Nowhere But Here

He has been an ass, but he’s also saved me so instead of answering immediately, I look at him. Oz wears a black T-shirt with the word Conflict scrawled in some fancy script. His jeans are loose and he sports the same black studded belt from yesterday. His arms are chiseled like he works out often and he keeps a hand near the knife at his side. Oz shifts as if he’s uncomfortable.

“I don’t know you,” I finally answer.

Oz blinks like I said something profound, then returns his gaze to the east and appears to choose to ignore the past few exchanges. “You can go to sleep if you want. The window to that spare bedroom behind you is open. You can crawl in since you have an issue with doors.”

“Why were those guys at my motel?”

“The bed, Emily. Do you want it or not?”

Like Cyrus earlier, he’s not going to answer. The bed is tempting, but... “No, thank you. I’m going to wait for my parents and then I’ll go to sleep.”

“They’re safe,” Oz says, and I choose to believe him because the hollowness that happens inside me at the thought of any other option is too harsh to bear.

“You could be kidnapping me and trying to do that thing where I grow to love my captors. I’ve seen it on TV before.”

“You caught us. We knew you were going to walk out of the motel at three in the morning and we created this situation to freak you out into loving us. That’s how fucked up we are.”

“Why were you there?”

“Maybe I was using a room.”

I flat-out frown at the thought and I don’t understand why. My fingers tap my thigh and the picture in my hand moves. I seriously hate Oz and Olivia, and I shouldn’t hate Olivia, because she’s dying. “How far along is Olivia’s cancer?”

“Too far.” His voice is why-the-hell-did-you-bring-that-up clipped and I try to pretend I don’t exist.

The chatter of bullfrogs, crickets and the wind. It’s what’s between us. That and the fact I asked about Olivia’s health.

“I promise if you go to sleep, nothing bad will happen to you,” Oz offers.

That’s where he’s wrong. If I go to sleep, I can’t stop the worst from occurring. Staying awake is the only way I can chase the nightmares away. I am, like I was for twelve hours when I was eight, left to fend for myself. I shiver with the memory.

A light breeze dances across the yard and the picture Olivia gave me drops to the wooden porch. Oz leans forward faster than me, swipes it up, then pauses. After a second, he hands me the photo and I shove it into my pocket.

“Where’d you get that?” he asks.

“Olivia.”

He’s silent and he’s watching me and I despise the expression that tells me he sees things and knows things he shouldn’t. “Don’t tell Eli Olivia gave you that.”

“Why?”

“How far down this rabbit hole do you want to go?”

I don’t want to even be in the same state as the hole. “Can we just watch the sunrise?”

“I mean it,” he says. “You’ve already caused this family a world of hurt. If you tell Eli she gave you this, it’ll end badly for Olivia.”

Anger wells up inside me to the point I feel like a volcano. Olivia, Olivia, Olivia. I am so sick of him mentioning Olivia. “Well, I guess your precious Olivia is safe because besides having this picture I don’t know anything!”

“Good,” he snaps.

“Good,” I shout back.

“Great!”

“Can we watch the freaking sunrise?” I seethe.

“That we can do.”

A rumble of engines from the road and my heart kicks into high gear. Thank God, this is over. I jump to my feet and race to the front steps. Six motorcycles growl into the clearing. All the riders appear the same: big men wearing black leather Reign of Terror vests.

Four of them break from the pack and head to an overly large garage on the other side of the yard. The other two park along the edge of the driveway. With their backs to the light, their faces are blacked out by shadow.

My fingers twist and untwist together as I strain to hear another engine—a more familiar one, one belonging to a car, but as each bike shuts down, I experience a loneliness in the silence.

There’s movement near me and sound...but not the sound I long to hear. The clink of men swinging off their bikes. Oz’s boots thumping on the wood to be closer to me. The squeak of the door opening behind me. Even the coolness of the morning tries to steal my attention from the road, but I won’t look away. They’re coming for me. My parents are coming for me.

“I thought you’d be asleep,” Eli says at the bottom of the stairs.

“I’m not.” A cloud moves and a ray of dull early-morning light strikes the road. No car. No hum of a smooth engine. No crackle of rocks under a tire. “How far behind are my mom and dad?”

Eli walks up the stairs and puts a firm hand on my arm. “They’re not coming, Emily.”

My words haunt me: You could be kidnapping me... Eli’s still talking. At least I believe he is, but all I hear is a low-pitched roar. They’re not coming. They’re not coming...

I spin, because if I do, then I’ll see something else. Hear something else. But I only see Oz. He lowers his head so that his hair hides his eyes. The roar is replaced by a high-pitched ringing and it grows louder and louder, drowning everything out. Almost everything. I can clearly hear the scream inside my head.

I spin again, but then think oddly how my feet didn’t move and how they are perfectly cemented to the ground and yet the world is twirling.

Twirling.

The last stars in the sky are twirling.

Heat creeps along my hairline while a cold clamminess claims my neck.

“Emily?” Eli’s voice breaks through the chaos. “Emily, are you okay?”

For a second, I’m weightless. Like if I was to stand on my tiptoes I could lift into the air and fly, but then a sharp tilt causes the wooden floor to rush toward my face.

The world goes dark.

Oz (#ulink_7629eb9c-e9d6-50f1-a6e7-5e60a8b40147)

WIND BLOWS IN from the north and a few pieces of Emily’s dark hair sweep across her face. One minute Emily’s a bright flame, then a gust snuffs out her light. Her body sways like a top at the tail end of a spin and I lunge forward.

Emily’s knees give out and her eyes roll back into her head. I catch her inches before she crashes onto the porch. She’s light as I swing her into my arms and her head circles onto my shoulder, reminding me of one of those rag dolls Violet used to play with when we were kids.

“Emily!” Eli’s on top of me, attempting to yank her out of my arms. “Open your eyes.”