Finding You Read online

  Robbie continues to whittle, glancing our way every few seconds. I almost miss Dunbar’s easily forgotten presence; I’m reluctant to say anything out loud now, when I know we’ll be listened to.

  Sometimes Robbie paces in front of our cells, watching us suspiciously. At one point Des leans over to tell me something, and Robbie smacks the bars, making us all jump. “Hey!” he shouts. “I seen the way you go whisperin’ to each other about me. Yer not gonna get over on me like you did the other one. Enough of that, or I’ll come in there and teach ya a lesson myself.”

  Des looks up and meets his eyes, then crosses his arms over his chest, despite the manacles. He smiles. “But if you open the door, what’s to stop me from breaking your nose?” Robbie’s mouth snaps shut, and he turns pink, grinding his teeth.

  “A warning,” he says, trying to look superior as he eases back into his chair.

  “You know, you should join us for supper sometime,” Des calls over to him, his tone laced with spite. He sneaks a glance at me. “There are more than enough bowls.”

  Robbie gets up again and saunters over to our cell. He stands close to the grating, watching us and pretending to ignore Des’s taunts. Then, in one quick movement, his hand slides through the bars and snatches Phoebe’s arm, hauling her to her feet. Valentina shrieks, I lurch forward, and Des starts to shout something as a distraction, but it doesn’t help. Phoebe struggles, but Robbie is strong; his lingering purple handprint on my own arm is proof of that. “I can come in and visit anytime I want, actually,” he says smoothly. “But thank you fer the offer. Some other time.”

  Phoebe spits at him, and he jerks back; he’s just surprised enough for her to tear herself away. She shoots onto one of the bunks and draws her knees up to her chest, saying nothing, breathing heavily.

  Even after Robbie finally leaves, the air is heavy and no one speaks above a whisper.

  * * *

  Sleep evades me, and whenever I stir, I see that Des is still sitting against the wall, looking at the ceiling. When I’ve resigned myself to restlessness, I move closer to him. “Is something wrong?” I ask, resting the side of my head against the bars. He continues to stare upward.

  “What if … what if you all go as we planned, and I … stay here?” My eyes widen, but he continues in a hurry. “To find Lillian, you know? I could … I could always find you later, after I get her out of here.…” His voice trails off. I think he’s been crying. “What if, when we go … when I go, he hurts her? Or kills her?” Finally he looks at me. “It would be my fault. I can’t do that to her.” I wish I could take him by the shoulders, force him to face me squarely.

  “Des, don’t you think that if Curram had any intention of hurting Lillian, he would have done so already? You know his character better than I do, and I think…” I don’t want to be harsh. “We’ll find a way to learn what he’s done with her, all right? But you can’t stay here. We’ll find her when we get out. We’ll come back if we need to, but first we need to save the other girls.”

  “What if I could find the information we needed though, before we left?”

  “Des, you said yourself Curram will have you beaten senseless if he catches you. We can’t risk snooping around.”

  After a pause, he shrugs ever so slightly, letting out a long breath. “You’re probably right. Of course you’re right.” He looks away again.

  “Do you want me to…?” I motion like I’ll leave him alone, but he shakes his head.

  “It’s all right. I’ll be fine.”

  “I doubt that,” I whisper, and settle my back against the bars so our shoulders touch in places.

  “What’s your friend’s name again? The one you want to find?”

  “Tam,” I say, and it’s as if saying his name out loud lights a match in the darkness: bright and warm, but only there for a second, and then the cold surrounds us again.

  “I suppose I have to come, then; I can’t leave you to look for him on your own.”

  twelve

  When I wake, Robbie has returned to his place. Morning, then.

  “Soon?” I ask quietly as Des stretches and yawns to muffle our conversation. “Tonight, maybe?”

  “Maybe,” he whispers. “We’ll see.”

  Caddy and Jewel try to teach the other girls a hand game, but Robbie snaps at them to be quiet and the day drags by. I’m aching to do something, and I wonder if this is how Tam feels every day of his life, itching with the need to move.

  I’d give anything to be able to run right now.

  To strip off these boots and bloody, torn tights and run.

