I was lifted. Silas's hands slid further down, gripping around the elbows and at my bicep.
But it was a slow process, still. I couldn’t breathe.
My lungs burned. I tried tucking my head down, trying to find any small pocket of space, any air at all.
My mouth opened, unwilling to wait.
I choked on sawdust.
♥♥♥
The next thing I knew, I was on my back, waking up from what felt like a deep sleep, like at the slumber party where I had the nightmare and I clawed up North’s arm after.
The first thing I felt was my mouth full of itchy dust, and a face pressed close to mine.
I gagged, turning over, pushing away whoever it was. I coughed hard.
Arms clutched me around the shoulders. “Breathe, Peanut. Just breathe.”
There was grass below me. I sucked in the harsh headiness mixed with the fresh air and the leather and Cypress of Nathan. When my lungs were filled, I had more energy to spit and cough out the sawdust clustered in my mouth. Someone had my hands, but I yanked them free, clawing at my chest and neck as if that would help ebb the amount of sawdust in my mouth and throat. My nails clawed away the wet, stuck wood particles, leaving trails along my skin but no matter how hard I wiped at my body, it wasn’t enough.
“Get her out of here,” Kota’s voice ordered, his voice deeper than I remembered. “Get those kids back home. Victor?”
“Already on it,” Victor said, hovering over me somewhere. He started talking again and backed away as he did so. He, too, barked orders but not to the guys, and in a code I didn’t recognize. I was too distracted to figure out what he was saying.
Luke’s voice came after me now. “Sang, I’m going to clear your eyes, okay? But don’t open them yet. We need to get you to some water.”
It took me that long to realize that I hadn’t yet even attempted to open them. There was a thick layer of wet dust stuck to my eyelids, like wearing a heavy, itchy eye mask. They felt glued shut. I wasn’t sure it would ever clear.
Luke’s tender hands brushed against my eyes, tracing carefully over the crevice under my brow and ducking into the corners. He pulled away the heaviness but there still remained a thin layer, itchy. I squinted hard, wanting to blink but kept my lids closed.
A cloth covered my chest, and I realized I was in my bra and underwear. I smelled the scent of the ocean.
“Aggele mou,” Silas murmured. “I’m going to pick you up. Keep those eyes closed.”
Silas wrapped his thick arms around my shoulders, hooking under my legs and lifted easily. When I was in the air, he was moving.
There was a hustle of movement. I heard Derrick telling someone he was okay. Gabriel was barking after Micah to hurry along. Nathan yelled at Tom to run ahead to Kota’s house. There were more voices but they mixed together.
Silas snugged me into him, his grip on my body strong enough that I was sure there would be bruises but it didn’t bother me. I clutched at his chest, willing myself to stay awake now. I wanted to keep breathing. I was scared to death of losing myself in the dark again. I wanted water to rinse my mouth to talk to them. I wanted to wash my eyes to see their faces.
Silas moved quickly. From what I could hear, others were around him, too. Quiet, focused. They didn’t need to speak to each other. They knew their jobs and they did them. Always watching. Always prepared.
It was several eon-long minutes before Silas stopped moving. I was lowered to the ground. Concrete warmed my back. Silas moved away and I struggled to sit up. The shirt over my body dropped to my side.
“Sang,” Luke hovered over me again. “Just lay back for one second. I’ll clean your face.”
I couldn’t say anything. It felt like my mouth was too full of sawdust. If I opened up, it would shift and I’d start coughing again.
The sound of water drew my attention. Luke touched my chin, tilting my face where he wanted it. A smooth stream of water chased along my temple, washing over one of my eyes. I flinched, trying to pull back because it was cold. My eyes stung at the contact.
“Stay still,” Luke said, more stern than I’d ever heard him. “If we don’t get the dust out of your eyes, it could hurt them permanently.”
I made a guttural groan and stilled, biting my tongue against the chill and the pain. I made fists, my nails digging into my palms. Big hands, Silas’s hands, found one of my fists and held strong to it.
