Trapped (11 page)

Chapter 11 – Patience

“Two more days,” I tell my stomach, patting the hollowness there. The admonition only seems to make it growl louder, though, as if having the end in sight only makes waiting all the more unbearable.

“
Two more days,” I say again, though this time as a whisper to my heart. The words no longer seem like a hope-filled mantra, like a prayer of great things to come. Two days feels more like a death sentence, with the threat of our knowledge and Chris’s association with Simon Tara hanging over our heads. Phil’s eyes had been filled with suspicion earlier – though thankfully, not conviction – that we knew more than we were letting on. It’s possible that they won’t connect the dots. Most likely they won’t be able to prove we know anything, won’t ever know for certain that we figured them out.

But if they have even the slightest suspicion that we know about their role in the cave-in, that we’re just biding our time until we’re safe from them before telling the authorities, then they’ll never risk letting us out of this tunnel alive.

Perhaps they won’t let anyone live through it. Just in case.

My mom is still talking anxiously with Hannah Avery. She’s convinced that Simon Tara died from starvation and that she, as a middle-aged woman, is also a
t great risk. My mom whispers these comments loudly to Hannah, her eyes darting in angry glances first to me then to Mrs. Potts, who is sitting alone in her Expedition. Hannah seems to shrink against her car, uneager to become involved in the feud growing between my mom and Mrs. Potts.

Kevin and Jason are sealed up again inside their tent, and I can dimly hear the low tones of their voices as well. I can’t tell if they feel guilty or not, as the ones who started the fighting. I can’t tell if they’re as anxious or hungry as they were yesterday, or even if they’re overjoyed that rescue is right around the corner. They’re keeping to themselves until the end, it seems.

The children are playing yet again, the news of the old man’s death going almost right over their heads. We’d told them not to worry, and they’d listened, it seemed.

The plumbers, too, seem unconcerned about Mr. Tara’s death – as does Chris, now at least. They’d resumed their card-game soon after the
Governor had returned to his car. I can hear them laughing, shouting occasionally, and generally acting as if nothing had changed.

Except for Phil. I’d stayed and watch the girls play for an hour or two, and I’d watched the poker game as well. Phil’s skepticism seems to have decreased, somewhat, but it’s still there. He watches Chris as he plays, looks for any flaw in his carefree façade. And he watches me, too. He catches me watching him.

“Two more days,” I remind myself, wondering just how slowly the hours can pass. I don’t even have a clock, I realize numbly.

I suppose I must drift off to sleep, sitting there in the passenger’s seat, because I’m startled awake when my mom approaches, yanking the passenger’s side door open angrily.

“What is all this about, Emily?” she hisses, pulling me to my feet.

“What…what do you mean?” I ask groggily, my eyes focusing slowly under the bright fluorescent lights.

“I just heard…that
boy
…say that you two were dating. He said you were dating, and that you’ve been hooking up in this very tunnel!”

My eyes shift slowly beyond her shoulder, down to where the poker game is still in progress. Chris seems carefree, and Phil seems a bit more relaxed.

It certainly doesn’t
seem
like we’re dating.

“You must have heard wrong, Mom.”

“Don’t you lie to me,” she says, shaking my arm. “I’ve seen you with him. You are specifically breaking one of my rules!”

“I’m not, Mom, I—“

“You know you’re not allowed to date until you are sixteen. And you are especially not allowed to date anyone so much older than you! He’s a mechanic, for Christ’ sake, Emily! Think of the example you’re setting for your sisters.”

“He’s a good guy,” I say, latching onto only part of her tirade. “He’s a great guy, actually—“

“Don’t you even bother coming to his defense.
This is too far – hoarding your food was one thing, but deliberately breaking one of my rules? A guy like that only wants one thing. He’ll be whatever he needs to be in this tunnel, then drop you like yesterday’s trash the second we get out of here. I can’t believe you would be so impractical, Emily. Your sisters are counting on you to set an example. To be there for them. Not to go tramping around with some high school dropout—“

“Enough!” I say, breaking free of her grip. “
He’s a good guy. You don’t even know him. And I’ll date him if I want to.”

She looks at me, shocked, and I turn and walk away. I’m not sure how my mom got the idea that we were dating. We’re most definitely not, I’m sorry to say. But for her to talk about him like that, after he’s done so much to protect me, to take care of me, to look out for the girls…

“Oh!” I try to kick a loose rock sitting on the pavement, but I miss, instead sending my toes directly into a broken slab of concrete. Pain shoots through my foot as I bend to examine the injured extremities, which took a beating even through the hard leather of my shoe.

“You okay there, Champ?” Chris’s low voice washes over me as he bends beside me, touching my foot with gentle hands. “I’m not so sure you’d make the cut for the soccer team,” he says, smiling at me.

“I never was one for sports,” I mumble, wiggling my toes around just a bit.

“With all that upper body strength? You could have been great.”

I laugh as he helps me stand, then I try to move away. He doesn’t let go, though, instead stepping closer.

“Emily, I…I had to make up a lie about us, earlier,” he whispers,
slowly taking me into his arms. His back is to the plumbers, a few of whom are watching us, as he lowers his lips closer to my ear. “They were acting strange, asking me a bunch of questions. About what I had talked about with Simon Tara. About what you and I talk about. Especially about you…and I…I had to tell them we were dating. I couldn’t come up with a better cover. They insinuated some stuff about us, and I just…I just let them…”

I nod slowly, leaning my head against his.
Raising my arms up, I wrap them around his back as well.

“I saw you arguing with your mom,” he whispers urgently. “I’m so sorry – I never meant to cause problems—“

“Shh…” I pull back, looking at him now. “It’s no big deal. Really.”

