Finding You Page 10

  thirteen

  Valentina shrieks. Des tries to get to his feet, with pitiful results. “No,” he pleads, only increasing Curram’s pleasure.

  I can’t move.

  Boyne turns the key in the lock with a screech, and the door swings open. Valentina stumbles backward, and as the guards approach, something urgent and reckless and necessary swells up inside of me. I can’t lose any more. I’m supposed to get them all out. I lurch to my feet.

  “No!” I shout, shoving Valentina behind me and holding out a hand toward the men. “You can’t take her.” I could hardly make a stupider claim; blood rushes to my cheeks. But Boyne halts for a moment, surprised.

  Curram is less taken aback. He strides forward, smiling curiously. “What’s this, then? Loyalty? Self-sacrifice?” On his lips those traits sound like laughable ones. “How touching.” I can feel Valentina behind me, trembling. “Come closer.” I don’t obey. Curram takes a breath, cocking his head to the side. “I said, come closer.”

  I choke back a sob that I wish he couldn’t see. I’m such a fool. What am I doing? My eyes slide over to Des for a half second; he’s managed to haul himself partway up against the bars, his chest heaving and his eyes darting between me and Curram as blood drips from his mouth onto the stone floor.

  Curram takes a step toward me so that Boyne is behind him. He looks down, smiling without showing his teeth, his hand reaching slowly toward me. His fingers fondle a coil of my hair, move up to touch my cheek, and then trail downward, along my neck to the base of my throat, his thumb running across the top of my corset. My breathing comes in quick, painful gasps. Escape, escape, escape rings through my head. I can endure because I will escape. But I’m afraid I’ll give him the satisfaction of seeing my fear. I try to hold my head higher, but tears are blurring everything.

  I want him to shrivel up and die, like the spider he is.

  His hand pauses suddenly at the top of my corset. Curram peers closer, beginning to smile, and my heart stops. Before I can move to snatch it, his fingers close around Tam’s locket, and he tears it from my throat.

  “No!” I scream, launching myself at him, at the hand that holds my necklace. He slaps me hard across my cheek and I hit the ground, ears ringing, face burning. I look up at him through blurry eyes, waiting for the next thing, waiting to see how this can possibly get worse, as I’m sure it must.

  But Zachariah Curram steps back. He holds my gaze for a moment, looks down at the chain in his hand, and then backs out of the cell. The order is given and we are locked in again. I don’t understand.

  Curram’s voice sounds like it’s very far away. “I find that I’ve had enough entertainment for tonight after all,” he says. “They won’t be needing dinner, Boyne. Inform the kitchen.” He turns to leave and then pauses. He pockets something—my locket—and takes something else out of his waistcoat. It looks like a cluster of papers, or a loosely bound book. “Remember the events of tonight, Despard. Things could have been much worse. I hope the scars on your back will remind you not to deceive me again.” He turns and strides grandly up the stairs with the other men following closely behind.

  I wait to feel relief but there’s only despair. I stop trying to stifle my sobs and lower myself to the cold ground, fingering the burning ring around my neck left by the snapped chain. I’ve lost Tam, I think. I’ve lost the one thing that bound me to him in this horrible place. It’s gone now. Tam is gone. I feel as if I’ve been smashed to pieces, and the pieces have been scattered in a thousand directions. I can forget Curram’s hands sliding hideously along my skin, the way his eyes devoured my distress. I can pretend I dreamed it, or that he isn’t real. None of that compares with the feeling that I’ve lost Tam.

  I try to picture his face behind my closed eyelids—Why does it seem harder now? I’ll find a way to hold on to him. I have to. I pull out my memories of all the little things that make him up: the messy blond hair, and how it made me shiver to run my fingers through it the day he came to me covered in burs, asking for my help. The journal he kept in his terrible handwriting of the places he would see one day. The dirt that was constantly under his fingernails, even before school.

  I could swear he’s already slipping away. I look at my hands, red from gripping the bars. The left one is bleeding where the tender skin of the X has cracked.

  I have to leave this place. I have to find Tam, and touch him again and remember who I am.

