Sharp pings of light aggravate my eyes as more pairs of feet find the stairway leading to the wine cellar. I avert my eyes from the light and the men as they strip off their neoprene suits and get back into their camouflage.
The combination of light, thumping feet, and chatter stirs Evvie awake in my lap.
“Hey little sis,” I welcome her. “Are you feeling okay?”
“Where are we?” she wonders as she blinks her eyes clear of tears and sits up to observe her surroundings.
“We’re somewhere safe for the night,” I assure her, not sure whether that’s true myself.
“Where are we going?” she asks. I know all the questions that saturate her mind right now. Evvie leans in close and whispers, “Who are all of these—?”
“Not tonight, Ev. I’ll answer all of your questions in the morning. Right now, I just want you to sleep,” I tell her.
“What if I can’t?” she protests, looking for an excuse to gain her sought after answers. She’ll have endlessly more questions with each question that she has answered. I don’t even know a fraction of everything that I want to know yet.
“You’re going to try. We all need our rest, Evvie,” I say, acknowledging the room full of burdened soldiers in hunting gear.
“Hi, Evvie,” the good-natured, young man says as he holds out his hand to my sister. She doesn’t hesitate to take it. “I’m Cy,” he says as he smiles and shakes my sister’s hand. I wonder if Cy is just too friendly to resist welcoming a newcomer, or if he was eavesdropping on our conversation and has decided to help me out by providing just a little comfort to my troubled sister. He certainly owes me this assistance, after nearly killing me when he shot at me in the forest just hours ago.
“And I’m Della, the nurse,” she smiles from across from us. “You let me know if that wrist or anything else bothers you okay, sweet pea?” Evvie nods and I smile a thank you to Della again. Evvie should have enough security to rest her head for the night.
Cy runs the suits back up to Crewe. The brothers exchange a few hushed and hurried words. When Cy’s feet contact the cement landing, the flashlight is turned away and the hatch closed. In the pitch black, I hear Cy taking off the last suit. This one must remain in the cellar for later use.
“So Deck, ya got one for us?” I recognize the inquirer’s voice to be Cy’s as he settles into a space.
“Sure do,” Decklin replies from my left. “Dear Lord,” he says with tranquility before I have time to realize what is happening. There is a bit of rustling as everyone searches for one another’s hands. Decklin grasps my left hand and in the darkness I reach for Evvie, who sits between my outstretched legs. When I find her hand, I squeeze it tightly. I wonder who holds her other hand, and how comfortable she is praying with strangers like this. It’s not something we’re used to.
“We thank you for keeping all of us safe today, and for bringing Sydney and Evvie Layton to us.” I had forgotten that I had given Crewe a false last name. No wonder Evvie couldn’t be viewed by the techie that Merick had working on tracing her. Maybe she was never blocked at all. I regret not telling them the truth now. Tracking Evvie could have saved us from a lot of unknowns earlier.
I feel Evvie turning toward me in confusion so I give her hand a few squeezes to quiet her distress. I hope she doesn’t worry with distrust of these people since by lying about who we are I’ve made it clear that I’m not one hundred percent sure of them. It’s a precaution I might as well carry on with until I see Sheridan for myself. Then I can decide if it’s safe to reveal the truth.
“We pray for your protection over us and the members of our town tonight and as we travel back home tomorrow.”
Home. I haven’t had a home for six long years. Even then it was in such turmoil around my mother’s sanity swings and my struggle to keep up with my responsibilities that it never really felt the way that a home should. Home is how things felt before my dad died, I think. The truth is—I can’t really remember that far back. I can’t remember him or what my mother was like before he died. I like to believe that it was stable, secure, and peaceful. Homey.
“Amen,” the voices resonate against the brick walls and acetate-covered ceiling.
“Sleep well, everyone,” someone across from me wishes. I rarely sleep soundly after a mundane day, so I expect tonight to be extremely restless.
A few people shuffle around on my right and I find I have a new neighbor for the night. “Hey,” Cy whispers. “Sydney, I’m really sorry about… out there.”
“You mean when you tried to shoot me?” I tease, but in the dark, Cy can’t see my smile. “It’s okay,” I say. “Just don’t ever do it again.”
“I’ll try not to,” he laughs. I couldn’t hold a grudge toward Cy about it if I wanted to. Anyway, it was more my bad judgment to move against orders than it was for him, in the heat of the moment, to shoot at an awry movement.
“I’m going to switch watch with Crewe in a few hours, and I need some information from your sister before then.” My eye roll is invisible in the dark, but my exasperated sigh is not. I know Cy needs information for all of our sakes, but I don’t want Evvie’s head to start spinning so quickly that it can’t be calmed. “Sorry,” Cy murmurs.
“What do you need to know?” Evvie asks. I hope she knows better than to leak our true identities. I want those kept hidden just a little longer.
