Trapped (18 page)

It’s a long stretch, our hands barely connecting, but he doesn’t hesitate, wrenching me up to the next beam with him.
Grasping the edge, I help him as he pulls me bodily upward, turning to sit on the beam next to him.

It’s slanting at a dangerous angle, and we have to grip the steel tightly to keep from slipping toward the middle. We’re at least a dozen feet off the ground now, but I can tell Chris doesn’t think it’s enough. Silently he stands, his feet planted vicariously on the sloping beam, and crawls onto the one above it.

We lock hands again, and I scramble up beside him. We’re resting at the bottom of an X again, bodies pressed tightly together in the narrow crook between the wall and the beginning of the beam. I pull my legs up, prepared to climb to the next cross-beam, but Chris’s strong arms stop me.

“Too late,” he breathes, gathering me close to him as he raises his legs as well. He hooks his knees firmly on the either side of the steel beam and leans into me, pressing me against the metal wall.

I can see the four figures moving steadily toward us. Though the light isn’t strong in here, it feels impossible that they could miss us. I lean into the metal wall, pulling Chris’s torso against me as we try to meld in with the cross-beams.

Chris tucks his head against mine, blocking my view of the plumbers. Protecting me, I realize numbly, in case they start shooting. His dark hair is soft against my cheek, his breath warm against my neck, as we wait in agonizing silence.

“…gotta be over here. Probably trying to dig their way out or somethin’.” The words drift up from below. I feel Chris’s heart race against my chest, his pulse quickening as we both wait for what we know is coming – the shout of recognition when they see where we’re hiding, the angry demands that we get down. The shocking crack of gunfire as they finally find their chance to silence us.

We wait, not even daring to breathe. My muscles tense as I cling to Chris, pulling him closer, wishing we could disappear into the wall itself.

The plumbers walk closer, whispering quietly. We wait, knowing any moment they’ll see us.

But nothing happens.

Their footsteps don’t even hesitate. The four men walk directly under us, their feet quietly shuffling as they search.

I take a tentative breath, and Chris shifts his head, meeting my eyes briefly before tucking me protectively against his other side. I can’t see what the plumbers do when they discover we’re not on that end, either, but I can hear their confusion.

“Did they climb up?”

“No. This side
’s even steeper than the other one.”

“Doug, poke around the rocks a little. Are they
budgin’?”

“Not an inch. They couldn’t have moved a single one.”

“Shit. If they ain’t up here, where are they?”

My lungs stop breathing again as I sense them turn around. I close my eyes tightly, waiting…waiting…

“We musta missed ‘em back down in the tunnel somehow. Maybe they ran past us while we were searching one of the cars, Bob.”

“Shitheads,” mumbles one of them, as they start walking again.

They drop back down to the tunnel one by one, still making every effort to be as silent as possible. After a long while, Chris pulls away from me a little. But he doesn’t say anything. There’s nothing for us
to
say.

And so w
e wait in silent dread, unsure of what will happen next. The plumbers haven’t found us yet, but we know they won’t give up. They’ll keep searching, retracing their steps until at last they find us.

There’s no way to know how long that might take. Long enough for the rescue team to arrive, maybe.

But the reality is…probably not. They’re desperate for us, and there are only so many places in this narrow stretch of tunnel that we could hide.

Eventually, they’ll find us.

Until then…there’s nothing we can do but sit and wait.

Chapter 17 – Trapped

“Emily,” Chris’s warm breath washes over me as he whispers in my ear. “You doing okay?”

I nod my head just a little, but my muscles ache in protest. Carefully I stretch out first my arms, then my legs, returning soon to my bundled position between Chris’s knees.

“It can’t be much longer,”
he says, resting his head against me again. We can both feel the faint vibrations now shuddering through this side of the ventilation system.

“I hope not,” I whisper, wishing he
was right.

I can’t tell how long we’ve been sitting up here on this
cross-beam, my knees pulled up under my chin as I lean into the wall. Chris’s body is shoved tightly against me, one leg bent on either side of the beam. The workmen have been up here three separate times in the last few hours, and each time they stay longer. They started pulling down some of the boulders, climbing up the blocked wall to try to find us. But they haven’t yet.

Chris takes his turn to stretch, moving slowly. He raises his arms, stretch
ing his shoulders out painfully before straightening first his left leg, then his right.

“
Mmm.” His hands spread over his right thigh, massaging gently and then adjusting the material of his jeans. He rubs his hands on his shirt before trying to wrap them around me again, but I stop him.

“What’s that, Chris?” I ask quietly, pointing to the new marks he’d made on his white t-shirt.

He looks down and then shrugs. “When we started climbing this thing, I couldn’t hold on to the mirror piece, so I put it in my pocket. As usual when I’m around you,” he gives me a small smile, “an innocent idea turned into something of a cut.”

