EDDY? HOW COULD THAT BE?
I didn’t stop to think. I just typed. Eddy? RUT? Dummy. There’s no way. Still, I held my breath.
A reply popped up. WTHIT?
Who the hell is this? My breath gushed out. Great. Some irate survivor. What could they do to me? Take away my birthday? I typed again. Eli.
Again, an instant reply. how did u get his username? lose it before I find out WTHUR.
My heart sped up. eddy! it’s eli. swear.
Nothing.
I added more. we’re in compound. near cabin. I didn’t have to wait long.
how u know about that?
The tremor in my hands made it difficult to type as fast as I wanted. camping. had fight about who in Dad’s plane 1st? kitten in RV. wheezing … I didn’t want to write what happened next. I skipped to we had to go.
A few minutes passed.
AYTMTB?
I groaned. cuz true!
you read it in paper.
What was he talking about? I scrolled back up, to see the whole conversation. Crap. I’d provided all the details. I could be IM’ing anybody. My stomach clenched—it could even be Dad. Or could it? One way to find out.
what was in red cooler at picnic with gram?
The screen stayed blank. Then: eli?
I wasn’t falling for it. what was in cooler?
strawberry mochi
One of my hands went over my mouth. No one could have known that except Eddy or Gram. My fingers flew. OMG. Eddy????
His answer came fast. AAS
Alive and smiling. My eyes teared up.
Where ru? ru alone?
What was he talking about? we’re in compound. we escaped attack.
what attack?
What did he mean by that? Again, I wondered if it was really Eddy, or if it was just someone screwing with me. nukes. dad knew. got us in compound, but u & gram didn’t make it back. As I typed, I thought of more questions. how did u survive? where ru?
The reply took a few minutes. eli, don’t know what u r talking about. gram & i home. seattle. we saw fire from cabin. fire dept came—it all gone.
Inside the office, inches away from me, Dad’s chair creaked.
I froze.
The music still blared.
My hands started up again, trembling. what gone?
RV. cops said RV crashed into plane, burned. At funeral, nothing to bury.
Fire? Funeral?
Both of my hands clamped over my mouth.
I rocked back and forth, forcing a scream back down.
No, it wasn’t true. That wasn’t what happened.
eli RUT?
My breaths became gasps as I typed; trying to prove it wasn’t true. not dead! here in compound! ALIVE! dad stopped RV, we ran here.
where compound?
IDK! where we camped, but then drove & ran.
There wasn’t a reply right away. I prayed I wasn’t making too much noise, that my dad wouldn’t come out. Come on, come on.
Eli, this is Gram. Are you all ok? Clea and your sisters? Tell me where you are.
Gram. My gram. My eyes misted over. all fine in compound.
We thought you all died in the fire.
No, no, no! It’s a lie. dad said you and E died. we have to stay 15 years and
I couldn’t say any more. It was too hard. I hit the Send button.
Gram had her own form of IM speak. Lying SOB. We will get you out.
I didn’t know what to say in reply, so I didn’t type anything.
E here. gram freaking, yelling at els to call 911. thought compound just myth. tabloids right about dad—major nutcase.
What tabloids?
?????
after we thought you dead, report from secret source. dad’s biological mom crazy.
It made so much sense. All those times when he wouldn’t sleep for days. And then the times that’s all he did. All the talking to himself. Only he wasn’t, not to him. He heard someone talking back.
get you out, bro, swear.
I held my head in my hands, thinking. It was true, everything. My father lied, kept us down here with the lies. That night when his hands smelled like fuel and he was so out of breath. He’d been setting the RV on fire.
The low-battery warning flashed. I ignored it.
The facts started to sink in.
I wanted to run to my father.
Make him let us out.
Then I realized something. Dad wouldn’t let us out. We were prisoners.
u have to find us.
Eddy’s reply was short but meant everything to me. BTWBO.
Be there with bells on.
The low-battery warning flashed again. “No!”
Dad’s chair squeaked and the music went dead.
I slammed the laptop shut.
My stomach clenched again.
I didn’t want to lose the connection with Eddy. I didn’t want to be alone again. I tried to reassure myself. Now that we’d been in touch once, we could do it again. I would find out everything I could, anything that might help Eddy find us. If we worked together, we could do it.
He had saved me before. He could do it again.
The door opened. Dad scanned the hallway. “Eli, need help?” He must have seen the confused look on my face.
“Oh, uh, yeah. Just some math again. I think I just figured it out.” I held up the legal pad.
He stood there, clenching and unclenching his hands.
“What’s wrong?”
“Nothing. Feels like pins and needles. Must be too much typing. What’s this?” Before I could stop him, he lifted the computer from my lap.
“No.” I grabbed on to it.
He didn’t let go.
We stood there, both gripping the laptop, a mostly mental tug of war.
His head tilted a bit. “Where did you get this?”
“Eddy’s room.” As soon as I said it, I knew I should have lied.
But from the look on his face, I think he already sensed the answer. I think he was mad at himself for forgetting it was there.
I held my breath and shut my eyes. The IM conversation was still on the screen for him to see.
