The Ocean in the Fire

by Renee N. Meland

She studied the faces of her fellow prisoners. She hated to use that word in their own home, but that was exactly what they were. Darius and Cassius seemed to be watching them as carefully as she was. If she could only get one or both of them alone, perhaps they could formulate a plan. Her mother was only paying attention to her own children, alternating between watching Harper, Gabriel, and herself. She seemed to be inching closer to Harper, and it wouldn’t be long before one of their captors noticed and pushed her back to square one.

  Darius spoke first, much to Poe’s approval. If it had been Cassius, they may have all found themselves thrown into a second round of the war that just ensued. “I’m so sorry about your friend, but we have to work something out. There’s so much all of you don’t know. We didn’t know how hard this would be either. You need us, and I think you know that…or you would have killed us all already. Please, just let us bury Blake and we can figure this out right after.”

  The man who Poe guessed was second in command after Shannon snarled at him as he marched toward them. “You tried to kill us. We were just talking and he just shot her. Like she didn’t matter at all!” His voice was loud but shaken. “Bury her? After what you did to Shannon? We’re going to dump that girl in the woods and leave her for the predators to finish off.” Vera screamed at the thought of it but Poe pulled her close, afraid that she would antagonize them further and find their rage turned towards her.

  The man watched as two others dragged her father inside and threw him down on the floor with everyone else. The man threw himself on top of her father and shook him furiously. “She was my wife! We just wanted some help, that’s all! What the hell is wrong with you?” Poe tried to get up and pull him off of her father, but one of the women from the other group stood in front of her and shoved her back in her seat.

  Harper glared at him. “What do you mean? You are the ones who fired first. And now Blake’s gone because of you!”

  He stopped beating her father and slapped Harper so hard she fell down. “Shannon gave the orders you idiot. If she didn’t say fire, then we didn’t fire. None of us.” He turned back to her father. “Nobody in our group shot at anyone until you slaughtered my wife like an animal.” He spit toward her father’s face, and it landed right on his forehead. He tried to get up, but the two men who had dragged him in pushed him back down. Shannon’s husband looked around. “You didn’t even bat an eye when that girl bled out.” Wiping the sweat from his brow, he asked, “Which one is your wife? Which of them?” He stepped around and looked at Poe and her siblings individually, then at Vera and her mother, studying their faces and waiting for one of them to give themselves away. Poe clenched her jaw, determined not to make any sudden move that may reveal herself. In her mind, she willed her siblings and her mother to do the same. If he couldn’t figure it out, then she hoped he would stop before anyone else was hurt, though she knew deep down that the pain for the evening wasn’t over. He stopped in front of Kate and stared at her. “It’s you, isn’t it? You—”

  “It’s me. I’m his wife. Me.” Bile rose from the middle of Poe’s stomach as Vera shoved Jackson into her arms.

  “No! It’s me! She’s lying I swear!” Kate cried…screamed with all the strength she had, but his attention was on Vera.

  “Well, one of you is lying.” He looked between Drew and Vera. “You two were the inconsolable ones when you saw that poor girl die, not him.” He moved toward Kate, but as he turned, Vera spat at him.

  “It’s me you stupid sonofabitch. Me.” She glared at him.

  Wiping the spit from his shirt, he threw her on the ground. With Drew being held back and screaming in the background, the man beat Vera so hard that Poe thought she may have been dead. He slammed his fists down on her once-strong body, and by the time he was done, her face had swelled into an almost unrecognizable form. When no one was looking, Gabriel pulled her mother up to him and held her close to his chest as she cried.

  There were a couple precious seconds that the group neglected to pay any more attention to Vera, leaving her in a heap on the floor of the room. Poe used those seconds to hunch down and whisper in her ear. “Why did you save my mother?”

  With her eyes closed and a weak smile on her face, Vera said, “Because my daughter’s gone. I’m dead already.”

