Darkness

by Sagine Jean

  My gun. The gun at my hip is gone.

  “Sydney!” I hiss and shake her awake. She squirms and murmurs, but I persist and finally she opens her eyes.

  “My gun is missing. It’s almost noon. Margo was supposed to wake us up hours ago and my gun is missing.”

  I see Sydney’s eyes whirl as she tries to process this. “You think Margo took it?”

  “I think she drugged us, too,” I whisper and I put my fingers to my lips to motion for her to do the same. Who knows if they have someone listening in on us—who knows if this is just Margo; maybe they’re all in on it.

  Sydney’s eyes widen. It all makes sense—how tired we were last night, how easy it was for her to get us to abandon our mission. I wouldn’t have slept this long; I would never have gone to sleep at all, especially since we were so close to finding Sammy.

  “All along, this entire time, she’s been up to something. I would say I didn’t see this coming, but that would be a lie,” she whispers.

  I nod. “I had a feeling too. It was obvious how much she disliked us. But this? She’s trying to get something from us. Or she’s trying to hide something.”

  “What about Ruiz? Do you think he’s in on it, too, whatever it is Margo is planning?”

  Where Ruiz had seemed nice, Margo had seemed cold and unwelcoming. But they both ruled this camp, they shared a son, and I’d seen the way he whispered into her ear at the end of the night, how close they seemed.

  “It’s hard to tell,” I answer.

  “And Jaime?” Sydney asks, her voice small. I hesitate. I know how much he reminded her of Sammy and how much she feels for the little boy.

  “He might know something about it, but I find it hard to believe they’d let a little kid in on all of this.”

  Sydney and I share a look. Margo and Ruiz seemed exactly like the kind of parents who’d include their young son on these kinds of plans in hopes of brainwashing him.

  “We should ask him and make him tell us what he knows,” says Sydney, with a steely resolve in her voice that makes me look up at her.

  “Are you sure?”

  “If it means getting Sammy back, I’ll do anything.”

  Because that’s it, isn’t it? That’s what it must all add up to—Sammy. They had his rain jacket, they claimed they may have seen him. They know this system better than most New Yorkers know their own neighborhoods. They have to know something about Sammy—anything.

  I nod and together we make our way out of the train car. The camp around us is silent and I wonder if they all knew this was coming. If they laughed with us and told jokes just to make us feel safe, just to make us think they weren’t a threat. I want to shout for someone to tell us what’s going on, to help us get back to the surface, but it’s clear that no one is here. I picture Margo—her cold, hard voice spitting out words filled with venom. Maybe we should have seen this coming all along.

  I put my hand on my hip, expecting to feel the familiar weight and shape of my gun, but I remember that it’s gone. A part of me expects to feel empty—lost without it. Because this uniform is all I am. All I’ve been striving for since the moment my father came home drunk and miserable. Since the moment I saw his eyes fall on mine with a challenge. I should feel incomplete, I should feel defenseless. Especially here, in a place where the sun doesn’t shine. But I don’t. I can’t.

  Even without my gun, even here, somehow I feel like there isn’t anything I can’t do.

  I look at Sydney to the left of me, her face molded into a mask of fearlessness and determination. Except it’s not a mask or a shield the way my uniform was.

  I study her and find that it isn’t difficult to do the same, to follow her example, to let her strength become mine.

  We walk through the deep tunnels as if the world isn’t falling apart.

  “Jaime?” Sydney shouts as we continue along one of the paths Ruiz and Margo showed us yesterday.

  “Are you there?” I shout in tandem, making my voice just as kind as hers. We’ve been looking for the boy for the last half hour. Part of me wants to just try and find his parents and then Sammy—but that’s probably impossible, especially without help. And we both remember Jaime talking about how much he loves playing on these tracks—especially when his parents are busy.

  So we continue to look through the ghost tracks, rainwater dripping lazily down on our heads, and finally we spot a purple jacket hunched over in the corner. I hear Sydney’s breath hitch and I wonder if for a moment she thinks it’s Sammy, but she breaks into a jog and cries Jaime’s name.