“How bad is it?” I
try to peer through the darkness at the dark stain matting the material of his jeans.

“Can’t be that bad,” he says, shrugging off my attention.

“Chris…” D
elicately my fingers examine his leg, lifting up some of the torn jean material to see the glimmer of the mirror shard. Below that is a bright gash in his skin, blood trickling down his thigh and onto the beam below.

“It looks bad,” I whisper, meeting his eyes.

“I’m fine,” he sighs, pushing my hands away. Folding his legs up around the beam again with some effort, he wraps his arms protectively around me. I try to assess him, wondering at the long slow breaths he’s taking. He rests his chin on my shoulder, his weight seeming too heavy to in my arms.

Then he jerks his head back up, his eyes flashing to the bright opening to the tunnel below us. “Did you hear that?”

I strain my ears, turning my head to stare after him. “I don’t hear anything—“

“They’re almost here!”

My eyes widen at the distant yell. It sounds like Mr. Rodriguez’s voice.

The tunnel is silent for another moment,
and then we hear sounds of people moving, waking up to the exclamation.

There are low voices
, and then a scream of pure joy. A rush of loud, feminine words float down the tunnel – it’s Mrs. Rodriguez, I can tell, thanking her
Dios
again.

Soon other voices join in,
car doors rapidly opening and slamming shut. Mrs. Potts is clamoring to know what’s happening. The hikers are giving happy, joyous whoops. Hannah Avery is asking questions quietly, while my mom is much louder.

“No one’s there!
I don’t understand! What’s going on!?”

“You can hear the drill!” Mr. Rodriguez shouts. “Listen to the whine of it!”

The voices quiet for a moment, and I can almost make out a high, shrill whistle. Chris meets my eyes, his eyebrows raised, before a chorus of shouts breaks out below.

“We’re saved!”

“Thank God!”

“How much longer?
Just a few minutes? An hour?”

“Girls, get everything out of the car. We’re out of here the second this thing breaks through!”

Chris and I listen in silence, staring into each other’s eyes as we process what we’re hearing below. We’ve known the bore is close, and the noise of the drilling is certainly a good sign. But I can’t feel quite as hopeful as the others. Chris and I have been expecting the drill to break through for hours, so it may be a while yet.

Chris studies my expression. “It will be okay, Champ,” he whispers.

I study him as well. He looks exhausted, but more than that, there’s a sense of worry in his eyes. A look of secrecy and concern I haven’t seen from him since before Mr. Tara died.

“They’ll have to end their search for us, right Chris? Now that the others are awake?”

He shakes his head slowly. “I’m not sure, Champ. I’m just…I’m not so sure.”

The voices die down as everyone
hurries to pack up their respective vehicles. Chris runs his hands lightly over my arms, the gesture soothing. After a long while he leans in, his lips nearly touching my ear as he whispers.

“I never asked, Champ. But do
you
have a boyfriend waiting for you outside of this tunnel?”

The question seems so out of the blue, like a distraction. But then the words hit me. I feel my cheeks flame
, and my pulse picks up. This is the closest Chris has come to showing real interest in me. He knows I’m not allowed to date, that there’s no way I have a boyfriend…but he asked anyway.

I shake my head quietly, my cheek brushing his.

“There will be a big crowd out there, I bet,” he continues whispering. “News crews. Concerned loved ones, looking for survivors. My dad, probably.”

I nod, feeling my heart swell. I can visualize it.

“He’ll be so relieved, he’ll probably even help me out with the Chrysler Hemi.” He chuckles at that, his breath tickling my ear. “Your dad, too?”

I feel my smile fall. “My dad and I…he’s not really in the picture.”

Chris nods, hugging me tightly. “That’s kind of what I thought. I guess I’m relieved – I don’t do so well with meeting the parents. You saw how it went with your mom, anyway.”

My breath catches
, and I wait. I’m good at finding missing variables, but Chris isn’t giving me enough to finish the equation. He…he’s dropping hints about his feelings, about a possible future for us. But he’s avoiding anything stronger than a hint.

“Will I…will I meet your dad?”

My voice is a whisper, my heart hanging on his answer.

“If he’s out there,
I imagine you will,” he says. My chest aches as my heart sinks again. It’s another evasion.

I pull back, meeting his eyes. “Will I see
you
,
Chris? When all of this is over, will I see you again?”

He stares at me for a long moment.
I swallow heavily, my cheeks paling. I can’t believe I was brave enough to even ask.  

He raises his left hand slowly, tucking
strands of hair behind my ear before studying my face. He gently lifts my chin, placing a soft kiss on my lips before pulling back. I trace his eyes in the dim light, wondering why his face seems so pale when I know mine must be flushed. He closes his eyes briefly before tucking me against his chest again.