  When Shannon’s husband, who Poe figured out was named Justin was finished with Vera, he approached her father again, this time hovering over him and grinning. “Take him to the barn and lock him in with the livestock.” He stared at Connor. “I’m going to kill him. But he’s not going to know when it’s coming. I want him to feel it…all of it.” Her mother was inconsolable, lying against Gabriel like a frail child hiding from life itself. Poe had never seen her mother so weak…and it scared her deep down in her gut.

  She tried to read the expression on her father’s face, but the blood made it impossible. She thought about crying out: her heart told her to scream and cry and tell them to leave her father alone. But she listened to her head instead: begging was not going to work. Only careful planning was going to save them now. The time for negotiations had passed in a hail of gunfire and survival was the only thing that they could afford to concern themselves with now.

  Justin gestured to a woman and a man to his left. “Lindsey, Tim, take that girl and drop her somewhere in the forest. I don’t want her attracting any vermin.”

  Drew fought against the two men who were still restraining him, trying with all his strength to get to his injured wife. Crying for Blake had made his eyes swollen, small slits of the deep brown peeking out from the lids. “I’ll kill you! I’ll kill you for this! She didn’t do anything to you! Neither of them did! I’ll kill you for this.”

  Justin pulled Drew toward himself. Their faces were inches from each other. “Take him to the barn too.”

  Suddenly, Gabriel ran at Justin too, winding his fist back as he went. Though he aimed at his face, a shove from one of the invaders threw him off and he knocked into Justin’s shoulder. “Gosh, you all are just itching to get tied up…take this sonofabitch too.” One of the invaders grabbed him by the neck and shoved him toward her father and Drew. “And make sure you search all three of them.” They patted all three of them down right then, and found the knives that both Gabriel and her father kept around their waists, tossing them toward Justin. As punishment, Justin punched both of them hard in the gut as his men lead them out the door.

  As four of the invaders took Drew and her father out to the barn, the rest of them started to make themselves comfortable, with no visible acknowledgement that they were in a house that didn’t belong to them. Some started going through the bags they brought in, while others were responsible for keeping Poe and the others subdued.

  Poe liked the way Justin moved. In fact, she liked the way they all moved. They were too aggressive…nothing about them was methodical, which to her, meant they were a sloppy group that happened to have had one good idea. They hadn’t thought past getting the gear from the police station and had let their grief talk them into invading the compound. After that…they would have nothing. Sure they had survived for quite a while, and maybe they would have been a formidable opponent for a different group, but there was some flaw in how they operated that allowed them to run out of supplies in the first place. They didn’t pace themselves or think through their actions. They were not going to be a match for her and her family. Sooner or later, they would make a mistake. And that mistake was going to cost them their lives.

  ***

  Poe stayed awake all night. She watched as those who watched her changed the guard, noticing every twitch in their faces, and every nervous finger-tapping. She studied them, timing how long it took between shifts. She noticed that one of them, a man with a mole on his left cheek, always stopped at the kitchen sink for a glass of water right before he was done with his shift. Perhaps she could exploit that. She also noticed a woman who the others called Regina tended to nod off a couple times during her turn to watch them. If she could just
get to her gun…

  Darius stayed awake too. When their captors’ backs were turned, he and Poe would communicate silently, pointing to certain people and elements in the room and nodding at each other, willing one another to look at things by moving their eyes a certain direction. They studied the room together, looking for items that could be used as weapons if they could just get the chance. Poe wondered if his years as a pilot were what gave him such a calm air about him, or if it had more to do with growing up as Cassius’ brother. She decided both factors played a part, making him into a cool, calculating asset to any escape plan they came up with. She decided she would mention his behavior to her father the first chance she had, and hoped that he would start to see Darius as an asset on a personal level rather than just another body he could use to defend their home.

  That morning, she heard screaming from outside. “Where the hell are they? What the hell did you do?”

  Another voice. “I tied all of them up, I swear!”