Luke swept tender fingers across my eyes, brushing away the stinging. When one eye was clear, he tilted my head again, sweeping the other eye.
The second eye was swept clean. He removed the water. “I’m going to tug on your eyelids, okay? One more second.”
He tugged gently at my left upper eyelid, pulling it out and down over my lower one. Natural tears formed. He held the water again to my face and it washed my eyes.
He did the same with the other eye. He pulled the water away again. “Open up, Sang.”
I blinked hard, forcing my eyes open. Sunlight blinded me for a minute. I blinked again, and Luke’s face hovered into view, with Silas right behind him.
Luke’s brown eyes bore into mine. “Hang still one more second,” he said. He pulled apart my eyelids, when I really wanted to blink some more. First one, then the other, and stared at my eyes. He held a flashlight over them, gazing after me. “Okay. You look clean.”
“Can you get up?” Silas asked.
I nodded. Silas held on to my hand, his shirtless body flexing as he pulled me until I was sitting up. I was sitting next to my own house, just outside the garage. It surprised me that I wasn’t at Kota’s but then I wondered if there was a second short cut to that part of the woods that Nathan hadn’t shown me before.
The first thing I grabbed for was the water hose. I yanked it toward my face, letting the liquid fill my mouth. I gagged on it, swished, and pulled away from Silas and Luke to spit at my side. I did it again, and again. When I thought I’d finally cleaned the last little bits out of my mouth, I’d find a new crevice with another trace of dust.
When I couldn’t taste any more wood in my mouth, I ran the hose over my face, sloshing away the water. The coolness ran over my body, over my exposed skin and the bra that still clung to my frame and even into the panties I wore. I didn’t know where my shorts were. I imagined they might still be in the sawdust pile, stuck forever.
The sound of a helicopter flying overhead pulled me away from my desperate attempt at self-cleaning. I looked up, watching it bear down at the woods, about where I imagined the sawdust pile was located.
I opened my mouth to speak, coughed. I picked up the hose again, swallowing some water. I pulled it away again. “What—”
“Don’t worry about that,” Luke said.
“That’s right,” a deep voice thundered from beyond where I could see with Silas and Luke hovering. “Don’t worry about that, because you’ve got a lot of other shit to worry about right now.”
Luke frowned, looking up in North’s direction. “Not now. She’s had enough.”
“Me, too,” he barked.
I sat up more, getting onto my knees, choking back another groan. What now?
Luke stood up, turning around. “Leave her alone.”
North stood further back, his intense eyes barreling down on me. “Fuck that. She’s going to fucking listen to me now.”
I dropped a foot down, using it to rise as steady as I could. Luke stood with me. I took the hose from his hands and aimed it at my neck, rinsing the clumps of wet dust from my body, not caring that I was standing in my underwear. I was free. I was alive. I’d do anything they wanted. I’d even listen to North.
“What the fuck do you think you were doing, Sang?” North pointed a fist at me. “I said don’t go, and you left. I said stop, you ran off. Not a word about where you were going.”
“I didn’t have time,” I said, my voice cracked. I shoved the hose at my face, swallowing some water.
“Didn’t have time, my ass. I told you to stop
and you didn’t listen.”
“I had to leave,” I said in a voice calmer than I expected. My head rolled back, then tilted so I was gazing over at him while I continued to rinse off my stomach. “There was the call. I heard it. We left.”
“What call?”
“The hooting,” I said, I straightened, meeting his eyes. If he wanted me to be honest, here I was. Honest. “Emergency.”
Silas stepped between us. “This isn’t the time for this.”
“It’s fine, Silas,” I said to him, planting a gentle hand on his back. He turned to me. “It’s okay. I can talk.”
Silas seemed unsure, but shifted a half step back, keeping his eyes on me. A mixture of confusion and fear settling in.
“What the fuck do you mean emergency?” North growled. “That squealing pig noise?”
“The boys invented it,” I said. “Micah, Tom and Derrick.”
“How come we didn’t know about it?”