  A groan from Des makes me sit upright. He’s lying on his stomach, his eyelids fluttering. Valentina sits at the grating, her hands reaching through the bars and fluttering nervously over his torn-up back. What’s left of his shirt is soaked in blood. “Don’t fight,” I tell him, crawling closer and pushing my own troubles out of my head. “Let go. You were already strong enough for Curram.” Des’s brow tightens in pain with every quick exhale.

  “It’s all right to give in,” Val says softly. Des shuts his eyes tightly, starting to cry, while she strokes the hair from his forehead until his body slackens and he finally passes out.

  I dry my face with the backs of my hands and straighten my shoulders. Des’s nose is probably broken, but it’s hard to know with so much blood and the swelling. I tear a strip of cloth off the bottom of my petticoat and wind it around my finger, then reach through the bars and press the fabric against his split lip.

  I hate imagining the pain he’ll be in later.

  Valentina sinks against the grating, breathing through her trembling. “What else can we do?” she asks, hiccuping.

  “Nothing from over here,” I say.

  “I’m sorry,” she says, her voice small and quiet. “Isla, I’m sorry.”

  I swallow hard. “Don’t be,” I choke. “You’re all right, that’s what matters.”

  “But … your necklace. Isla, I—”

  “I can’t talk about it right now.” I nod, try to smile, then look away. If I could ignore the pain in my chest, it might be easier to pretend.

  Before I realize what’s happening, Robbie, resonating satisfaction, goes upstairs. We’ve missed our chance, I think, wishing for something I could hit or kick to exhaust my frustration. I watch the door, willing him to come back downstairs so I can take his keys somehow and make a fool of him.

  For the first time I understand Tam’s intense protectiveness. Earlier in the summer, when he and I were wandering through the marketplace and I stopped at a bookseller’s stall, a beggar man snatched my satchel off my shoulder and ran with it. Tam chased after him without a word; I was too stunned to react. By the time Tam overtook the man and tackled him, I had caught up, and I watched as he wrested the bag from the beggar’s hands and knocked him against the ground, punching him squarely in the nose. It seemed so brutal to me then. I told Tam to stop, that I had my bag back and it was fine. I didn’t even thank him.

  Now I look at Des and I understand.

  Zachariah Curram has to pay, I think, watching Des’s distorted face, finally peaceful in sleep. For Eugenia, for Cecily, for the girls he gave to his guests at the party, for whatever he’s done with Lillian, for every girl I’ll never know the name of who came before us.

  “You should sleep, Isla,” Valentina says quietly, touching my hand. “Tomorrow will have its own horrors.”

  “You’re right.” I stand, and she stares up at me, questioning. “Tomorrow we’re going to leave this place forever,” I say. “Des is not strong enough to overpower Robbie, and we cannot afford to wait until he heals. Our only chance is to lure Robbie close on our own and knock him out or hold him and grab the keys. He’s shown attention to me before, and to you, Phoebe. One of us should do it.”

  Phoebe nods. “I’m strong,” she says. “But someone else should be ready to snatch the keys. We can do it after supper tomorrow.”

  “I can do that,” says Jewel, smiling a little. “Orphanage gives you quick hands.”

  “The rest of us need to be ready to help, if necessary. To grab an arm or a leg, to hold him still. Does everyone understa
nd the plan? Once we get the keys and get out, we may need to carry Des. We can use the door we came in through to reach the courtyard.”

  Everyone nods, somber. For the first time I notice how much larger the cell seems with half of us gone already. What were you thinking, Des? I wonder, my eyes falling on him last. What did you do?

  As everyone settles into sleep, one of the girls, Hanna, sings softly. Her voice is low and rich, and I don’t understand the language of her song; she hardly ever speaks, and it’s clear she doesn’t understand most of our conversation day to day. But her song is easily felt, whether or not I know what the lyrics say. There’s mourning in it, and anguish, a cry for the life that was. I wonder if she knows that I’m talking about escape. Or if she’s resigned to this fate, and that grief is what feeds her song.

  Before Hanna’s song is finished, most of the girls have fallen asleep side by side on the grimy, hard floor.

