Trapped (12 page)

They laugh some more, going around the circle, sharing stories.

“Yep. My pops always told me I never would do anything right. I think this last job’ll show him, though!” Doug says.

A moment passes, before Phil quickly adds, “The one in Commerce City, you mean,
Doug?”

His eyes go wide before he agrees emphatically. “Yep, that last one. All those exploded pipes in that old house, you know. Everything went smooth, though. I patched it up.”

Chris’s face is a casual, smiling mask, though I know he must have noticed the slip. “My dad’s the same way,” he says with barely a break. “I told you guys about the car shop my family owns before? Well he watches my every move! Always so sure I’m going to put in the wrong carburetor or something.”

“How
bad’s it going to be for you, working on the new car?” one of them asks.

“The Chrysler Hemi?” Chris takes a sip of coke, thinking. “It’s going to be the best job of my life. This one I’m doing all on my own – my dad said he
won’t even comment if I put it together upside-down. He probably thinks that’s how it’s going to go, too!”

I’m surprised for a moment that the plumbers know about the car, but it makes sense. Chris is being completely genuine with them, revealing as much as he can about himself, in the hope that they’ll assume he’s being completely honest.

“You’re gonna take this girl here for quite a
ride
when you’re out of here, aren’t you?” says Henry.

The workmen all laugh at his double meaning, before Doug
adds, “Heck, he didn’t even wait to get out of this damn tunnel before that happened!”

I look up at Chris, waiting for him to contradict them.

He doesn’t.

“It’s a wonder you didn’t get caught sooner,” Phil says, laughing. “Not exactly a lot of privacy around here for that sort of thing.”

“Yeah, boy! How’d you manage?”

“Now, now,” Chris says uncomfortably. “You guys know I don’t kiss and tell.”

“That’s not what you said earlier,” one of them bursts out, and they all start laughing, Chris included.

I stand up quickly, mumbling something about how I need to get back to my family. “Aw, we didn’t mean it!” I hear one of them say behind me, but I keep walking.

“Now look what you guys did!” Chris says, matching their teasing tone. He puts his cards down and lazily jogs to catch up with me while the others resume the game.

“Emily, I’m sorry,”
he whispers, putting an arm over my shoulders as we walk. His body language is confident and casual, but his tone is urgent. “I am so sorry. Please believe me.”

I keep my eyes down as we walk past the playing children, past the campers’ tent, past my mom and Hannah Avery and Mrs. Potts – all of whom must have clearly heard what was just said about us. What was just implied about
me
.

We get to the car and Chris opens the door for me.

“Manners? Now?” I struggle not to laugh.

I sit down on the seat and Chris kneels beside me, taking my hands. “Emily, I tried to tell you earlier. When they first started questioning me about Simon Tara, I was floundering. I said I’d barely spoken to him, that I didn’t know anything about him. Then they wanted to know what you and I had been talking about. Why they’ve seen us whispering, and sneaking off together. I
was so relieved that they shifted focus that I…I laughed and told them that one was easy. I said that you and I were…more or less…dating.”

“I take it they went the ‘more’
route rather than ‘less.’”

“Yeah. They, umm…they got a little bit vulgar
, guessing at things we’d been doing. And I couldn’t contradict them.”

“You could have. And you could have
just now, too, when I was there.”

His eyes shutter. “I tried, at first. I told them that it wasn’t like that. Then they just wanted to know what it
was
like. I couldn’t say we hadn’t even kissed. I tried to say that it was just kissing, but they wouldn’t drop it. And with everyone in the tunnel listening, I just wanted the conversation to end. I didn’t think they’d bring it back up. I’m sorry, Emily.”

He meets my eyes again, and I sigh
loudly. “Well what do we do now?”

“Just the same thing. Except now…now I guess everyone in the tunnel will be looking at us a little differently.”

“No joke.”

“And…it would be fine, after all this, I think, if you don’t want to hang out with them anymore. I think the reason would be more than obvious.”

“Yeah.”

“But you and I…I mean…
.we still need to hang out together. Hold hands, whisper,” he tells me quietly, “just like this. The damage is done, but it will pay off…they’re not suspicious of us anymore. You were perfect earlier – that comment about your mom, well, it may have saved us. I think they’d seen you two fight, and by tomorrow, they’ll have heard others gossip about it, as well.”

“Was it that loud?”