I heard the click as it shut down. My eyes opened. The battery was dead. I breathed out.
Dad shrugged. “This one is nearly obsolete. It doesn’t have the functions you need. I’ll take care of it for you.”
I couldn’t risk raising his suspicions any more before I found out what I needed to know. My hands let go. I was only able to watch as my connection to Eddy disappeared with Dad into his office.
He came back out and handed me another laptop, a different model. Then he retreated once again.
I didn’t even have to look at the laptop to know there would be no connection to the Internet.
I hugged my knees. My head dropped onto them and my eyes closed. It was all true. My own father kept us here, prisoners. Without that laptop, I wouldn’t be able to tell Eddy anything to help him find us.
There were two things of which I was certain.
First, I was on my own.
Second, my own father had become the enemy.
Maybe he always had been. Furious, I wanted to barge into his office and demand he let us out. I wanted to scream at him, hit him. I jumped up, my hands turned into fists as I faced his door. My breath was shallow and fast as I stood there, ready to fight for all of us, make him let us out.
It took every ounce of self-control in me to walk the other way, go to my room, and shut the door. I couldn’t let him know what I knew. Not yet.
I needed to get back in touch with Eddy. There hadn’t been enough time to tell him what I knew. I thought about it. What did I know that could help him find us?
Nothing.
I had no clue where the hatch was. Dad had mentioned there were GPS coordinates. And a code. Knowing him, they were only in his brain. He never liked a paper trail. No way would he tell me what I needed to know. Not straight out. I would have to find out on my
own.
The world was fine. Dad knew. He knew that it had gone on without us. That it was going on without us every minute we stayed down here. He had to be insane. Nothing else made sense.
My dread mingled with hope—Eddy and Gram were alive! I wanted to run, tell everyone. But I knew there was only one person I could trust.
The door to Lexie’s room was slightly ajar. The TV was on.
I pushed the door open a little more so I could see in. At first I didn’t see her. She was leaning on the footboard of her bed, arms around her knees. She stared at the screen.
I figured it was her horror movie routine.
But her face was shiny. Was she crying? No way. The DVD player was on, and I recognized the movie. A Little Princess. One of the premieres we went to in Hollywood. Not my favorite. But I knew it was based on a classic book and it had a happy ending.
Over the sound of the movie, I heard Lexie take a loud, ragged breath.
Just like she did with the horror movies, she stared at the screen, engrossed. But for this movie, her eyes weren’t blank. They were full, full of so many feelings I couldn’t start to name them all.
It didn’t seem right, to be a witness. I felt invasive, like an intruder.
Back in the hall, I gently pulled the door shut and left.
Maybe that was when Lexie let it all out. She watched A Little Princess, the one happy ending she allowed herself.
Who else was there for me to turn to?
I couldn’t tell Mom. Not yet. She was already stressed out, pregnant. And I wasn’t sure she’d believe me. Even if she did, it was way too risky for her to confront my father. She was in no condition for it. And did she even have a foothold with him anymore?
Maybe if I had found this out years ago. When they were in love. When he still doted on her. Not at this point. They scarcely spoke.
I didn’t understand how he could do this to us, the people he was supposed to love the most. When did he start hating us? Because he must have hated us, if he could even consider doing this. It was the only explanation I had that made sense.
There was a slim chance he had confided in Mom at some point, told her something that might help.
I felt so stupid for waiting so long to question things.
For being this much of a sheep.
Listening to everything Dad said.
Believing him.
Worshipping him.
No more. No way.
I was done.
SLEEP ELUDED ME. I SPENT MOST OF THE NIGHT STARING UP into the starry sky of my ceiling, trying to come up with answers. But in all that sleeplessness I made a decision. A decision to seek the answers I needed.
The next morning, I found Mom in the family room, knitting another pink and blue blanket. Candles glowed. The scent of flowers lingered. Music played on the stereo, a sonata for cello and piano—Shostokavich.
I sat down on a couch opposite her. The soft, familiar brush of my hair falling on either side of my face gave me strength, but it still took a minute to get the words out. “Mom, do you know the code to the door?”
Her knitting needles froze as she stared at me. “How do you know about that?”
“Dad told me.”
Her hands dropped to her lap, the ball of pink yarn unrolling onto the floor. She seemed annoyed. “Now why in the world would he tell you that?”
I explained. And then I asked again. “Do you know the code to the door?”
She harrumphed. (I think that’s what the sound would be called. Like a sarcastic cough.) “Right. That’s only in your father’s mind. And probably in his office.”
“Do you know where?”
She started knitting again, her stitches quick and precise. “Probably in one of his computers.”
I leaned my head back on the couch, trying to think. “Mom, what if something happens to him? How would we get out?”
She set down her knitting. “Don’t talk like that. Nothing’s going to happen to your father, Eli. He’s as healthy as a horse.” Her tone was not one of certainty and her words were rushed.
“Mom?”
She shook her head a bit. “He’s healthier than a horse, probably. And if he thought he was going to die, God forbid, he’d tell me everything.”
Somehow I doubted it. “Would he?”
Her brow furrowed. “What’s going on?”