  He turns, a soft smile appearing on his face.

  “Hey, kid,” I say when I catch up, trying my best not to watch him warily as he plays with old action figures along the metal of the track. “Do you know where your parents are?”

  The smile on his face falls and he looks between the two of us in fear. No—not quite fear—nervousness.

  “I-I-I haven’t seen them since this morning.”

  “Jaime. Remember, I’m a cop. You can’t lie to me.” And of course I’ve said exactly the wrong thing. Jaime retreats farther into the corner, his eyes widened with fear.

  “It’s okay, Jaime.” Sydney speaks up, a smile wide on her face. “I’m your friend, and I promise no one’s going to hurt you or be upset with you if you tell me where your parents are.” She holds her hand out to him and within moments he latches onto it, his small hands wrapped around hers.

  “You promise?” he asks, his voice small and broken. I turn to look at Sydney, watching the indecision in her eyes. There’s no way she can keep this promise and she knows it.

  “Yeah,” she says anyway. “I promise.”

  We follow Jaime along the ghost tracks, doing our best to not make a sound as we plod down an unfamiliar path.

  And suddenly the tracks stop, the tunnels around us begin to narrow, and in front of us is a darkness so all-encompassing even the flashlight in my hand can barely light the way.

  “They’re down there.” Jaime points a finger toward the passageway. “There in the truction place.”

  Sydney and I share a look.

  “Truction?” Sydney asks, kneeling on the ground to get a better look at him. She holds onto his small shoulders. “What do you mean?”

  “The place where all the noise comes from.”

  Sydney looks up at me questioningly and suddenly I know what he’s talking about. “Construction site,” I mouth to her and she nods. That’s where this passageway must lead—the Second Avenue construction. If I think about it, we’ve been walking along it for the last few days.

  “Are you sure that’s where your parents are?” “Yeah,” says Jaime. “And that little boy.”

  The world seems to pause on a moment—a quick breath of air. I see Sydney trembling, her slim shoulders shaking.

  Her voice breaks. “A l-little boy?” She bites her lip and I move to put a hand on her shoulder, mirroring hers on Jaime’s. “Blond hair? Blue eyes? A little s-small?”

  Jaime nods. “Momma told me not to tell you, but I like you and I don’t want you to be sad.”

  Sydney stumbles into him, wrapping her arms so tightly around him that I’m surprised he doesn’t fall over.

  “Thanks, Jaime,” she says, pulling back to wipe her eyes. “I’ll never forget this, I promise.” And this time, I can tell she means it. “Now go back, you don’t belong here.”

  “PAPA WILL KILL YOU,” JAIME SAYS QUIETLY. A chill goes down my spine. I can’t tell if he’s serious or not, but the knowledge that Ruiz and Margo have Will’s gun is enough to make me pause.

  “Jaime, what do you mean that your father will kill us?”

  “Papa doesn’t like when people bother him. If I come with you maybe he won’t get so mad.”

  I can’t risk it. I can’t risk him getting hurt, especially when Sammy’s life is already on the line.

  “We need your help back in the camp, Jaime. Why don’t you stay there until we get back? That way if Sammy comes back
, you’ll be able to help him.” I make my voice strong, but friendly—so there’s no room to argue.

  He nods, his face serious like this is a game of General and I’m giving him orders. He runs off without looking back and I take a deep, shuddering breath.

  “Okay, Will. You heard Jaime—Sammy’s close. Let’s—” My words break apart when Will suddenly bends in front of me.

  “What are you . . . ” I start to say, but he doesn’t get up, or even look at me. Instead, he grabs onto the laces of my boots and begins to tighten them, tying them in a simple loop. Finally, when he’s done, his hazel eyes flick upward and catch mine, his body still kneeling in front of me, like a knight swearing allegiance.

  “Now you’re ready. Let’s bring your brother home.”

  Maybe it’s the adrenaline, or the fact that we’ve been here for just about as long as we can stand, but we move through the tracks without a sound. Our feet are in sync. Our rhythm, our pace, even our breaths come out in perfect unity and we move through the maze of the ghost tracks using the map that Margo has given us. We thought it was wrong at first, believing that she’d trip us up to get us lost. But Jaime assured us that it’s correct. She must have thought that we’d just give up and go home. She must not have realized that I’d die down here before letting her have Sammy.

