases on his face are heavier, and the new silver stripes down either side of his dark hair are bordered by his salt-and-pepper beard.
My heart stutters beneath a surge of euphoria, and I hover my fingers above the forked lightning scar adorning his face, stretching from the chunk of his missing ear, questioning if my cruel mind is teasing my waking reality.
The lamp drops from my loosened grip, and I spring towards him, looping my arms around his shoulders.
“Welcome home, Everlee,” Rex says.
“Is this real? Is this happening?!”
I bury my head beside his neck, struggling to catch my breath, when more arms surround me.
“Hey, baby girl,” says Roscoe’s unmistakable Texan twang.
I lift my face to see his and shriek as words evade me.
A new collection of scars litters his now bald head, and his bright blue eyes have turned to a soft grey, accompanied by his cheeky gap-toothed grin.
I touch his face, feeling his warmth to confirm that he is real.
I point to a long pink scar across his crooked nose.
“What happened?”
A beautiful British accent says, “He will tell you it was a fight with a marauder, but he simply fell over a chair.”
Malcolm!
I spin around to find him standing aside, patiently waiting his turn.
His hazel eyes are tearing up behind his thin-framed glasses, with his hair, still thick and dark, hosting only a short streak of silver fraying from his temples.
I leap into his open arms, and his scent is still the same, taking me back to being their little girl, safe in the arms of my fathers.
“Oh, my little sparrow. How you’ve grown,” he says, cupping my face.