Ten Thousand Skies Above You
Page 44

He raises one eyebrow, just like Mr. Spock—one of his favorite characters. If the situation were any less dire, I’d have to laugh. “You don’t have the necessary information to make a judgment.”
A thousand memories of Paul flip through my mind: making lasagna together the night before Thanksgiving, riding in a submarine in an entirely new world, kissing in the train station, listening to music in the car as we drove to Muir Woods, simply holding each other in his dorm room and feeling the rise and fall of his breath beneath my hands.
That Paul is within this one.
“I know enough,” I say.
Paul studies me a moment longer, then breaks the connection between us as he turns away. “You have the necessities. And—like I said—let us know if you need another blanket.”
Even now he’s trying to shelter me. “Okay.”
“The door overhead will be padlocked. No one outside this building will be able to hear you, regardless of what you do. I argued that you should be given a cot, even when the others pointed out that you could break it down and use the pieces as weapons against anyone who comes into this room. If you’re considering that plan of action, don’t. It will be futile, because others will be outside, ready to stop you through any means necessary. Then you won’t be able to keep the cot any longer. Have I made the conditions of your stay clear?”
My stay. Like I’m at the Hilton. “Crystal.”
Paul hesitates a moment longer—like he thinks I haven’t really understood, or that I’m not taking it seriously. I don’t know how he can think that; somebody got shot to death while standing about three feet from me, less than an hour ago.
What he senses—what he knows, I think—is that I’m not afraid of him.
Paul says nothing else, simply nods as he heads up the concrete steps.
The door thudding shut ought to sound ominous; instead, when I hear it, I smile. I can smile because I know something the others don’t, something Paul himself doesn’t know yet.
Paul can’t stand not understanding why something happens. It doesn’t matter whether that’s some freak behavior of subatomic particles in an experiment or people laughing at a joke he doesn’t get; it drives him nuts. He responds to uncertainty by charging at it, determined to force the mysterious to make sense. This tendency of his can be frustrating—Paul wants people to behave logically, at least most of the time, and there’s no way to get him to accept that they just don’t. But it’s also one of the reasons he’s such an amazing scientist at an age most people are still picking a major. The easy explanation is never enough for Paul.
Right now, he’s asking himself why I’m so sure he won’t hurt me. Why I trust someone I met while I was duct-taped to a chair. Obviously he can’t begin to guess the real answer.
Paul will want to talk. I can prove that I know him like nobody else ever has, or ever will. If I can win him over enough to untie my hands, while we’re in here alone together—then I’ve saved the next part of my Paul’s soul.
As I lie on this cot, I have no way of knowing how much time has passed. Forget a phone or a clock—I don’t even have sunlight to go by, if the sun has come up yet, which I doubt. So maybe an hour passes, or maybe three do; it doesn’t make any difference. I just have to stay here, studying my makeshift cell and waiting for a chance to talk with Paul again.
My surroundings don’t give me much to work with. The room probably measures about ten by ten. Walls: unpainted cinder blocks. Ceiling: not sure, but whatever it is, it’s solid—forget any removable panels or inviting air ducts. Floor: concrete, no drain, which is a good sign I wouldn’t have known to look for yesterday. I’m lying on a sky-blue comforter, which was nice once but has seen wear; something about the cozy fabric plus the hard use makes me think this blanket belonged to a child, long ago. Who takes a blanket from their kid’s bed and uses it when they’re kidnapping someone? How can anybody be that schizo? I can’t understand it. Add another entry to the extremely long list of reasons why I would make a bad mobster.
The eerie quiet is the worst part. This blank, cold room could stand in for a sensory-deprivation chamber. Once I didn’t understand how solitary confinement could drive prisoners insane, but when I try to imagine being in a place like this for months or years, I see how it could happen.
But nobody comes down to harm me. Except for my wrists, I’m in no pain. I tell myself it’s not so bad.
(So far, the worst part was I had to use the bucket once, which was about as gross as you’d imagine. At least the Russian mafia politely provided a lid.)
Honestly, I’m probably doing better than my parents right now. I close my eyes tightly, thinking about how scared they must be. Their only comfort must be Wyatt’s reward offer.
But I can’t rely on Wyatt Conley’s “good heart.” Yeah, it looks like he loves Josie in this universe, but that doesn’t change the fact that he’s corrupt to the core. If anyone could be callous enough to screw around with a ransom for my life, it’s him. Maybe he’s trying to get the Russian mob to give him a discount.
Some sense of time returns when the padlock clatters against my door. I sit upright as the door swings open. The hair on my scalp prickles in fear when I hear the heavy tread on the stairs. Within moments I realize something very good—they’re bringing me food—and something very bad—Paul’s not the one bringing it.
One of the ski-mask guys carries a paper sack and a plastic bottle of Sprite. From the paper sack he pulls out a damp-looking sandwich that has probably been Saran Wrapped for at least a couple of days, and a small bag of ranch-flavor potato chips. I hate ranch flavor, but right now? I can’t wait to stuff the chips in my face as fast as possible.
“Can you take this off?” I say to Masked Guy, holding up my zip-tied wrists.
He laughs. “You want food badly enough, you can eat it with those on.” Then, perhaps reconsidering, he leans down and opens the Sprite bottle for me. Thanks, Mr. Hospitality.
I start working on the bag of chips. Masked Guy just stands there, staring at me. Probably he’s watching to make sure I don’t do something brave/stupid, but I’m reminded how much I’m at their mercy. Paul is only one man in what appears to be a very large, very ruthless organization. He would protect me, but with all the others, I have no guarantees.
Then I hear Paul’s voice from above, loud, and in proper Russian I understand, “Stop wasting time down there. Come back.”
Masked Guy huffs. I don’t need any background knowledge to know exactly what he’s thinking: The boss’s kid thinks he can order me around? Snot-nosed brat! But he doesn’t dare defy Leonid’s son.
For the first time, though, I realize that Paul can’t be with me every second. What do I do if someone escalates this? What if someone is on the verge of raping me, or torturing me? As long as Leonid’s in charge, if Paul were gone for some period of time—that could happen. Could I really bear that for this world’s Marguerite?
I’d like to think I wouldn’t abandon her here no matter what. But even if I wanted to leave her behind and get out of this universe, at least for a while, I couldn’t. While I can touch the Firebirds with my hands bound, even kind of get my fingers around one, I just don’t have enough flexibility to work the controls. So there’s no getting out of this one, no matter what.