“Things travel fast down the tunnel,” he says, smiling slightly. “Look Champ, let’s just keep this up a little longer. In two days we’ll be free from here. We’ll be safe. But in the mean time, no matter what’s said about us, this relationship may be the only thing keeping us safe.”

I look
down at our hands, still joined in my lap. I’m in deep water with my mom – if the food incident yesterday hadn’t tossed me in without a life vest, then my new relationship with Chris certainly has. The whole tunnel thinks I’m…well, about as opposite as you can get from a math geek. But on the other hand, this charade has bought us safety – for the moment. The workmen’s focus on our awkward little relationship seems to have dispelled their fears about us. They’ll leave us alone, on that score at least.

And…and I’m sitting here, hand in hand with the boy who I would like to think loves me.
Who I want to love me. Who makes my heart beat just a little bit faster, makes my breathing deep and heavy. Who is my first real boyfriend. Well, my first real fake boyfriend.

And as illogical as it all seems, that last fact is the most compelling of all.

“Alright,” I say, leaning forward impulsively. I touch my lips to his cheek, kissing him lightly. His skin is warm and tan, with the ever-present stubble tickling my lips just slightly. I pull back, not meeting his eyes. I’m not sure if he’ll interpret that as his fake-girlfriend kissing him, or as me kissing him, but it was worth it.

“Good,” he says, his voice just a little raspy. His hands give mine a final squeeze before he stands up, shutting my door softly.

He leans back over, arms folded on the open windowpane. “I’ll, umm…I’ll see you later then,” he says, hesitating for just a moment. He leans forward, placing a kiss on my forehead.

“See you later,” I whisper, watching as he walks back to the poker game.

Chapter 12
– Sleepless Nights

“I’ve never been so disappointed in you, Emily,” my mom says, dragging me out of the car so she can climb over to the driver’s seat. I climb back in wearily. It’s late – my mom’s been avoiding the car, I guess – and the girls and I went to sleep hours ago.

“Everyone in the tunnel heard about what you and
that boy
have been doing. Do you know how they look at me? Hannah Avery could hardly say two words, and Amelia Potts has been staring down her nose at me the whole evening.”

I close my eyes, hoping that will shorten the tirade.

“You’re not even listening to me!” she bursts out. “You don’t care at all what this is doing to our family! What everyone in the tunnel thinks of us! How are the twins supposed to grow up, with you for a role model?”

I keep my eyes closed, counseling patience. The girls seemed fine with what happened earlier. They were too preoccupied with their games to catch more than the fact that Chris and I are officially ‘dating,’ which they couldn’t be
happier about. Suzanne had asked if he was going to help us plant the apple tree when we get home, and Michelle was wondering if that meant we’d get even more food.

It must say a lot about how my priorities have shifted that I cared more about the answer to this first question then the second.

“Honestly, Emily. I thought you were such a smart girl. You can’t even tell when you’re being used. Why, you’re probably not even using protection!”

“Mom!” I say, my eyes opening in a flash to look back at my sisters. They’re still asleep, thank goodness. But that’s
not the type of thing two six-year-olds should be exposed to.

“Listen, Mom,” I say quietly. “Maybe you shouldn’t believe everything you
hear. We’re not doing anything. You may have heard differently, but trust me, our relationship…well, it definitely hasn’t progressed
that
far.”

“I was fifteen once too, Emily. You can’t just pretend nothing is going on—“

“It’s not, Mom. Just…just please trust me.”

I close my eyes again, resting my head against the headrest.

“It’s not you, Emily,” she says quietly, after a while. “I can’t trust
him
. I mean just look at him – he’s older. He’s handsome. He probably has girls falling all over him. And he’s probably never been a week without a girl, either. He’s attracted to you right now, Emily, but it’s temporary. You’re not the type of girl that type of guy goes for. I just wish you could see it.”

I keep my eyes closed, relaxing my face to a perfect blank so she won’t see how her words sting. After a few minutes she turns away from me, sighing loudly until her snores drown out the sound.

There are few times, if ever, that I agree with my mom. But here, I know she’s right…she just echoed my own thoughts. I’m not his type of girl, just like he’s not my type of guy. Strong, handsome, worldly – he belongs to a cheerleader or a model or an artist, or something. Not just some strange, petite math nerd.

And I’m a fool for thinking any differently.

