“This wasn’t what I agreed to. And a freaking dog?” the woman yells out her window.
“Dammit, woman, this is a done deal,” Bruno shouts as he motions us to get in. “You don’t get us in safely, you won’t see a cent.” He gives me a fleeting grin and winks. Grace rolls her eyes.
“You’re crazy,” I say. “You do know that, right?”
“Miss Lexi, I’ve got mad skills. You should be thankful.”
I’m doing everything possible to be calm and relax. This is my last taste of near-normalcy before I voluntarily go back to the Hole. The place that killed my father and my brother. The same place that made me estranged from my own mother. The place where I first met Cole.
My pulse quickens, and my mouth goes dry. Cole grabs my hand. Of course, it doesn’t help that the driver’s yelling at Bruno. She doesn’t want us here any more than we want to be here. The emotions are overwhelming. Coming back here. Seeing the wall. Knowing that we may not make it back out. My stomach is doing flip-flops. With every thrust of the guards on the other side of the door, the dumpster vibrates, inching forward from its position.
Bang! Shots ring out, echoing off the metal of the door.
We’re all smashed into the back against one another, trying to be as small and quiet as possible. Bruno quickly covers us with a blanket and a tarp. Next, he piles heavy pieces of something on top of us. Whatever keeps us from being caught.
“Sorry, guys. It’s the best I can do. Let’s pray it works.” He shuts the tailgate and locks the rear window of the cab. I hear him run around the truck and get into the passenger side.
“Why’s he sitting up front?” I ask.
“He’s going to make sure she follows through.” And when I hear the sadness in Grace’s voice, I feel a sudden urge to punch the driver in the face.
I know I’m missing something, but I’m too distracted to ask for more details. I feel like I’m suffocating. Not only is it pitch-black, but it’s hot. And there’s Zeus’s breath. It smells like rotting corpses, and I can’t stop myself from thinking about what other bodies might have been in here before. I’m biting my lip so hard, I’m sure it’s almost completely gone.
“Lexi,” Cole whispers from my left side. “Hang in there. It’ll be over soon.” He grasps my hand in an effort to calm my racing heart. I squeeze his hand as hard as I can, and he strokes his thumb over my skin. But hell, it’s not working. What the hell are we waiting for? We may as well have a neon sign on our car that says, “Fugitives inside.”
The engine kicks to life, and we’re soon a jostling, bumping, bruised group of exhausted and wounded people in the back. I try to imagine anything but what we’re doing—the beaches of Lexington Bay, my dad’s smile, when Cole kissed me the first time. But my mind inevitably returns to the Hole. And that’s when I know that somehow, deep inside, it was inevitable that I would return. My heart stops when I feel the truck’s engine slow to idling.
“ID papers,” a muffled voice commands.
There’s a pause. I assume the papers are being handed over.
“You’re part of the convoy?”
“Yes,” the girl says in a soft voice, much different than her yelling at Bruno before.
More deafening silence. Then, a tap on the passenger side. I’ve seen them do this before. One guard questions the driver as the other inspects the passenger side and trunk. I think they call it a “walk-around.” If the guard on the passenger side gets suspicious, he taps the car with his flashlight to signal a search should be done.
“I need to inspect all cargo coming in today,” he says.
Oh, this is not good.
I’m sure the driver answers, but I can’t hear it. My body’s frozen. Please don’t let them find us.
Cole’s gripping my hand so hard, I feel like my fingers are going to snap. Zeus growls, so I swallow my panic and pull his head toward me, hoping the blanket dampens the sound.
I hear the guards unlock the window behind us. My palms are sweating now, my muscles tense. As they get closer, I can clearly hear them talking.
The tailgate slams down, and I feel things being moved around at the edge of the truck bed. We’re going to be discovered. The grim reality of our situation sucks all hope from my bones.
“Can you hurry it up?” asks a third voice. “The line’s almost a mile long, and we’ve got all these cars to check.”
It feels like time has stopped. But really, probably only a few silent minutes pass.
“You’re clear to go,” the first voice says. All at once, the three of us exhale in complete unison. “When you’re done with your delivery, come by my place.”
“Sure thing,” our driver says.