  It’s the only thing I’m better at than Tam that matters to him. He’s never cared how many more facts I can recite, or how the books I’ve read can help me read the weather and make predictions, or how I’ve memorized the names and principal cities of every country in the world. The only thing I’ve ever been able to make him jealous with is running. I beat him in every race: down any street, up any hill, through the busiest market-day crowd.

  That’s the way I want to run now, with my hair streaming out behind me and my bare feet slapping against hot cobblestones. I want to close my eyes and imagine I’m taking flight, or to run so fast that tears slide out the sides of my eyes and my ribs ache and my heart is ready to burst.

  Sometimes Robbie gets up from his chair and paces, still whittling. He finishes one stick and starts on another. I don’t pay attention to what he makes. At times he stops in front of the cell and watches us, letting the wood shavings float down to the floor. His gaze sweeps back and forth, exploring whatever of our bodies is exposed. I try to remind myself that there are worse things in his power to do than to stare at us.

  “Do you think you could stir him up, Des?” I ask. “Tonight, before he goes? Insult his manliness or something?” I shrug. “You’ll have a better chance of overpowering him through the bars, or getting him angry enough to come in.”

  He smiles, a hint of the Des I first met who mocked the guards and made light of the shadows. “It would be my sincere pleasure to start some trouble,” he says.

  * * *

  The waiting is hard. I tell myself that it’s not the worst thing, but it leaves me to the mercy of my memories, which hurt. I can’t stop thinking about Pa, and what he must be wondering. I want to feel his arms around me, his rough fingers pushing my hair behind my ears, or to feel him planting a scratchy kiss on the top of my head. Even the little things—the puff of dust every time he came home from working and dropped into his usual chair, the way I teased him that he’d be so much handsomer without his mustache, even though I secretly liked it—seem sweet to me now.

  Tam fills the other half of my thoughts: I miss him rolling his eyes at my books, the moments when he’d take my hand and drag me after him on some adventure, completely unaware that he was making my heart race with every touch. I miss the way he always smelled like sunshine, sitting next to me on the shingles and dreaming out loud.

  I wonder if he has written me any letters.

  I was so certain I would flood him with my own, just as soon as he told me where to send them. Does he think I’ve forgotten? Or does it only feel as if a long time has passed? Has he even noticed, the short time that he has been away?

  Occasionally, I walk about the cell, though my legs feel shriveled and my knees hardly feel as if they can hold me. You’ll need your strength when you escape, I tell myself. If you want to run, you need to make sure you can walk.

  I could swear the day is coming to an end when the door at the top of the stairs opens, but it’s only two men coming for Des. “When you come back,” I whisper as they approach the cell and remove him. He nods tightly.

  I stand at the bars as they take him upstairs and only realize when they’ve disappeared that Robbie is watching me and smiling. “D’ye fancy ’im, sweetheart?” I draw back, but not quickly enough. His hand curls around my wrist, his grip as strong as Des’s iron manacles. “What a shame there’re bars between you, eh?”
/>   You don’t know anything, I want to say. But he’s the last person I’d tell that I already have someone to love, someone to find. I want to laugh at him, spit in his face, and bite the hand that grips mine, all at once. I smile instead. “If you’re so bored that you’ve turned to this sort of speculation, perhaps you should find other employment.”

  “Don’t think ye can use fancy words with me, darlin’. I’ve got a key an’ I can tell the master anything I like about what happened to ye if something goes … wrong.” He smiles as he releases my hand, and I feel filthy. Two weeks with no way to clean myself and only a hole in the ground for a toilet, yet somehow Robbie’s touch is the dirtiest part.

  Valentina moves closer to me when I sit. “Des says you’re planning an escape,” she whispers, and I nod, surprised that he told her. “Of course you are, you’re so brave. If you’re going to take Robbie’s keys, he’s already in a bad humor. Maybe he’ll be volatile and Des can provoke him tonight.”

  My heart starts to race. “That’s what I’m hoping,” I say, and Valentina starts to smile. “If we can incapacitate him and get the keys, the rest should be easy, right? We can leave by the same door we came in. And since it’ll be dark, we can get over the wall if we help each other. Then we’re free.” The thought crosses my mind that the whole plan is almost too simple, but I fight that thought. If I start to doubt it now, I might be tempted to give up.