But still, after an hour of lying restlessly in my seat, I quietly exit the car to go fan the flames. I walk down the tunnel unselfconsciously – there’s nothing the others could see me do now that would put me in a worse position than I am already. I get a bawdy wink from one of the plumbers sitting awake in the front of the truck, but other than that, the rest of the tunnel seems to be asleep.

Including Chris.

I stop short a few feet away from him. He’s stretched out on his back, one arm bent to rest under his head, the other tossed carelessly over his eyes, blocking out the ever-present light. His white t-shirt is smudged with dirt from the rocks he’s had to call home, stretching tightly over the muscles of his chest, and hollowing out over his thin abdomen. His jeans are loose and torn over his strong legs, and his feet are bare, his shoes and socks resting against the wall.

His breath is deep and even as I sit beside him, folding my pencil skirt
beneath me. Self-consciously I tuck my tank top in, and then my hands reach up to fiddle with my braid. I’m not sure why I bother. I know I’m not the type of girl to interest him. But for the time being, he’s mine. And I can enjoy pretending it’s more than just a charade, can’t I?

“
Whatcha doing here, Champ?”

I look over at Chris. He’s moved his arm, revealing his face and a small smile. The bruise under his left eye has faded to a nice yellow now, and I wonder if mine matches. He tucks both arms under his head, sprawled out luxuriously as he stares up at me. Usually he’d sit up, I think, but
tonight he doesn’t move. Somehow that’s more intimate. Almost like an invitation for me to lie down beside him.

“I couldn’t sleep,” I say softly, leaning toward him just a little. His eyes check the
movement, seem to read into it, before meeting mine solemnly. I quickly add, “And…and I thought it would be good for appearances’ sake, you know, to be down here.”

He nods but still doesn’t sit up. “What’s on your mind, Emily?”

How to answer, how to answer? A million things, really. How much I like you. How much I want you to like me. How I don’t think that’s possible. How I probably don’t compare to the other girls in your life. How my mom doesn’t think so either – how probably no one in this tunnel thinks so.

Time stretches, and I watch as he raises one eyebrow at me.
Say something, Emily. Just make up something casual
.

“Do you have a girlfriend?”

I feel my eyes widen, my lips forming a perfect ‘o.’ I can’t believe I just asked him that.

Time stretches again as he leans up on one elbow, facing me now, still laying down.
It’s a weighted question, one that reveals too much of my reasons for asking it. I clutch my hands together in my lap, trying to school my features for the coming answer.

“She’s sitting right here,” he says, managing the casual tone that I should have struck earlier.

But him not answering my question…that’s quite an answer.

“I was just wondering,” I laugh uncomfortably, aiming for lightness and missing the mark by a mile. “You know, we know so little about each other, I mean, about each others’ lives outside of this tunnel, you know? So I just thought I’d start there. If you do have one, that’s totally cool – I just thought it might be just a little awkward, when we’re out of the tunnel, you know, if word ever got around to her.”

My laugh sounds incredibly hollow, and I try to stop the uncomfortable flow of words. I’ve opened up the question again, giving him the opportunity to tell me yes or no.

“It won’t be a problem,” he says, staring at me.

Another non-answer. I feel my heart sink. If he doesn’t have a girlfriend, surely he would have said so. And if he does, well…I’m glad that our fake-relationship won’t be a problem for her.

I just wish she wasn’t such a big problem for me.

“How’s your mom handling it?” he asks when it seems my word stream has been cut off. I shrug, hoping that’s enough of an answer.

“She didn’t kick you out on the street, did she?”

I manage a small laugh at that. Trapped in a vehicular tunnel, that’s literally what would happen. “No, no. She just, ahh, gave me a bit of a lecture, and then went to sleep. I couldn’t fall asleep again, though, so I…”

I let the sentence trail off. I want to casually repeat what I said earlier about coming down here to aid the charade, but it doesn’t look as if he’s any more likely to believe me this time.

“Was she that hard on you?” he asks quietly, all teasing gone now.

“No.” In a way, she was
harder on Chris than on me.

“Well, things seemed to have really gone over well with the plumbers,” he says after another strange silence.

“That’s…good.”

“They really liked you.”

I stare down at him. “You seem to really like them.”

He shrugs. “It’s strange. It’s like I know about them on one level,” here he finally sits up, moving closer to me so he can whisper. “And on the surface, they’re just regular guys. But on a deeper level, I know what they’ve done. Somehow I just can’t connect it, though…why five regular guys would do something so terrible.”