“It was designed so you would never know. They didn’t want the Academy cavalry barging in for the rescue for every little thing.”
“So they told you? And you didn’t tell us? Why?”
“Apparently they thought I could help,” I said, straightening my shoulders. I didn’t mean to sound so arrogant, but I couldn’t help the calm in my voice. I don’t know where the strength came from. “And I promised them I wouldn’t tell you.”
“What the hell made you think you could yank that blonde kid out of that hole? Why didn’t you call us when you saw what was happening? Why didn’t you tell us before you left that it was an emergency?”
“You would have made me stop and explain it. I didn’t have time.” I took a jagged step in his direction, tired of having to feel like I needed to shout for him to hear me. My voice box didn’t want to do that anymore. “I don’t know what the signal means every time. It just means they are lost or something. I knew when he kept doing it that it was bad. I didn’t have time to stop and explain it.”
“You should have told us about the call before.”
“They made me swear not to!”
“Why the fuck not?”
I motioned to the helicopter, still hovering over the woods. “So the Academy cavalry doesn’t come rushing in headfirst. What is that? Why is that helicopter here?”
North teetered toward me, one step closer. “That helicopter was coming to save your ass. Now it’s there pointing the way.”
“For what?”
“We’re taking apart that whole god damn death trap. Victor called in the last favor he had. We’ll make sure you can’t fall in again. I should tell him to forget it. I’m just going to lock you in a padded bubble so you can’t do something stupid like that again.”
“What do you mean favor?” I dropped the hose away from me, shoving my palms to my forehead. “And I don’t need to be in a stupid bubble!”
Silas knelt next to me, picking up his shirt I had tossed aside before. He held it out to me. “Sang, don’t get mad. He’s just ...”
“I know what he’s doing,” I said, taking his shirt from his hand. I didn’t mean to be so short with Silas, too, but North was getting to me. I found the shirt’s hems and slid it over my body. I stuffed my arms through the sleeves. The shirt covered me down to mid-thigh. “He’s planning exactly what he said. Sang’s useless. Sang’s helpless. Sang can’t take care of herself. Let’s lock her in a closet.”
North closed the distance between us now, pointing a long finger at my face. “Don’t give me that passive aggressive bullshit. You ran off without telling us where you were going and why. When you get there, you’re yanking that kid up and fall in after him.”
“I was fine!” I pointed a finger back at his face. “As I recall, we’d almost gotten him out until someone spooked us.”
North growled at me, his pointer finger almost touching my nose now. “You fucking almost died, Sang! We fished your damn body out.”
“If I hadn’t jumped in when I did, he would have!” I screeched out. Hot tears touched my eyes but I bit them back. From over North’s shoulders, I caught Gabriel and Nathan and Kota doing a half jog from down the road together. I flinched back to North. “And maybe Derrick, too.”
“You shouldn't have gone in.”
I drew my hand back, pushing the palms against my forehead. “And let them die? You would have gone in!”
“That’s different.” North’s eyes fired bullets at my face.
I threw my hands up, my own guttural growl emerging. “Yes. I’m different from you. Because I’m useless. I’m a stupid girl or something. I don’t know how to help or do anything.”
“Don’t put fucking words in my mouth,” he snapped. He jabbed a finger in the air at me.
“Oh yeah? What? You think I’m making this up? Go ahead,” I said, facing him full on, squaring my shoulders at him. “Call me on the emergency line.”
His face contorted. “What?”
“Call me. Find my app on your phone and push the red button so I know where you are.”
His lips moved but words didn’t come out.
“You can’t, can you?” I said, hearing Kota and Nathan and Gabriel approaching but I couldn’t stop. I was too far. North wanted to see me angry? Here I was, in all the misery that I was when I became angry. A raging, sopping mess in Silas’s T-shirt. Was this what he wanted from me? “You can’t because I don’t have one. Sang doesn’t have an app because no one calls Sang in an emergency.”
“Maybe because you jump in headfirst without asking for help,” North bellowed.
“Maybe sometimes I have to jump in. I’m the only one there.”