  “Sydney, over here!” Will shouts from beside me, grabbing my hand and leading us through a dark and narrow hallway. The map in his hand shakes as we continue down the path, a construction site looming before us. There are saws and electrical equipment abandoned and left in a rush, all under a foot or so of water.

  “Be careful,” he says, pushing us both toward the wall, guiding us on a small foot-wide platform. “It’s a tight fit, but all those electrical wires in this water . . . It’s not a good mix.”

  I look over as I try to balance on the tiny ledge, and he’s right . . . it isn’t a good mix. I’m sure the power has long since been shut down in preparation for this storm. But it’s always better to be safe than sorry. I reach for Will in front of me and steady myself with a hand on his shoulder.

  Anything could happen down here.

  A light from the ceiling could fall and knock me out cold. I could get trapped beneath layers and layers of water. A thousand bolts of electricity could reach inside my system and shake.

  Or even worse, even more frightening, the darkness could grab me so thoroughly, so entirely, that I forget to breathe—that I forget who I am. I wonder if that’s what happened to Margo and Ruiz. I wonder if they’re trying to do that to my Sammy.

  “How much of what Margo and Ruiz believe is right?” I ask as we carefully inch our way along the ledge—one foot in front of the other.

  “Sydney,” he says, his voice stern, and I can almost see the brightness of his badge here in this tunnel.

  “No, I’m serious. You can’t decide to live like this, scared for your life every other moment of the day and call it paradise. There must be something to what they’re saying. Something that rings true.” Because I don’t believe they could just do this to my Sams without a reason.

  “They’re crazy, Syd! That’s the only reason they’d live down here. That’s the only reason they’d kidnap a little kid.”

  I feel like I’ve tripped one of the wires. That’s how badly I shake. I put both hands on Will’s shoulders. “B-but you see, Sam’s not like other kids. What if he likes it down here? What if he wants to stay? What if he won’t come with me ’cause he hates it up there so much and—”

  Will stops. He doesn’t turn, he can’t turn—not when the ledge we stand on is so small. But he pauses, and in the moments that we stay silent, the world seems to turn beneath my feet. He reaches up his hands to grasp mine on his shoulders and squeezes.

  “Sydney,” he starts, when I begin to catch my breath. “I—” but I don’t get to hear what he says next because a sound, louder than anything I’ve heard since I’ve been here, fills the air.

  A sound. Just a sound. A cry in the distance.

  But it’s everything.

  “Sammy,” I breathe out, and Will’s body reacts beneath my fingers. It’s Sammy. I would know that cry anywhere. It’s one of frustration, anger, annoyance—fear that the world is too big to understand. It’s when I don’t cook the eggs in the yellow pan. It’s when I don’t sing him the lullaby he wants. It’s when the library doesn’t have his favorite book.

  It’s him.

  I push past Will and step off the ledge, racing through water and wires toward the sound of that cry.

  I hear it again and my heart races.

  He’s hurting. He’s somewhere and he’s hurting.

  “Sydney!” Will shouts, yelling for me to slow down. But I can’t, not when he’s so close, not when I hear him in pain.

  I run with Will at my heels toward the sound and eventually the tunnel opens up. Large wooden construction panels are posted like barricades across a clearing.

  I hear it again—Sammy’s voice—and I push past the barricade and long-forgotten construction site until I see him. I don’t think I’ve ever been this relieved in my life.

  It’s like the world’s gotten lighter, my heart even more so. A soft lantern illuminates him, sitting alone in the middle of all this rubble and water and electricity. Same tawny hair, same olive skin, and dark blue eyes, a brown blanket covering his thin shoulders.

  “Sammy!” I call his name and his eyes dart toward me—always acute, always aware. It’s then that I realize that he’s not alone, that Margo is behind him, holding up a can of the warm beans we ate yesterday.