  “Can you pass the word along, one at a time? Tell the girls to be ready. I don’t think they’ll need to do anything.” She nods and turns to a girl with dark skin and close-cut hair. Marion, I think she’s called. As Valentina whispers in the girl’s ear, her eyes widen and she stares at me. Then she nods and turns to her neighbor, and I watch as the plan spreads around the cell.

  Now I can’t let them down, I think. Now they have hope.

  My thoughts turn to Curram as the afternoon ticks by. How many of us have there been? How many have lived in this cell? What does he do with the ones he’s finished with? Does he kill them, or is that only if they give him trouble, like Eugenia did? Maybe he sells them “secondhand.”

  I want to pretend that I don’t feel like someone’s property, but I do.

  What if I had been in Eugenia’s place? What if I had been the first one chosen? Would someone else have plotted an escape? And what if I hadn’t been kidnapped at all? Or if Curram had not chosen me at the warehouse? Would all these girls be feeling hopeless?

  I wish I had never come here. But I can’t help but wonder if maybe this won’t be only about me, in the end. Perhaps it will be about saving lives besides my own.

  Something like satisfaction lights up inside me. You haven’t done anything yet, I remind myself. Lives have been lost and ravaged and I didn’t save them. But still, I feel hopeful.

  I don’t have a guide to tell me what to do, moment by moment. But every story I’ve ever read has some love and some good and some evil. Bravery, selflessness, cunning. I may not be quite as brave as Tam, or as kind as Valentina, or as clever as Des. But I have hope flooding my veins, and love pumping my heart with promise and strength. So if I am to be a heroine, to save the lives of these girls around me, perhaps I can bear what has happened.

  I wish Tam were here, to be proud of me. But I’ll find him, I reassure myself. When I’m free, I’ll find my love.

  For just a few moments, I forget to be nervous.

  Then the door at the top of the stairs opens and Boyne appears. Behind him are four soldiers, clustered around a prisoner in shackles, who limps a little as he walks. Des. Of course it’s Des; I expected him. But why is everything wrong?

  The last figure to appear is the tallest and proudest of them all: Zachariah Curram.

  I can’t catch my breath. Questions pummel the inside of my head.

  Breathe, I tell myself. I get shakily to my feet, my eyes following them down the stairs. What did he do? I think over and over. What did he risk, what did he let slip?

  Boyne’s shoulders hunch like they always do in his master’s presence, his eyes darting here and there under the rim of his hat. Curram saunters casually toward our cell, running his eyes briefly over our group. I refuse to cower, but my hands tremble.

  His gaze is careless, though; it lingers on us only a moment before he turns to the soldiers who surround Des. Valentina is beside me now at the bars. “Two of you, hold him,” says Curram, and his men take Des’s arms and force him to face their master. I watch the way Des glowers, his forehead shining with sweat, the muscles in his arms tensed for a fight. He’s strong enough to take two or three of them if he weren’t shackled. I pray he doesn’t try.

  Curram begins to remove the dark kid gloves he wears, pulling on one finger at a time, every movement deliberate and calm. It’s hypnotizing. And then, when his hands are bare, he moves suddenly, punching Des hard in the gut.

  I bite back a scream. Curram hits him again and again, every blow brutal, hard. I flinch at each, but I can’t look away. Valentina’s hand grips mine as one especially heavy blow hits Des’s jaw loudly, knocking his head backward. Somehow he remains silent, pulling his head upright as his eyes struggle to focus. Blood streams from his mouth, his nose; there’s so much that I can’t tell where it’s heaviest.

  “Now,” says Curram, taking a step back and holding up his clean hand. Boyne supplies him instantly with a handkerchief. “I’ve had my fun. I think it’s time you really learned your lesson, young man.” He cleans blood off his knuckles with slow, precise movements. “Secure him.”

