Page 9
Someone yells, causing both of us to look up. A guy who might be twenty-one at best rushes towards us as his screams echo off of the aluminum of carnival rides and games, arms upraised and holding…
“No fucking way,” Lily murmurs.
“Now that is Deus Ex Machina,” I say at the same time, stumbling back as the man slashes downward with the crowbar in both hands. “Hey!” Judging by his panic and the general fear that drips off of him like sweat, he’s a participant just like us. I scramble back when he lunges at me, fear twisting hot and sharp in my gut. “Hey!” I yell again. I’m lucky enough that when he swings once more, he’s off balance, and I’m able to kick him hard in the stomach, sending him crumpling to the ground.
“Shit–Ben!” Another man comes out from behind the nearby stands of carnival games, carrying an old glass bottle that he brandishes as a weapon.
“Whoa, whoa, whoa!” I put my hands up, one eye still on Ben as the new guy lifts the bottle. “Hey, we aren’t the enemy! We’re looking for a way out same as you!”
Great, I can’t help thinking to myself. A group project, and nobody brought snacks.
“Why should I believe you?!” The guy still holds the bottle up in one hand, looking between Lily and me. She stands there, frozen in a way I’m thankfully not, and her eyes dart from the man on the ground to the one standing.
I pause for a moment, racking my brain, before I step forward between them, one hand still up in surrender while I dig in my pocket with the other. “Because I’m assuming, unless you’re the ones lying, that you both have one of these,” I say quickly, holding up the crumpled envelope with my name written on it.
The man freezes, his eyes locked on the envelope. “Shit,” he breathes, finally stumbling backward. He drops the bottle and it shatters, causing me to wince, and as I watch, he walks over to help Ben to his feet. “Shit, I’m sorry. We just thought. Well, you know.” He glances between us guiltily.
Ben mumbles something about conspiracies and fakes under his breath, and my eyes go to him. He doesn’t look well. His eyes are wide, darting, and his hand on the crowbar shakes.
“Could I borrow that?” I ask, holding my hand out only for him to snatch it away. “Yeah, okay, that’s fine then. Could you open this, then?” Gesturing to the office door, I fight not to look like Vanna White revealing the Wheel of Fortune board.
“Why?” Bottle man’s voice is suspicious. “What’s in there?”
“The manager’s office.”
“How do you know?”
It’s a valid question, I suppose. The sign that used to hang over the door is gone, and the small building looks like so many other of the nondescript little huts on the pier. Without insider knowledge, there’s no reason to think this one is any different than the others. “Because I used to work here,” I sigh at last. “For years, unfortunately. Or, I guess, fortunately today. Now can you please open the door? You can keep the crowbar if you want. I was just being courteous and offering to do the heavy lifting.” But I gesture to the door again, arms swinging towards it while I stare at Ben, who looks at me like I’m speaking another language.
I’m very convinced that he isn’t doing so hot. And that if he was mentally sound before this, the letter and the kidnapping has set a screw loose in his pretty blond head. To my surprise, he rises to the occasion. His broad shoulders stiffen and he stalks over to the door, wiggling it a few times with his hand like I hadn’t done just that a few minutes ago.
Thankfully, he can’t see the way I roll my eyes up at the sky, though when I look down, I see that Lily has caught my look. She gives me a pointed glance, something that reads as, be nice in her gaze.
But we don’t have time for me to be nice. I fidget while Ben finally uses the crowbar in the way that God intended, and he pries open the door with a few loud grunts of effort. It’s a slow process until the door suddenly gives way, cracking open on its hinges and creaking inward. Somehow, it’s still hanging tight to its hinges, but that doesn’t give me much hope for the insides being in as good of shape.
I’m right, unfortunately for me. Walking past Ben, I flip the light on, and the bare bulb flickers to life above me. The office is trashed. Sure enough, the desktop is gone, and there are openings in the wall where it looks like wires have been stripped out of it. The modem is gone too, and my heart sinks when I see that the vent where Carl had kept his gun is open.
“Fuck,” I breathe, dragging a plastic box over to it anyway. Without giving a thought to if the plastic will hold, I stand on it, balancing long enough to grope into the vent as deep as I can.
No gun.
No fucking gun.
For good measure, I check under the desk, where he’d taped one to the surface. But there’s nothing there either. My heart sinks in my chest, and for a few moments, I stand with my hands pressed to the cheap plastic of the old desk, wondering if it’ll give way under me.
When it does start to buckle, I snatch my hands back with a look of disgust on my face. Lily stands in the office, sorting through an open drawer of the file cabinet. “You find anything?” she asks, though there isn’t much hope in her voice.
“No,” I sigh, stepping back to the entrance where the two men are bickering. “This place has been stripped. Though I don’t get why it was locked up again if there was nothing here to find.” Frustration laces my tone. “Maybe if–”
“No!” Ben chucks the crowbar down hard, the metal hitting the pier loudly enough that I nearly levitate in surprise. “No, John, I’m not doing this anymore! I’m not going to stay calm. What if Elara is here, huh? What if they got her too?” He’s angry, but worse than that, I realize as I go to the door and peek out, he’s frantic.
Lily glances between the men, worry on her face, but I’m more interested in what really matters. Before anyone can think to do it first, I swoop down and grab the crowbar off the ground to hold it loosely in my hand.
“Ben no!” John grabs for him, but Ben takes that moment to bolt.
He doesn’t go back onto the pier, though I can’t decide if that’s the better option. Sure, he gets to avoid the dangers of rotting wood and plummeting down to the water or sand below, but this…might not be right.
“Ben!” John takes off after him, and for some reason, Lily does too.