  “It’s lunchtime!” she keeps saying over and over again to get him to eat. Except Sammy doesn’t eat at scheduled meals, that’s why he’s got Sammy Snacks. The pressure she’s putting on him is probably too much.

  Finally Margo looks at me, too—watches me with the can of beans in her hands, her eyes just as venomous and untrusting as they were when we first met.

  I start toward her, Will at my side, energy pulsing through me. Sammy’s here. Sammy’s here. Sammy’s here.

  Though before I can even take a step forward, a gun clicks from behind me.

  “Don’t move, Sydney.” Ruiz lets out a wicked laugh. “You too, officer.”

  IF I WERE ALONE, I WOULDN’T HAVE HESITATED. I would have assessed the area, grabbed Sammy, and put Ruiz and Margo on the ground before they even had a chance to counterstrike. But Sydney. Crazy, foolish Sydney.

  Running as soon as she heard her brother’s cry.

  Not stopping to think, not stopping to look—just running in headlong.

  Stupidly brave Sydney.

  I had no choice. I followed her, helpless, just as always.

  We ran forward until we finally saw him—well, Sydney saw him. The first person I saw was Margo, with her dissatisfied frown and her upturned nose. The next thing was stars.

  After Ruiz took out his gun, he did what I would do—take out the biggest threat. He slams the butt of the gun hard into my skull and I collapse. Lights fly past my eyes and the pain is incredible. I can hear Sydney screech in anger above me and a wicked laugh from Ruiz that I’ve never heard before now.

  I have to help her—I have to help Sammy. So I stand. Even as my head spins and blood drips from behind my ears, I stand. I almost lose my footing, but Sydney puts an arm around my waist and I let myself lean on her.

  Ruiz looks between the two of us, me about to fall over, Sydney carrying me, and smirks. “Did you guys really think you could come down here and take what’s ours?”

  He speaks the question with more malice than I expected. I hadn’t fully believed Ruiz was the brains behind all of this—he’d seemed so much milder mannered than Margo. But this was the real him, the man holding the gun to our heads. The man Jaime said would kill us if he got the chance.

  “Yours?” Sydney bites back with twice as much venom. “What makes you think he’s yours? He’s my little brother and he doesn’t belong here. He belongs with me.”

&nbs
p; “Really, Sydney?” Another voice cuts in from behind us. Margo. “Is that really what you think?” I feel Sydney waver beside me. “Because you’ve been here for a little over five minutes now and not once has Sammy said your name. Not once has he reached for you.”

  “Sammy’s not like other kids,” Sydney says, gritting her teeth. “Sammy has—”

  “Asperger’s?” Ruiz cuts in. “We know. A boy like that doesn’t belong on the surface. A boy like that can’t survive. Don’t ruin him any further by making him stay up there.”

  I feel Sydney shake beside me, but her voice still comes out strong and unwavering. “Why? Why are you doing this? What do you want from us?”

  “We want nothing from you,” Margo says, this time coming forward to stand beside her husband, Sammy in front of her like a shield. “We just want to protect Sammy. Do you know where I found him? Do you? Of course you don’t. It was probably within the first hour he went missing. He was in a drainage hole—a drainage hole in the middle of this hurricane. He could have drowned, all because he was hiding from the sounds of the rushing of people that were too much for him.”

  “Too much, too much, too much,” Sammy says by her side, covering tiny hands over his ears. “Did you know most humans can only withstand up to twenty thousand hertz of sound? I think maybe I can only stand less than that,” the little boy says and Margo squeezes his shoulder.

  “Sams,” Sydney’s voice breaks as she pleads with him. If Sammy has any idea what kind of danger he’s in, he doesn’t let it show.

  “You did good, Margo,” I say, wincing against the pain in my head, in an effort to calm her down. With someone like Margo, you can never be sure if it will work or not. “Saving Sammy’s life like that.”

  “I know I did.” Her eyes flicker toward me. “And normally I would have saved him and left him for the surface police to deal with. We were just going to give him shelter until the storm passed and lead him back toward the surface. But it’s killing him, that place. He’ll be dead before his next birthday.”