  My mouth is dry and I can’t stop shaking. Des’s eyes are glazed over, uncomprehending. He’s too strong to black out. The guards remove his manacles and shove his face against the bars to his cell, taking thin black cords from their belts. Two of them raise Des’s arms over his head and tie his wrists to the bars; there’s a loud tearing sound as one of them rips the back of his shirt open.

  No, no.

  Boyne pulls something from his belt, and I drop Valentina’s hand and move closer to Des’s cell to see better. Illustrations from a book flash through my memory, a book that I’d read in hopes of persuading Tam not to become a pirate, a book about punishment and torture methods used in prisons. A short rod with fraying strips of leather coming out of one end: the cat. Originally used by sea captains to punish rebellious crew, or plantation owners their disobedient slaves. I read the accounts, marked drawings to show to Tam, studied the materials used to make the devices. But to see one in Boyne’s hand, to know that it’s meant for Des … it seems surreal. The leather pieces are barbed with shiny metal spikes, glinting like Curram’s smile.

  “Would you like to do the honors?” he asks in a syrupy voice, taking the vicious instrument from Boyne and holding it out to Robbie, of all people. “We owe you something for the tip.”

  No.

  I’m going to be sick.

  Our jailer saunters forward, giving Curram a little bow and taking the outstretched weapon. His mouth twists into a crooked, awful smile, and he flashes me a pointed look. If I were in love with Des as he thinks, I couldn’t hate him any more than I do now.

  Robbie draws back the cat.

  I close my eyes.

  I hear the snapping sound anyway, the straps striking Des’s bare skin, the cries he tries to keep to himself. I have to look, I have to see his face. But the angle is awkward; I can’t find his eyes, and he doesn’t look at me. He just puffs out his cheeks, gasping and writhing, trying not to cry out.

  Another stroke. Another. Still Des won’t scream. Tears stream down his cheeks and he holds his eyes shut, but the blows don’t stop. The constant smack of the cat becomes a terrible rhythm, echoed each time by Des’s moans. His back must be a bloody mess by now. Robbie pauses only to swipe the hair from his face with a sweaty hand, then he grits his teeth and goes again, and again. I turn to look at Curram instead. His face shows relaxed satisfaction, and my blood turns to fire. I will kill him, I will kill him. I only realize I’m gripping the bars when my hands feel like th
ey’re burning and the brand begins to throb.

  I wish Curram would stand closer to the grating. I wish I were stronger.

  I don’t count the number of lashes. Are they trying to kill him? Des’s body sags slightly; he’s lost the strength to stand on his own, and he hangs by the straps about his wrists. Blood and saliva drip from his mouth, down his chin.

  Beside me, Valentina is sobbing. The other girls wrap their arms around each other, and I’m vaguely aware of someone murmuring comfortingly as a few of them cry. I glance at Phoebe, but she stares at nothing, her expression empty, her eyes downcast. With each blow, we flinch as one.

  The lashes finally cease. Robbie takes a step backward, wiping his mouth on his sleeve. “Will that be all, sir?” he asks his employer. Curram watches Des for a moment, then steps forward and peers at his face.

  “He’ll take a few more,” he says dismissively.

  “No!”

  Valentina’s voice is anguished and pitiful. It echoes off the stone walls and iron bars, and everyone turns to look at her. “Ple-ease,” she sobs, wringing her hands against the grating. “J-j-just leave him, please.” Curram takes a step toward her.

  “No,” rasps Des. He tries to look at Valentina, but his eyes won’t focus. “Val, don’t.” He tries to shake his head at her and winces.

  “Put him in his cell,” Curram says suddenly, glancing between the two of them. The men obey, untying Des’s wrists and unlocking the door. They thrust him inside, where he collapses, his back dark with blood.

  I press myself close to his cell as if I can squeeze through the bars, wishing I could help, frantically trying to recall everything I know about medicine and nursing. There’s nothing I can do for the pain. If he passes out, I could tear my skirt up to make bandages, but getting them around the wounds will be a feat.

  “Unlock the door,” says Curram, stealing my attention. He smiles slowly, glancing between his slave and his prisoner. Val doesn’t move from where she stands trembling, and Curram’s smile grows at Des’s alarm. “I’ll take this one to my room.”