I
don’t know what that means. Maybe he’s still avoiding answering me…maybe he’s planning on leaving me as soon as we’re out of here. It’s what my mom and everyone else in this tunnel believes. It’s what I know I should believe as well.

But
maybe, just maybe, he’s answering in his own way. Maybe he’s waiting until we’re out of this damned tunnel to commit to a future together. Maybe a kiss is all the answer he can give for now.

I try to be patient as I listen to the action
below, tracing the voices to figure out what’s happening. The hikers seem to be rapidly tearing down their tent, their sounds of laughter floating up to us from below. We can hear Mrs. Potts barking out orders to her two children as they pack up anything they want to keep from the Expedition. We can even hear the Rodriguez family talking loudly from the other end of the tunnel. But neither the Governor nor the plumbers participate in the general excitement, their voices conspicuously absent from the activities.

And then I hear a
high, quiet voice that tears at my heart. “Where’s…where’s Emily?”

I close my eyes, recognizing Suzanne’s concern. The
question was apparently posed to Michelle. “Is she lost?”

Chris squeezes me, urging me not to worry about them.

“Hmm. Let’s see if we can find her, shall we?”

I jump at the voice. Though they are far below us,
muffled by the concrete floor and distance…I recognize the precise, clipped words of the Governor.

“In fact, I have a feeling that only you two
could
find her. Why don’t you come with me?”

Car doors keep opening and shutting, but no one seems to notice the
Governor as he talks to my sisters. I can just imagine him, bending down to smile as he speaks to the girls, earning their trust easily. They’re not supposed to talk to strangers, but no one in this tunnel is a stranger any longer. My mom would be too busy with her excitement and relief to notice – or care – what the girls are up to. The Governor would be leading them easily away from all the others…plotting how to use them to draw me out.

“He
won’t do anything,” Chris whispers, his hands rubbing my arms again. I can’t tell if he’s moving to comfort me or to keep me in place. “He
can’t
do anything, Champ. There’s not enough time. And too many other people around, now.”

I shudder involuntarily. My brain says Chris is right.
Governor Rosings will probably just talk to them, see if they know of any hiding places that Chris and I would be in. They would say ‘no,’ of course. And they’d soon go back to the comfort of my mother.

We sit in silence, my ears searching desperately for any hint of where the girls are, what they’re doing. Chris just keeps rubbing, trying to calm my racing pulse.

“Everyone, if I could just speak for a moment?” We hear the Governor’s voice now, coming from the middle of the tunnel. The scuffle of footsteps tells us that people are gathering there, around him, just as we all had on that first day.

“Now, I know none of us have ever been in a situation like this before, but if I could speak for a moment about what I
know of standard safety precautions I think it would be helpful. From what we heard on the radio reports before the car battery died, they’ll be using a standard tunnel bore to break through. Tunnel bores can be large and, as we can tell, noisy. But although they are designed with safety in mind, the drill may disrupt the stability of our tunnel here.”

We can make out a few long, loud gasps as the
Governor takes a dramatic pause.

“If you will permit me, I think it may be safest if we all stay back away from where the drill will break through. The
two vehicles that are furthest to the western side may be the safest option for the adults. The plumbers here have offered the sturdy cargo area of their truck for the children to wait in, where they’ll be most protected.”

There is some general mumbling in the group as the parents
talk over where they will wait out the rescue – Mr. and Mrs. Rodriguez seem reluctant to part from their children, but with limited safety options they choose to deposit their three in the plumber’s care.

I don’t hear the girls’ voices, but my mom immediately decides to leave them
with the plumbers as well. Although she mentions my name once, I can’t tell whether she is concerned that she hasn’t seen me.

Mrs. Potts is reluctant to leave her children, but for a different reason than the Rodriguez’s. “I should stay in the truck with them, where it’s safer,” she demands.

The Governor talks her down, and after another few minutes, the tunnel is silent. All of the adults are settled in my mom’s sedan and Mrs. Potts’s Expedition, the two cars furthest away from the eastern side and the tunnel bore.

All of the adults e
xcept for the plumbers, Bernard, and the Governor.

And all of the children are…are in their care.

The whir of the drill seems to grow louder in the still silence of the tunnel below us. We can’t hear much else, except for what I think must be the soft click of a door opening and closing. We hear mumbled voices calling out in a low sing-song, but we can’t make out anything that’s being said.

Then Chris tightens against me as he pushes me back into the wall.
The plumbers are climbing up here again, a few of them spreading out, walking slowly down the space.

We can hear their low voices
more clearly now, calling out quietly into the emptiness of the ventilation system.

“…
either you come down, or…”

“…
not playing hide-and-seek anymore…”

“…
time’s up…”

I can’t make out what they’re saying until
they pass under us and turn to the rock wall of the western side.