My back stiffened. I didn’t know if he had enough time to send off a message once the signal was live. I didn’t know if they would discover we had a phone.
“You aren’t putting her in there,” AJ growled.
“It’s ok,” I tried to pacify him. I didn’t want them to break another rib, or do something far worse. I knew he had been right. He was the expendable one. But to me he was everything. He had always been my everything. Right now I might be the only one keeping him alive, even though he was willing to die for me.
“Just let me go.” I looked in his eyes. “Let me go.”
He shook his head. His jaw was set.
“You promised me.” I choked back a sob. “I can get in the crate.”
He turned his head to the wall when they picked me up. I cried out from the pain. They twisted me into the fetal position so I would fit. They lowered me and when I was a foot from the floor they dropped me. I screamed at the impact. The thud rattled my teeth.
“You fuckers,” AJ yelled.
I couldn’t see him, but I wanted him to shut up. I wanted him to live. I closed my eyes and tried to breathe as the lid was lowered over my head. I bristled as they nailed the edges into place with spikes. There was no way I could push out of this contraption. I was sealed inside. My stomach did another somersault.
The plane had started to descend.
“AJ,” I whispered into the darkness.
Chapter Twenty-Seven
Between the enclosure of the crate and the roar of the engines, I couldn’t hear anything inside my wooden tomb. All I could do was pray. And think. I thought about AJ. About the confessions we had made. About how much I ached to undo everything we had done to each other. I thought about my mother, and what this would do to her if I died. And I thought about my little sister. Kelly had one year to go in college. One year, and my baby sister would be on her own, but how was she going to be able to move forward if her sister was kidnapped and murdered? I let out a wail. No one could hear me in here anyway. I didn’t have to be strong or resilient. I was locked up in a fucking box. Why? Why was I in here?
When Kelly was five she became obsessed with hide-and-go-seek. She liked to hide, but she was terrible at it. She would choose curtains where I could see her feet sticking out on the floor, or she’d roll under her bed in the same exact spot.
I would pretend I couldn’t find her. I would indulge her for hours. At least until I got bored of acting surprised. There was one time. One time when I looked under the bed. And I looked in the coat closet, behind Dad’s trench coat. And I scoured the drapes in the dining room and sitting room. I couldn’t find her. I had a prickle of fear. A tiny residual effect of panic.
I started screaming and calling her name, until finally my dad ran in from the garage. He was cleaning his tools and organizing his workbench while my mom was out for the afternoon.
“Sydney, w
hat’s going on?”
“I can’t find Kelly. We were playing. And she’s hiding.”
He rubbed the back of his head. “Hmm. Did you check under her bed?” He seemed relieved when I explained we were playing a game.
“Yes, Dad. I checked in all the spots she usually hides in. I’ve looked everywhere. I have no idea where she is.”
He took me by the shoulders. “Well, she’s here somewhere. Let’s start looking together. We’ll find her. Maybe she’s finally figured out how to play the game,” he teased. “You’re an excellent teacher.”
We combed the house, each taking a room. Calling her name. Coaxing her to us with candy or another chance to watch Cinderella. I was practically in tears when I heard my dad’s voice.
“Sydney, come here.”
I ran along the hall, scooting into the guestroom. He lifted the lid on the cedar chest at the end of the bed. I looked inside. My sister was curled in a ball, sleeping on a pile of blankets.
“What? She’s never been in here before.”
My dad sighed. If he had been worried, he hadn’t shown it until that moment. “Hold the lid for me, and I’ll lift her out. She can’t sleep in here.”
I propped the top up as he scooped her out of the chest. I had always thought it would have been scary to climb into a wooden box. To purposely pull a lid over your head, even if it was for a silly game of hide-and-go-seek. I didn’t know if Kelly had any idea what she was doing. Or if she was ever scared. Maybe she just gave up and fell asleep. Or maybe she saw the blankets and wanted to curl up like a cat. By the time she woke up, I had already forgotten to ask her what had possessed her to do something so scary and dangerous.
My stomach lurched as the plane descended. We were rapidly approaching the ground and I had no grasp of what to expect. I didn’t know if AJ was alive. I didn’t know if he had enough time to get a message out. I didn’t know if the fake marshals had found his phone. They could have punished him if they found it, or just put him down for interfering in their operation.
I didn’t want to think that there was a world where he didn’t exist. I had pretended for so long he didn’t matter. It was seductive to go to that place now, but with his kiss still burning my lips, I couldn’t pretend I hadn’t opened every wound there was between us. I couldn’t pretend I wasn’t willing to hurt again for another chance at us.