His shoulders visibly sag in relief, and his lips part in a small smile. He lowers his hand to take mine, and I wonder what to do now. I’ve never been in a relationship
, real or not. I’m not sure if or when I should stand on my toes and kiss his cheek, or if I should wiggle my fingers and tell him to go play poker with the boys.

He solves the issue for
me, squeezing my hand gently and leading me back toward the middle of the tunnel. A few of the workmen are staring openly at us, though some are a little more discreet. I feel my cheeks blush as one – Henry, I guess – jabs his elbow at the other, whispering something about me.

“Cat’s out of the bag now,” Chris says loudly as we approach. That comment is greeted with a couple of low whistles and some more elbow jabbing. “Emily, want to sit with us and watch the game?”

“Yeah, maybe she’ll distract Chris enough so he’ll stop stealing all our poker chips!” one of the guys in coveralls says.

“Hey!”
Chris says laughingly. “Not when it’s my stomach on the line!” Turning to me, he says, “I’ve been cashing in rock poker chips for some of their food. They always keep the truck stocked with snacks and drinks for the long jobs they have to do, and I’ve been benefitting.”

As I have, I know.
And my sisters.

I smile at the
men around the circle as best I can, trying to pretend that I believe Chris’s explanation. He justified their food simply and credibly. It should be believable, I know.

Except when you consider that no truck should have been packed with
at least a weeks’ worth of food – enough to supply five grown men, to boot. But like Chris, I try to pretend that I’m not connecting any dots.

Chris settles me in
on the ground beside his chair, and one of the workmen passes me a coke. I thank him and pop open the tab.

“Now wait a sec, Bob,” Chris says over my head, picking up his cards. “I had to put up my boxer shorts as collateral to get as far as winning a coke. She just
gets
one?”

“I figured you
woulda flipped if I’d asked for
her
underwear,” Bob says, making my cheeks glow an even brighter red.

“You’re damn straight I would,” Chris says loudly before studying his cards again. “Though you know I almost had to go commando for our entire stay down here.”

They all laugh at him, and I sip my coke in silence, listening to the game as I lean against the legs of Chris’s chair. He drops a hand to my shoulder occasionally, rubbing gently, almost absently, in between turns. In just my black tank top, I feel the warmth of his hand directly on my bare skin. His fingers slide easily under the skinny straps, as if they’ve been there before.

Phil notices, I see. He pays less and less attention to us the more Chris and I interact.
He’s seeming to accept our recently revealed couple status at face value.

But the charade feels so much
deeper than that. Chris’s unexpected touches seem to mark me as his…and I try to reciprocate. I let my hand rest for a while on his leg, then lay my head down on his thigh. His fingers gently stroke my hair, my cheek, trace the soft skin on my neck. I know, in my head, that he’s just doing what he needs to prove we’re dating. All of his subtle touches show his familiarity with me, and my trust in him.

But they seem to mean so much more than that, and I have to wonder if Chris could possibly feel the same way about me as I do about him. That game of ‘Mash’ said yes, and my sisters would swear to the accuracy of the results. But Chris is the type of guy who’s definitely already had a girlfriend –
girlfriends
, I correct mentally. Many, many girlfriends, I’m sure. How could he possibly be attracted to a small math-competing blond he just happened to meet while trapped in a tunnel, an ally on his quest to survive under the very noses of the men who’d brought it down?

It’
s a weird feeling, passing the time in a circle of men who you know are cold-blooded killers. Chris seems born to the role – his knowledge of the game, his playful jabbing, his ‘smack-talking’ keeps him right in with the rest of the workmen. They seem to consider him a friend, and if I truly could have dismissed what happened between us in the ventilation system, I would think he considered them friends as well.

I don’t know how he does it.
I’m unable to say much, only managing small smiles and blushes, especially when they make comments about the two of us. I can only hope they chalk me up to being shy.
Extremely
shy. But Chris’s occasional, subtle attentions to me seem to diffuse Phil’s fears about the two of us more than anything else could have.

“So you two are done keeping it a secret, huh?”
Henry’s comment interrupts my thoughts, and I look up. His hair is still slicked back into its tight ponytail, and his eyes are studying us a little too closely.

“Yeah,” Chris says, shrugging slightly. “No point, really, since we’re almost out of here.”

Someone tosses poker chips into the center. “Why were you trying so hard in the first place? You two hooked up early on, didn’t you?”

I feel my cheeks flush at the term ‘hooked up.’ I’m not
exactly certain what he means by it, but I’m pretty sure it’s something that should cause me to blush.

“Yeah,” says Phil, his eyes turning to me. “I remember seeing you guys sneak off one night right after the cave-in. You worked pretty hard to keep it a secret.”

“And this is why,” Chris says, trying to lighten the mood again. “Didn’t want our pesky neighbors prying,” he laughs uncomfortably.

I can tell the answer doesn’t sit well with them, and the moment stretches into silence. “It’s my mom,” I say quietly,
managing a casual look around the circle of players. “I’m not allowed to date for another few weeks, so we had to keep it a secret. She found out anyway, though, and got really pissed.”

A moment passes, then one of them starts laughing, and the rest follow suit.
Chris smiles weakly down at me. I’m sure he knows that ‘pissed’ is not typically part of my vocabulary, but it seemed to resonate with the workmen.

I retreat back to my silence, listening as they break out into stories of disappointing their own parents. I even manage to laugh wi
th them, sharing a few comments.

“
I remember the time I pissed off my mom the most,” says Bob. “I mean, there were a lot of times. But the worst was when she caught me with my dad’s Vodka when I was fourteen. I got kicked out of the house for two weeks! It was all downhill from there, I think.”

I l
augh with him, venturing to say, “If my mom boots me out of the car for the night, do you think that counts?”