  The first voice, which to her sounded like Justin’s. “He’s a survival expert, dipshit. Of course he knows how to get out of a knot! Why didn’t you use the handcuffs like I told you to?”

  The sound of flesh hitting flesh.

  “I’m sorry, all right?”

  Poe smiled to herself. Her father was going to fix everything; he always did.

  Three nights went by, and she hadn’t heard or seen anything that would give her a hint as to where her father, Drew, and Gabriel were hiding. But she didn’t need it. She knew they were working on something to get their home back, and she was certain they would put that plan into action soon. But in the meantime, she and Darius could be working from the inside out, as her father and Drew worked from the outside in.

  On day five, she got her chance. During day four, she heard a couple of their captors talking about two missing group members, two that went on a supply run and had never came back to the compound. They ended up sending one of their men out to look for them.

  He didn’t return either.

  That afternoon, an invader with pock marks on his skin and dark eyes grabbed Poe by the hair on the back of her head and ushered her downstairs. Her skin started to tingle when she saw that Justin was waiting for her. “I know they’re watching us. All of them. That’s why you’re coming with me.” He pulled her from the other man’s grasp and pushed her outside. Once they got to the center of the drive, he shoved her to her knees, and she could feel the sting of the sharp rocks against her flesh. The world fell silent and all she could hear was the snap of his finger taking the safety off his gun. She felt the end of it against the back of her head.

  So this is how I go– kneeling on the earth under an open blue sky.

  “I know you’re out there,” he yelled. “One of you at least will see this. Tell the rest.” As she heard the gun fire, she imagined her life slipping away, watching herself drift away from the earth to join Blake, wherever she may be.

  Then she opened her eyes.

  Dust swirled around her from where the bullet had hit the ground next to where she was kneeling. “If you don’t stop killing my people, the next one’s going in her temple.” With those parting words, he lifted her up and shoved her back toward the house.

  Her mother was there, waiting with outstretched arms. “Oh thank God,” she said as she threw her arms around Poe. “Are you all right?”

  “Yes, I’m okay.”

  “If I’d lost you…” She felt her mother cling to her harder.

  Harper ran inside next, an invader close on her heals, with Brian even further behind. “I heard the shot! What happened?”

  “I’m fine,” Poe said. “He was just trying to scare Dad.”

  The invader that was chasing Harper finally caught up. “If he’s smart, it worked.” He reached over and grabbed Harper by the arm. “You’re coming with me. You’re not done getting the meat out of that refrigerator. Move!”

  Brian glared at him. “Don’t talk to her like that.”

  “Don’t you dare act like you care about me. This whole thing is your fault.” Harper attempted to rid herself of the invader’s grasp. “You’re so tough, why don’t you just shoot us? You’re going to kill us eventually anyway…just do it already and save the theatrics.”

  “Harper, stop it.”

  She ignored Brian’s pleas and continued to taunt her assailant. The man snarled and shoved her to the ground. “Go ahead! Do it.”

  “Don’t test me, bitch.”

  Just as he drew his gun and aimed it at Harper, her mother released Poe and dove in front of her, putting herself in the path of the weapon. “Please. She’s just upset. My husband’s the one who you’re really mad at. Please, just leave her out of it.” Poe watched as her mother stared into the eyes of Harper’s attacker. They seemed to be in a battle of wills, and when Poe saw the shine in her mother’s eyes, she knew who would win. After what seemed like several moments, but was probably only a flicker of time, the man put his gun back in his holster and walked away, slamming the door behind him. Brian followed him, scolding him all the while. Poe heard a few key phrases about how they needed to be treated better and that he better be kinder to Harper especially or he would be sorry.

  Too little, too late Brian.