“Why do you think they did it, then? Just for kicks?”

“I don’
t know,” he leans in closer, his lips almost touching my ear. I know why – what we’re talking about is far too dangerous to risk others hearing. But still, a part of me wants to pretend it’s just an excuse for him to get closer.

“
Emily, when Simon Tara found out what was going on…well, he’d been watching me – especially watching me watch the plumbers. Right before he died, he decided to confide in me. He’d been parked more or less behind the van for the whole week he was down here, and he never could see into the back. One night, though, when he was walking by, he caught a glimpse – not only of all of their supplies, which I’ve seen, too, but of guns. One of the workmen had one out – he was having fun aiming it.”

“Just…just hunting guns, maybe?”

“That’s what I asked. Mr. Tara said that they were handguns, and at least one or two rifles. He had a theory…that none of us were going to make it out alive.”

I swallow, waiting for Chris to continue. “I argued with him. I told him that if they wanted us gone, they would have done something when the tunnel first went down. I told him not to do anything, to just keep quiet, but he…he must have…”

“Chris – did Simon Tara know why they did this? Did he know something we don’t?”

He shakes his head. “He
had only guessed. You see, geographically, we’re directly under the Continental Divide, so he felt certain that had to do with their reason,” he says.

I turn my head to his, whispering in his ear now.
“I forgot about that. But why would they be interested in blowing up a tunnel under the Continental Divide?”

“I can’t figure it out. It’s called the ‘Great Divide,’ you know, but really it’s
just an arbitrary line – drawn on maps to show where all the water starts flowing to either the Atlantic or Pacific.”

“But t
here aren’t even any major water sources around here.”

“Exactly. And there weren’t any other radio reports of ‘landslides’ anywhere else. So I was thinking it had to be something else, something about the tunnel itself.”

“It’s called the Eisenhower tunnel,” I whisper. “Maybe it’s some protest? Something about Eisenhower?”

He shakes his head. “A man who was president half a century ago? What’s the point?”

“The President,” I whisper, my pulse picking up. “When we were driving in, we passed the Governor’s car, and Michelle and Suzanne thought it was the President. He wasn’t in the tunnel – we would have heard. But Chris – tons of other political candidates were.”

His eyes widen, and his hands clasp mine. “You’re right. That convention in Denver – many of them had been driving back from that. And the radios were talking about political candidates lost in the tunnel. I just didn’t put two and two together, but it’s the only reason. They blew up the tunnel—“

“To destroy the politicians,” I finish for him.

We drop back to silence as our eyes scan the tunnel. In our excitement, I know, our
whispers had grown louder. Still, no one else seems to be awake.

“But why?” I ask eventually, turning to put my lips close to his ear again. “Why go after congressmen
and state governors? For five plumbers, it doesn’t make any sense.”

He turns to whisper to me. “I don’t think they’re really plumbers. At least, I know Phil’s not. He’s the
guy in charge, and the rest may just be hired hands. It must have started as an idea, probably coming from Phil…and though I don’t know why he targeted those politicians, I know that had to be it.”

“Still…why would Phil want to do that? If killing politicians was his goal, then shouldn’t they have gone to D.C.?”

“The politicians that were driving through the tunnel – they were all from the Midwest, mostly,” Chris says.

“We’ll have to have special elections, then, depending on who was killed, right?”

He nods. “Did Phil just want to impact some upcoming votes? Is that why he plotted to take out all the Midwestern Congressmen and Governors that had been at that convention?”

I feel my forehead crinkle as I think back, remembering bits and pieces of conversation
s. “Hannah Avery went to the convention in Denver. She said there was no one too famous – a couple of long-shot Presidential candidates. That’s it.”

We sit in silence, unable to put all the pieces together. Five men, who seem so normal on the outside, blow up both ends of the Eisenhower tunnel, killing everyone inside except for those who just happened to be with them in the middle – in the only section safe from the cave-in. Their plan had worked – the radio reported the dozens of
state and national politicians who were buried alive down here, not to mention normal citizens. What’s more, by being some of the few survivors, the plumbers would escape unharmed and without suspicion. The tunnel lies directly under the Great Divide, but that’s just a line drawn on a map – it has no geological impact that they blew up a section of it. But the idea of a Great Divide seems so analogous to politics. To a country divided. Could that be why they chose to attack government officials here, rather than in D.C.?