Page 76 of Only the Small Bones
Our eyes snapped to the ceiling at the sound of footsteps, none of our breaths were quiet now.
The metal door up ahead screeched open, two large men dressed in dark clothes and boots stepped through. I looked at the little boy again. A wet stain was spreading over the front of his khaki pants.
The woman from the park entered the basement next. I had to tense up hard to keep from peeing on myself too.
She’d worn a flowery dress earlier while reading a book on a bench, and her long blonde hair had been pinned back by yellow clips. She looked nothing like that now. She wore all black.
The men looked us over. The girls drew in closer to each other, and without realizing it, I’d moved closer to the little boy too. The lady watched it all.
I didn’t know what was going on, didn’t understand why I’d been kidnapped.
They stopped near the girls first, one man crouching to brush strands of hair away from one of the girls faces. She shrank away, her friends doing the same.
They turned to me and the whimpering little boy next, their faces contorting at the sight of pee on him. The boy cried so hard I worried he’d suffocate if the tape didn’t get removed. I wished I could distract them from him, even though I was crying too.
I couldn’t scream for help, I couldn’t fight, I could hardly breathe. I wondered if my mother was looking for me. I prayed to God, begging him to help us.
“Children are difficult,” the dark-haired man said in a thick accent I’d never heard before. The lady looked between me and the boy, taking in how close to each other we were sitting. Her cruel smile returned.
“Not when they have an incentive to behave.”
“There’s a market for young Americans abroad.” She clasped her hands behind her back. “But there’s an even bigger market for young American boys.”
The men took another look at us.
“Trust me. Have I ever steered you wrong?”
The men seemed to have a silent conversation with each other, because the taller one sighed before going to the far side of the basement to make a call. I couldn’t hear what he said into the phone, but he kept staring over at me and the boy as he talked. The girls were quiet as mice, probably hoping they’d been forgotten about.
“We’ll take him,” he said when he strolled back over, flicking his wrist toward me. I shook my head frantically, tugging at my restraints. My trapped shout made my throat burn. “And him,” he said next, gesturing to the little boy who began shaking in terror.
“And them,” he added, pointing to the two youngest looking girls. The space erupted with our muted screams and thrashing.
“Get them ready while we arrange payment and transport,” the other man said to the lady. She nodded, escorting them through the door while I went back to my prayers.
The four of us were on the move again, and I wondered what would happen to the girls the men didn’t want.
We were in the back of a smaller truck now, speeding down a quiet road. They’d removed the tape from our mouths, so I assumed we were passing through a deserted area where our screams wouldn’t be heard.
I wasn’t sure how long I’d been missing for. What if I’d been unconscious for days before waking inside that basement? I was thirsty enough for that to be true. The bottled waters they’d tossed into the truck with us hadn’t done much to quench my thirst. One of the girls whispered something about the drugs they’d injected us with dehydrating us. Her mom was a doctor, she’d said.
I hadn’t touched my bread roll. The queasy feeling in my stomach made it hard to eat.
It was dark out now, the air too cool for a Brooklyn summer night, and somewhere in the distance an animal howled.
They’d swapped the ropes on our wrists for cuffs. A second set at the end of a chain locked our ankles together. The girls were shaking against each other in one corner, and the little boy sat with his knees to his chest close to me. He smelled like pee, but that was the least of our problems.
I struggled to my feet. The loud metallic sound of my chains caused everyone to look at me with wide eyes. Pushing to the tips of my toes—nearly falling when the truck turned a corner—I strained to get a look through the metal grille letting air in. I wasn’t tall enough to see anything below the mountain peak under the moonlit sky.
Mountains.No wonder the temperature felt cooler.
They were all looking at me when I sat back down. I shook my head. “I don’t know where we are,” I whispered. I could’vementioned the mountains, but I felt too sad to speak. What would it have mattered anyway?
I picked up my bread for something to do other than cry. I spun it around in my hands, noticing the boy scoot even closer. His watery eyes moved from me to the roll of bread in my hands. I held it out to him.
He snatched it from me, his hunger making him impatient. He took a couple of bites before he slowed down, hardly chewing before swallowing. Turning red, he looked down at the half eaten roll then back to me.
“I’m not hungry,” I said, closing my eyes and dropping my chin to my chest. Something bumped against my chained hands, and I opened my eyes to see a corner of the bread resting in my lap.
