“Maybe,” she said. Who were they? Did they have sweeping helicopters or all-terrain vehicles? Would they find them where they lay in this unknown desert under the stars, the burning building where they’d been held prisoner too far away to see?
It felt like they’d emerged onto the wasteland of some other planet. She knew that wasn’t true because the same stars she’d known all her life were overhead. There was Ursa Major, and her star sign, Gemini. The twins.
They lay there, still and silent for several more minutes, her lungs filling with air and the acrid smoke clearing from her sinuses. She felt his arm brush hers, and then his hand, his two fingers linking with her own and squeezing.
Oh God. Oh God.
They were holding hands the same way they had for so long, but now their shoulders were touching and they were free. She let out a gasping sob, turning to him and weeping against his side. He raised his arm and put it around her, and she thought she heard him crying softly, too, but she wasn’t sure.
Her sobs dwindled to soft cries, and then her tears dried. Wordlessly, they sat up and then stood. They had to keep moving. Soon, morning would come and they would lose the cover of darkness.
They walked this time, Noelle leading as Evan followed behind. She glanced at him now and again, his broken hand cradled against his chest. It wasn’t bleeding, though, which was good. But the damage, she knew, was contained within, the mayhem of which had allowed him to collapse his knuckle so that it could fit through the small opening of the bars of his cage.
His cage.
Horror rose within her at the vision of where they’d been such a short time ago.
It didn’t seem real. Her mind was spinning, hysteria seeping into the cracks of her thoughts.
Don’t think. Not now.
They weren’t safe, not yet. And so they traveled on.
CHAPTER FIFTEEN
Evan’s hand throbbed mercilessly. He hurt everywhere, but his hand was where the pain radiated so harshly he felt like he might throw up.
Still they walked, Noelle shuffling over the cracked ground in front of him. He followed because he didn’t feel capable of leading and he didn’t want to let her down. But he wouldn’t leave her, not even to sit for a minute, and so if she kept moving, so did he.
Don’t stop. You’re the only reason I’m upright.
They were in the middle of fucking nowhere. How far had they been transported? And who the fuck took them to be locked in steel cages and forced to make horrendous choices? Rented? And why them?
We leave here whole.
We leave here together.
And they had, they had, against all odds. So far anyway.
A wild roar stirred in his chest, and he wanted to sink to his knees and scream at the sky. He wasn’t even sure what that sound would contain if he allowed it to emerge. Tempered triumph? Rage? Agony?
Yes. Yes to all of that.
And Evan sensed that emotions that enormous and all encompassing would not lie dormant for long.
But for now, the agony of his hand overtook the thrashing emotions inside, and strangely, he was grateful for that.
A slip of pale gray met his eyes, peeking into the dark sky.
Morning had come.
Fear leaped inside. Noelle glanced back at him, and he saw the concern in her face that he felt too. The darkness had seemed like protection, like cover from those who might be hunting for them, though they hadn’t heard any sounds, near or far, that might have suggested that, not even fire trucks to extinguish the inferno they’d left behind.
And so they walked on, the shadows of the desert becoming sage-green and brown plants, shiny, yellow-topped cacti covered in white spines, and red-hued dirt beneath their feet.
The sky moved from pearl to pale pink, and then all at once seemed to explode in streaks of purple and orange.
Noelle stopped in front of him, sucking in a breath as she met his eyes. He stopped, too, realizing that the sound of a vehicle could be heard moving in their direction. He’d zoned out, synchronizing his steps to the pulsating of his hand, and almost missed it. Adrenaline surged, and he pointed to a hedge of dry bushes to their right, and both of them limped as quickly as possible for the cover they provided.
The vehicle was driving slowly, and Evan realized there was a road ahead of them. He heard the tires rolling over the gravelly ground, but also the sounds of . . . laughter and . . . singing?
“It’s Spanish,” Noelle said under her breath, her eyes wide as they met his. Were they in . . . Mexico?
They held themselves still as the vehicle passed slowly by, coming to a squeaky stop a hundred feet from where they hid. More Spanish, an adult saying something and a child responding. Evan moved a piece of brush aside, peering out. It was a truck, and six or seven people sat in the open cab at the back, a few of them children. A little boy about nine or ten jumped down from the flatbed and ran into the desert, stepping behind a cactus and unzipping his pants. Evan heard the sound of him urinating.
He turned his head and met Noelle’s eyes. Did they dare? Did they dare ask for help? There was nothing as far as the eye could see, and he was so parched he felt like passing out. He could see she was at least as bad off as he was. They wouldn’t make it much farther on their feet. And that would mean they escaped hell simply to die in a desert alone. That’d be better, but not by much.
“There are children,” she whispered.
He gave a nod. They looked like farmers or laborers of some type, headed to a day of work along with their sons. If they were there as part of whatever Noelle and Evan had been dragged into, would they have their children with them? And—he looked closer—one old lady, sitting at the back of the flatbed, a scarf tied around her hair?
No, these were locals, whatever local meant. Evan looked at Noelle, giving a tip of his chin. Then he took her hand, and they stood, stepping from the bushes.
The man standing at the back of the truck waiting for the boy startled, letting out what sounded like an epithet in Spanish. The little boy came running from behind the cactus and joined his father. The other people on the truck were staring at them, eyes wide, expressions incredulous.
Noelle and Evan approached slowly. It was all they could manage anyway. “We need help,” Evan said. “Can you help us?”
The man standing at the back of the truck with the boy stared, then said something in Spanish to them. Evan shook his head. “I’m sorry, we only speak English.”
“English,” the man said with a heavy accent. He turned to the rest of the people in the truck, speaking several strings of words.
Next to him, Noelle swayed, and he put his arm around her, holding her up.
The old woman stood and said something, and then one of the men jumped down, and he and the father came toward Evan and Noelle, each taking one of their arms and helping them over to the truck and then up to the open bed, where they sat on built-in wooden seats.
A man leaned through the open back window of the cab and said something to the driver, and the truck began moving slowly again, dust and gravel kicking up in its wake.
A different man offered them a jug of water, and they both drank greedily, thanking him and returning it mostly empty. He handed over something wrapped in a cloth, and Noelle opened it. Food. She broke it in half and gave part to Evan. They both ate it. Evan couldn’t have said what it was or how it tasted. He only knew they were half starved and needed to eat if they were going to make it any further.
“Where are we?” Evan asked the father and son, who were sitting across from them, staring suspiciously.
The little boy said something to his father and then turned back to Evan. Sobreviviente, he thought the little boy had said. Evan nodded. He had no idea if he’d heard the word correctly or if it was the name of where they were or not.