  Though Poe was happy her sister wasn’t hurt, something dark lingered in her head. Perhaps it was just a natural fight or flight response…survival instinct on behalf of her offspring. Or maybe it was something more. She had already abandoned her father morally when it appeared she was going to let Shannon and her group stay with them, but to risk his life? Her mother had pointed the man’s anger at Harper in a different direction: at her father. Of course, Poe wanted her sister safe, but she couldn’t help but feel a hint of rage toward her mother. Her father already had enough wrath aimed his direction—he didn’t need any more. Kate had always protected him, with every ounce of strength she possessed, but not that day. She’d stood by him through a whole town turning against them, violence against their children, even the loss of a child. They’d been together since they were Poe’s age, holding hands in the sunshine, writing each other letters of love. But that day, something had changed, heavy and daunting, and Poe wasn’t sure if the thing that had shifted would ever go back.

  The next day, since they were down three people, they were not able to watch the entire perimeter of the compound, or guard each of their prisoners every moment. So when they allowed Poe to go outside and gather more food for them from the garden, she heard a whistle coming from the back woods. Careful to not be seen, she waited for the gap in shift changes and raced toward the sound.

  Drew was waiting for her.

  “Drew! Are you all right? Where is my father? Where’s Gabriel? Are they okay?”

  He hugged Poe tightly. Poe was slightly surprised, but even more so when she felt herself hugging him back. “They’re fine. We heard a gunshot. Is everyone okay? How is Vera?”

  Poe gave him a reassuring nod. “Everyone’s okay. I thought Justin was going to kill me, but he was just trying to scare you guys. Vera’s staying strong. Worried about you of course but staying strong.” She paused. “I’ve never seen someone hold themselves together as well as her, especially after…everything.” It seemed too soon to say Blake’s name out loud, yet also not soon enough.

  Drew sighed. “Thank God.”

  “Why isn’t my father here? Or my brother?”

  “I thought it best if I come, and Gabriel agreed. We didn’t know if, God forbid, someone had been killed, but we had to figure that if Justin had killed someone, it would be one of your family members.” His tone grew uncomfortable. “I thought…I thought your father may do something crazy, something that would possibly get more people hurt if he came to talk to you and got bad news. Gabriel agreed, so I came in his place, and Gabriel stayed to make sure your father didn’t leave the second we did.”

  She nodded. “That makes sense. I miss him, but that makes sense.”

  He stared at Poe for a
moment, and she could tell that what he was about to say, he didn’t entirely want to. “Poe, your father wants you to do something. He wants you to…help him draw them out.”

  Poe wasn’t sure where his request was going. “By doing what?”

  “He wants you to set the place on fire.”

  Drew may as well have pushed her toward the ground. “What? You aren’t serious. You can’t be.” Frantically, she tried to think of an alternative. “What about the arsenic in the kitchen? We could poison them instead…”

  “We thought of that—it won’t work because they will get suspicious when none of our group is eating at a particular meal. It could result in them forcing one of us to eat the tainted food. We can’t risk it.”

  She thought she heard some people at a different part of the compound yelling, but she couldn’t be sure. They were right. If they poisoned the food, one of their own may die in the process.

  Drew continued. “He says if you start it in Gabriel’s bedroom, it will be fine. Since each room is made from a shipping container, everything should take quite a while to burn. After we get them out, there shouldn’t be very much that we will need to rebuild.”

  “But he’s never burned any part of it before. How does he know?”

  “If you start it in the back, it will create enough of a diversion that you will have time to isolate some of them and overpower the rest long enough to get to the weapons. There will be time to take them all out and put the fire out before the rest of the house is engulfed.” Poe didn’t miss the fact that he avoided answering her question. She was always confident in her father, but that time, a part of her wondered if desperation had clouded his judgement. His mistake with the weapons had already got them invaded—now he wanted to start a fire? What he had asserted as truth was nothing more than a somewhat educated guess and she hoped the rest of them wouldn’t have to pay the price. It was bad enough that the place she had called home for so long was going to be partially destroyed; she couldn’t imagine if something went wrong and it took a family member along with it.