“You don’t know what you’re doing.”
“I’m not stupid, North!” I flared, the end nearly choking as my voice got too high a pitch for my throat to handle.
“Stop yelling,” Kota barked from up the drive.
“No, fuck that.” North’s eyes narrowed on Kota for a moment. “Fuck off. I’m talking to her.”
“I’m done talking.” I said. I was suddenly exhausted, and the tears behind my eyes threatened to sag down my cheeks. I didn’t want him to see me cry. Not now. I was too proud, and I was sure I was right.
I turned on him, heading toward the house.
“Don’t you walk away from me,” he said, the threat lingering in his voice.
“I’m going,” I called back, walking around Silas, and avoiding everyone else. I couldn’t stand to look at them. Silas’s face was almost pale, his eyes wide. It scared even me. What did he think of me now? Was it as bad as how North thought of me?
I took only a few more steps toward the garage when I sensed North powering over to me. Hands grabbed my arms, pulling me back toward his body.
“Don’t you walk off like this,” he barked in my ear.
It wasn’t mean, he wasn’t hurting me, but it was aggressive and I was too angry in the moment to be forgiving.
What happened next, I would never remember how I got the nerve and how I ever managed it.
My hands shot up over my head, grabbing his ears. I yanked, bending forward.
North sailed over me.
He landed on his back in a heap on the driveway.
I gasped, stunned by what I just did.
“Holy shit,” Nathan uttered.
“Kota,” Gabriel whined. “Mommy and daddy are fighting again.”
North coughed, scrambling to get up. “Sang,” he breathed out, guttural and low.
I leapt away from him, marching toward the house.
“Don’t let her go, Silas,” he ordered.
I was halfway through the garage when I felt a large hand encircle my bicep.
“Aggele mou,” he uttered in a softer tone. “Don’t ...”
“Let go Silas,” I whispered, sliding my eyes back to meet his face, feeling the tears starting to fall from eyes and unable to stop them. “Please.”
Silas’s deep eyes darken. He frowned, and slipped his fingers from my arm.
“Si
las! I said fucking hold her.”
I raced toward the house, dashed up the steps, slamming the door behind myself, and on them all.
DEAR AGONY
Upstairs, I entered my room and slammed the door behind myself there, too. I snapped the lock, knowing any of them could easily slip in if they wanted, but I needed to make a point. I was locking them out right now. I didn’t want them there.
I took a couple steps into my bedroom before I collapsed onto the carpet. On my knees, kowtowed in front of the wall. I sobbed into the fibers against my face. In my bowed position, I sought forgiveness from people who didn’t know I wanted it and I couldn’t control myself enough to ask yet. It was as if being in this position, making myself this uncomfortable, when it would have been easier to sit up and breathe, was what it would take to remove the wretched things I’d done.
I was probably dirtying the floor with bits of dust I would never be able to remove completely, but I couldn’t find the strength to pull myself out of the desolation. I choked. I cried. My chest felt as heavy as it had been suppressed inside that pile of dust. I’d yelled at North. I said stupid things. I could have died. Silas probably thought I was mad at him, too. Luke had appeared so scared. The others probably thought I was a monster. Did I even mean what I’d said? Maybe, but not the way I’d said it. North drew out the feelings I’d locked away.
Didn’t he understand? Didn’t he know that I didn’t say things like that because I didn’t want him to hate me? I wanted to trust him. I wanted to trust all of them. I was trying so hard, but I didn’t know my place. It made it more difficult.
For years, I knew everything that was expected of me. I knew who I was supposed to be. Sang Sorenson, the girl with the dying mother who had to stay home in her room. Within that boundary, I commanded myself. I took care of myself. With them, I had no idea who I was any more. The role I’d had was stripped from me, and I was shoved into something new.
It wasn’t just with them. It was the empty house I still clung to. It was all I had of my old life. It was discovering I had a stepmother, someone I hadn’t heard from since she went into the hospital. My sister, depressed and lost as I, I had disappointed her by not calling our dad like I was supposed to.