  I envy them; in the quiet, doubts attack me. They come in the memories of the small girl who clung to me in the warehouse, in her screams echoing in my head. She thought I could help her. They all think I can help them. What if I can’t? What if I fail and they’re all taken one by one, until my nightmare comes true and I’m the only one left?

  I shut my eyes, but the sounds in my head won’t leave me alone.

  My neck stings with the memory of the chain that should hang there. I massage the skin dismally, wishing I could convince myself it was still there so that I could fall asleep.

  “Do you think he’ll be all right?” I turn at the sound of Valentina’s voice. She pulls her eyes away from Des’s face to look at me. “Will he ever be?”

  I nod. “Of course. If they’d wanted to kill him, they would have.” I hope I’m right. Valentina turns back to stare at Des, stroking his forehead with her thumb, pushing the hair out of his eyes. I want to give her more reassurances, but they feel dishonest, even in my head.

  Eventually she falls asleep facing the bars. I dream that I’m in the cargo car of a train again, choking my way through the stifling heat and the bodies all around me. When I wake to Robbie’s arrival, my body is tense and the moments seem slow. My fingers repeatedly seek out the locket, restless.

  Des sleeps late into what I presume is morning, and I grow more and more anxious. When they bring our supper, I think. We’ll wait for the door to close and we’ll make our move. A number of times, I glance over at Phoebe, who gives me tight smiles and curt nods but nothing more.

  When Des does wake, his pain is evident. He holds on to Valentina’s hand like it can save him, and if his grip is too tight, she says nothing. “We’re doing it tonight,” I whisper when talk among the other girls helps muffle my words. “We’re getting out of here.”

  “You’ll have to … go without me,” he murmurs back, weak-voiced. “I’ll slow you down.”

  “We would never leave you behind,” Valentina says.

  “We’ll carry you,” I tell Des. “We’re not leaving without you.” He closes his eyes, straining to breathe, and I know I should let him rest, but I have to know something. “What happened, Des? What did you do to make Curram so angry?”

  He doesn’t open his eyes. “I was trying to find something,” he mumbles. “Something … that would help us … when we got out. Curram’s plans. No good, I couldn’t find them. Then he realized I was snooping.” What kind of plans? Maps? Records of our purchase? He’s asleep before I can ask more, and I know he needs to rest if he’s going to make it out of here.

  It takes all day for Des’s swelling to go down enough that he looks like himself again, and even then he’s far from pretty. When he wakes, though, his attitude has returned at least.

  “Last night was a little showy,” he calls weakly to Robbie from the floor, when our meal is brought. Our jailer doesn’t get up, but his eyes flick over to Des. I try to catch Des’s eye to shake my head at him not to anger Robbie, since we need him to go after Phoebe instead, but he won’t look at me. “You’re going about it all wrong, you’re too obvious. I understand if you’re overcompensating for … a particular lack of something? Is that it?”

  “You think you’re awfully funny,” Robbie sneers, settling back into his seat. “Cracking jokes from behind bars. You’ll sober up quick enough tonight.” My heart begins to pound. What this time? I look at Des, but his face shows only confusion.

  Robbie saunters toward the bars, looks Des up and down, then spits on the ground in front of him. He’s so close, I think, easing my way toward him. Maybe I can reach the keys while he’s distracted. But in a moment Robbie has turned on his heel and is striding back to his seat.

  “Not yet,” I mouth to Phoebe, who nods.

  “Saying your good-byes?” Robbie calls, and I realize with a start that he’s looking at me.

  “What—” I begin, forgetting to ignore him.

  He grins. “Better start now.”

  fourteen

  They’re taking me tonight.

  The realization sets my heart racing. I can’t be weak now. Curram occupied will give the others their best chance of escape. If he calls for me, I’ll go, and I’ll give him hell.

  Was it only a couple of weeks ago that the same knowledge would have destroyed me? Fire spreads through my veins; I’m not the same person anymore. I must have lost my mind down here in the darkness. I’m breakable and underfed, hardly in any condition to take on a man with five times my strength. But this may be my only chance to make Curram pay; I have to take it.

