Ember laughed. “This is going to be hilarious. I need to get my phone. You wouldn’t mind if I recorded this, right? I bet I can get you into one of those Epic Fail videos.”
I shot her my most menacing glare. “Don’t you dare or so help me when I get out of this chair…” I trailed off and let the threat hang in the air.
“You know I wouldn’t do that to you. I was just trying to make you laugh. I know this really, really sucks for you.” She paused for a moment. “I’ll make a deal with you. I’ll try to make the next few weeks better for you if you’ll try to not make them so bad, yeah?”
I rolled my eyes. “I’ll try, but I’m not promising anything.”
She showed us around the stables and the organics farm. She had accomplished a lot in the last year. I was beyond impressed. It really was good to see Ember doing so well after everything she had been through. Anyone who met her would be able to see how happy she was. I was truly happy for her, too, but it also made me wonder if I would ever have that kind of happiness in my life.
“Oh, there’s something else I want to show you. You’re going to love it!” Ember said excitedly.
I followed her to some building not far from the stables. Luckily, there were no stairs, so I could roll right in the front door. She walked to a room on the far side of the building, did something with a bookcase, and the freaking wall opened up. She turned back to me, “It’s a secret tunnel!”
I sat, mouth agape, staring at the opening to the tunnel. “What? Why is it there?”
“I don’t know. Octavius was crazy is the only reason I can come up with. We’ve found things like this all over the property. We’re actually still finding things.”
“Where does it go?” I asked.
“This one doesn’t go anywhere anymore. It used to lead to Octavius’s house, but my dad had that demolished not long after he inherited the property. Do you want to go in and check in out?”
“Is it safe?” Yes, it was cool, but it also seemed dangerous and I wasn’t about to put James in harm’s way.
“It is. Dad and Dash both forbade me from entering any of the secret passageways until they were deemed safe by an inspector. Not all of them were safe, so those have been clearly marked with caution tape. This one is fine though, I promise.”
“Well, okay then, let’s go.”
I rolled into the secret passageway behind Ember. It was creepy to say the least. The pathway was equipped with motion detector lights, but they weren’t very bright, making it difficult to see more than a few feet in either direction. The walls were made of some sort of metal which made everything sound funny.
We’d been in the tunnel for 10 minutes or so when James started fussing for his afternoon bottle. Ember placed him in my lap while she got the bottle out of the diaper bag hanging on the back of my chair. She reached to get him but I stopped her. “It’s okay, I can feed him.”
“Are you sure? I don’t mind.”
“Thanks for offering, but this is one of the things I can do for him.”
She patted me on the shoulder before leisurely walking along the passageway, studying the walls and the floor while James drank his bottle. I stayed put. There was no way I could maneuver my chair and feed him at the same time.
My boy had just finished his bottle when Ember disappeared right before my eyes. I gasped. She screamed. “Ember! Ember!” I shouted. I couldn’t see her, but I could hear her, or something, making noise. I couldn’t tell where it was coming from.
Fuck.
Fuck.
Fuckity fuck.
I didn’t know if I should stay and try to look for her or go get help. When James cried out, I knew what I had to do. As much as I wanted to look for her, I had to get my baby out of there. It clearly wasn’t safe. It’s not like I could do much to help her anyway. The best thing to do was to go get help.
I wasn’t sure if she could hear me, but I yelled it anyway, “I’m going to get help, Ember! Just hang on!”
I threw James’s empty bottle to the ground and resituated him as best I could in my lap. Then, I slammed the joystick forward and prayed I could get back to the office without crashing. The wheelchair didn’t seem to be going as fast as it was that morning. I needed it to go faster, but it didn’t. Instead, moments later, the damn thing died, right there in the tunnel.
That was when I completely lost it. I didn’t have my cell phone with me because I didn’t think I would need it. I couldn’t walk by myself, let alone while carrying James. Ember needed help and I was as helpless as I was useless. Great big sobs wracked my body, tears splashing onto James’s fuzzy head. James began crying the moment I did. He didn’t like it when his mommy was upset.
“What are we going to do?” I sobbed. Despite my best efforts, I couldn’t seem to calm down. I felt trapped, just like I had been in my car. Just like then, all I could do was wait for someone to find me. Only this time, I had James with me.
I don’t know how long it took, but, eventually, I managed to calm down and James drifted off to sleep in my arms. I hadn’t heard any noises since I started to go for help and I didn’t know if that was because I was too far away to hear anything or if Ember wasn’t able to make the noises anymore. Fear consumed me as I sat in the dark tunnel. Then, that fear slowly morphed into anger.
Every second I sat there I grew angrier and angrier. Years and years worth of pent-up anger boiled to the surface. Why were my parents and siblings taken from me? Why was my Grandma taken from me? Why did Omen have to hurt me? Why did Duke have to treat me like shit? Why was someone threatening me? Why did someone try to kill me? Why was more shit happening to me? What did I ever do to deserve any of this?