“What did you do today?” Cy begins.
“Nothing special,” she answers simply. She’s either being way too cautious, or she thinks this is just a casual getting to know you conversation.
“Evvie, he needs to know every detail of your day, so let’s hear it,” I encourage, trying to convey that it is okay to do so, should she be being vague to protect us.
“I got up at 8:45. I had breakfast. I read something.”
“Online?” Cy interjects. I feel Evvie secretly tap my leg.
“The note,” I answer for her. “She read my note.”
“Then what?” Cy asks. “Did you destroy it?” I lifted Crewe and Cy’s faith in our survival when I told them that she would know that she should destroy the note.
“Yes,” she answers, “but not until much later.” When a moment passes, Evvie realizes that she’s supposed to continue giving us a play-by-play of her day. She opens up a little more when she understands that most of the truth is fair ground. “I remembered that Sydney told me last night that she had to open for work at 9:30.”
Was that only last night? It seems like such a long time ago. I guess that can be attributed to waking up and then getting knocked back out a few times. Also, my world has changed so much since then. It’s surreal that it was only last night that Evvie and I reorganized my apartment in the transitions building—a place that had the potential to feel like a home for us.
“I did some hours on EduWeb, mostly math. Then I took a break for about an hour. During that time I ate lunch and watched a program that I ordered. Afterward, I worked on a science lab write-up on my tablet.” So her day was very typical. She must have thought I had already gone to work when she woke up.
“No more Olympics or anything else that might pertain to getting out?” I ask.
“No. Just school stuff. And the program was about the history of domesticated animals.” Evvie is my sister after all. Even after living closer to the hub of city life the last two years, both physically and socially with Merideth, she chose to watch a historical program rather than some mind-poisoning reality show.
“After the program, I made a video tour of the apartment to send to a few of my friends and my classmate cluster online. Merideth called after dinner to tell me that she saw my post, watched the video, is happy for me, blah, blah, blah. She asked if you were there,” my sister tells me. “She said she wanted to ask how the rest of your birthday went.”
More like she wanted to check in to make sure that I had baby-proofed the apartment for Evvie. I find myself tensing for a moment, but relax in awe when I realize that I’
ll never have to prove myself to Merideth again.
“I told her you were at work,” Evvie continues. “I started to get worried around 7:00 because you weren’t home yet, and I figured you would have called or messaged if you had to work overtime or something. I started to panic a little.”
“Okay, be really thorough with the rest of the evening,” Cy tells Evvie. “Don’t leave out a single detail.”
“Well, first I just kind of paced and checked my tablet constantly. Then I burned the note. I thought about calling Tiana’s, the restaurant where Sydney works, but I didn’t. It was around 7:30 when I figured out that I could check the ceiling tile so I would know for sure whether you ever made it back after escaping.”
“Clever,” I sincerely whisper to my sister. “That’s where I hide my key when I go out,” I explain to Cy. He’s probably surprised that anyone still has a key on the inside, but except for the built-in media screens, no technology has been updated in the low-funded transitions building.
“Since it was there, I knew that you never came back,” Evvie’s voice cracks. I was so worried about getting her back that how alone and terrified she was never even crossed my mind. She probably thought I had gotten caught or, like her little finger man, had tripped into a grave of electrocution.
“I thought maybe you had gotten caught, so I kept waiting for a phone call. Finally, when nighttime was around the corner and I still hadn’t heard from you, I started to think that maybe you had gotten hurt badly and were trapped out there. I started to search for anything that I thought could help get you back in, if you had broken your leg or something,” Evvie trails.
“Was your search inconspicuous?” Cy asks.
“Did you search carefully, thinking about the possibility that someone might have been watching what you were doing?” I clarify Cy’s question for my uncomprehending sister.
“Yeah, pretty carefully, I think,” she answers unconfidently. “I thought about going door to door to find those kids with the jumping rope and scooter.” Evvie had stayed outside and talked to the little boys when I went in to see if their foster mom would accept the fund transfer. Apparently she hadn’t caught the older boy telling me their apartment number.
“Eventually, I just put on yesterday’s gear and went out to jump, even though I wasn’t sure about the timing.”
“Well, good. No calls and no evidence left behind. You did a good job, Evvie,” Cy tells her. “My brother will be glad to hear it.”
Finally, through my sister, the first piece of good news can be offered to Crewe.
“Time to sleep?” I ask Cy.
“That should do it,” he answers. “Goodnight, Sydney. Goodnight, Evvie,” he wishes warmly.
I pull Evvie’s head against my chest and allow her to lean comfortably into me. “Goodnight, Cy,” I respond.
“Thanks for helping us,” my sister says. “Goodnight.”
When Evvie’s breathing grows heavy, I close my eyes and allow myself to fall asleep.
Concealed in the Shadows Page 21