My eyes shut briefly. I rubbed my temples, trying to summon more energy. “Mom, I found something out last night. Something you might not believe.”
“Tell me.”
My explanation included everything about the laptop from Eddy’s room and its wireless capability. I paused for a moment before getting to the crucial element.
“Mom, I talked to Eddy.”
Her knitting slid to the floor. “You what?”
“The Internet works. I IM’ed Eddy. And Gram. Dad’s been lying to us since we got here.” I related everything Eddy and Gram had to say.
Mom just sat there, mouth gaping.
I needed her to trust me. “Please say you believe me.”
Her face crumpled. I knew for certain, then and there, that she truly had no idea what Dad had done. She started to cry.
“Please, Mom.”
She nodded, reaching out for my hand. I didn’t move.
Her hand dropped in her lap. When she could speak again, she had a lot of questions.
I answered the ones I could. There were many that I couldn’t.
“Eli, we have got to go to your father and tell him it’s over. We know and we’re leaving.”
I stood up and started to pace in front of the fireplace. “Do you think it’s that easy? He’ll just throw up his hands and say, ‘You got me,’ and then let us go?”
Her head was down. “No. It won’t be that easy.”
“He’s insane.”
“Eli, he’s not insane.”
I protested, telling her what Eddy had said about Dad’s biological mother.
Mom shook her head. “It’s not true. That’s an old rumor, one I even approached your father about before you were born. He found out who his biological parents were a long time ago.”
“And?”
“A couple of academically inclined teenagers too stupid to use birth control. And too young and full of potential to give it all up to raise a baby. No one was crazy.”
I was frustrated at not getting my point across. “Mom. Look at the facts. Dad doesn’t sleep for days, then that’s all he does.”
Mom shrugged. “I don’t think that’s an uncommon thing with creative geniuses. And it’s not enough to make him certifiable.”
I groaned and covered my face with my hands.
“Eli. I would love to say yes, that he’s insane. But that’s simply too easy. And safe. How convenient would that be? To explain it away to lunacy?” Her head tilted to one side. “He was lucid when he planned all this. He’s still lucid. That’s what scares me.”
I dropped my hands to look at her.
She turned toward me, her face red and tear streaked. “Yes, I’m scared. I said it. We’re in more danger now than we ever have been, Eli. If he knows we know, he may get desperate. I don’t believe he’s crazy, but he’s capable of doing something … something irrational.”
I held my arms out to the sides. “More irrational than all of this? More irrational than every moment of the last six years?”
Her expression wasn’t quite a smile. “You have a point, my boy.” She gasped. “Oh!”
“You okay?”
Her hands went to her bump. “The baby’s kicking all the time. Whatever we’re going to do, we need to do it fast. I refuse to have another of my children born in this godforsaken place. We need to see what we can find out without your father suspecting we’re fishing around. So let’s keep it between us. I don’t think you should tell Lexie or Terese.”
“Tell me what?” Lexie stepped inside the room. She looked fresh in yellow, her dark hair cascading loose.
“Nothing
, sweetie.”
“Right.” Lexie sunk into the love seat opposite of us. “I heard you say, ‘Don’t tell Lexie or Terese.’”
I leaned against the mantel. I should have told her what I knew last night. “Now is not the time for this, okay? Just trust me. It doesn’t matter anymore.”
Lexie crossed her arms, glaring at Mom. “I know there are a billion things you’re keeping from me. Tell me.”
“Lex—”
“Eli!” She nearly snarled at me. “Stay out of it. Mom, tell me. Tell me what you don’t want me to know.”
“Sweetie, it’s about the code.”
“What code?”
“For the door. We were talking about the code and that only your father knows what it is.”
Lexie rolled her eyes. “What’s the big secret?”
Mom held out a hand to Lexie. “We didn’t want you to worry about it. Please don’t tell Terese, okay?”
Her eyes narrowed. “I don’t believe you.”
I cleared my throat. “Lex, it’s true. No one else knows.”
“Stupid, I get that. I think you were talking about something else.”
Mom picked up her knitting again, the red metal needles clicking in her hands.
Lexie glared at her. “Look at me.” Lexie leaned forward, her face flushed. Her voice was deep, harsh. “I hate that you just tell me something and I’m supposed to take it. I hate that you’re the queen and we have to do everything you say. All you did was marry a rich guy and have his kids. That’s it, that’s all you are.”
Any sympathy I may have felt for her the night before evaporated. “Shut up!” I screamed.
Mom looked at Lexie. “I know you don’t mean that.”
Lex turned her glare to me. “You’re her lapdog, you do whatever she says.”
I retaliated by calling her a name, and I didn’t bother to use Mandarin.
“Eli, don’t talk to your sister like that.”
Dad entered the room, his glance bouncing between the three of us. “What’s all the yelling? I could hear you down the hall.”
Lexie pouted. “They won’t tell me what they’re talking about.” She looked from one parent to the other. “You both treat me like a child.”
Mom fidgeted with her knitting.
Dad scratched his chin. “Lexie, your mother and I know what’s best for you, for all of you.”
With all that I knew, it was impossible to just stand there and say nothing. “You mean you think you know best.”