  “Isla,” Des calls quietly, sounding panicked. I pretend I don’t hear him, and crawl instead to where Phoebe sits.

  “Evidently I’m going to Curram tonight,” I whisper. Her brow furrows; I can tell she understood Robbie as well as I did, but I don’t think she expected my acceptance. “I’ll fight him for all I’m worth, but if I don’t make it back…” I swallow. “I’ll try, but if I’m gone too long, if I don’t come back, can I trust you to make sure they all leave?”

  Phoebe watches me for a long minute. “It’s stupid to think you can always help everyone,” she says. I open my mouth to retort, but she goes on. “But I was wrong about you. It’s not naïveté that makes you try.” Her eyes hold something like respect. Then she looks wary. “Isla, our escape will be a victory. But Curram will just buy new girls. You have to stop him forever, or this will never end.”

  My heart lurches. Does stopping him mean killing him?

  She nods like we’ve settled on a plan. “We’ll leave if too much time passes. You have my word.” I stand to go, but she grabs my hand. “And not before. We won’t abandon you unless we have to.”

  Des continues to call to me until I join him. He whispers frantically, “Let’s go now. Get Robbie to the bars and hurry. We can go before they take you. I won’t let—”

  I shush him, worried Robbie will hear, and shake my head. “I—”

  “I’ll tell them to take me instead,” Valentina interjects suddenly from beside me. She grips my shoulder with white fingers. “I’ll volunteer, and, and—” I try to cut her off and she snaps, “They need you, Isla!” She looks around at the other girls. “You need to get them away from here. You need to save them, you and Des. I’m nothing. I’ll tell them to take me.”

  “No, we’ll leave now,” insists Des, trying to be commanding even though he looks like death. He tries to prop himself up on one elbow and collapses, clenching his teeth. “Neither of you will risk your lives like that. I’ll get Robbie to—”

  “No.” Valentina flinches at my tone. “No, if we go now, they’ll be down in a moment, and we’ll never make it out. When I’m gone, the plan will continue as before. Phoebe is going to take charge. I’ll get away from Curram, all right? I’ll put up a fight and be after you all in no time. It’ll be good that he’s distracted.”

  Valentina starts crying, her shoulders shaking pitifully. Des only looks angry. I think he’s about to speak again when the door at the top of the stairs opens, and with the light comes Boyne, pompous as ever
. Behind him are the usual two soldiers, and suddenly my heart is racing ahead of itself and I can’t breathe. I pull away from Valentina and stand. All I have to do is catch him off guard for a moment, long enough to find something to knock him out with. And when he wakes up, we’ll be gone.

  As the three men descend the steps, I square my shoulders and take a deep breath. This, I decide with a momentary flicker of pride, is the bravest thing I have ever done. It may also be the most foolish.

  “Don’t,” pleads Des, voice weak. “Isla, please, we can—” But there’s nothing we can do; even if I tried to back out now, someone would get taken. I pry Valentina’s fingers off my dress. Boyne reaches the cell.

  “It’s all right,” I say with a small shrug at Des, whose eyes are wet. “It’s all right.” I glance at Phoebe, who watches me with a somber expression.

  Boyne gives the order, and Robbie narrows his eyes at him as he unlocks the cell, no doubt eyeing the next job he’d like to have. As Boyne looks me up and down, I refuse to flinch. “You were the one he wanted,” he says smugly. “I’m glad to see you’ve learned to behave since last night. Shall we?” He offers me his arm with sick pleasure.

  I don’t take it.

  Swallowing hard, I take a step toward the cell door, and as I reach the threshold, the two guards fall into step on either side of me, seeming uneasy, maybe because I don’t put up the usual fuss. I suppose they enjoy having to subdue the girls. My steps feel long and slow as I walk to the stairs and begin my ascent. I hear Valentina crying as the door is locked again, but I don’t look back. Somehow that would feel like a good-bye. And I can’t let anything feel final.

  My legs ache and I’m out of breath when we reach the top and the door is opened. Lamplight spills through, almost blinding in comparison to the dimness behind me. I force myself to breathe as the guards take my arms and lead me into Curram’s house.