Page 77 of Only the Small Bones
“If you don’t eat your blood sugar will drop,” he whispered.
“Is your mom a doctor too?”
“No, my mom played the violin.” The mention of an instrument made the back of eyes sting, but I forced down a piece of the bread.
“What’s your name?” I asked a short while later, tired of referring to him in my head as “the little boy.”
“Asher Gray,” he breathed, his eyelids drooping. They popped open again when we hit another bump. “What’s your name?”
“Malcolm.” I thought about my grandpa, who called me Mally for short. I wondered how he’d handled the news of my disappearance. He and my mother would’ve been at the police precinct raising hell by now.
“Malcolm?” Asher called in a tiny voice. Leaving thoughts of my family behind, I stared into his puppy dog eyes.
“Yeah?”
“Are we gonna die?” He watched me like I had all the answers, like he’d believe whatever I believed. He needed hope,but I didn’t feel all that hopeful. Maybe I could pretend to be for him, though.
“No,” I said. “We’re not going to die.”
Asher yawned, resting his head against the wall of the truck, falling asleep. The girls were sleeping too, their arms and legs twitching.
I brought Asher’s head to my good shoulder, and he stretched out his legs, settling into my side. I woke sometime later to the sound of the ocean, and sunlight pouring into the truck.
Two men I’d never seen before forced us onto a cargo ship, shoving us past rows of stacked containers before dragging us—kicking and screaming—down a set of stairs.
“Let us go!” I yelled while Asher cried hysterically. I heard the girls shouting for help, but I could no longer see them.
The two men dumped us into a room, ignoring our pleas to go home, then a third man stepped in. He was smaller than the other two, but seemed more important. The two men who’d hauled us in flanked him.
The suit he wore hid his muscles, but I could see the shape of them through his black jacket. I panted from where I’d been tossed to the floor. Asher scurried over to me, gripping my shirt, trembling.
“We’ll take the chains off if you promise to behave,” the third man said from behind dark sunglasses. The tattooed wing of a bird peeked out from the collar of his shirt. “Make me regret it, and I’ll punish you both.”
Asher whimpered, burying his face in my shoulder. One of the men stepped forward with a small key, removing the cuffs from Asher first before moving on to me with a warning glare.
“W-where are you taking us?” I stammered, rubbing my sore wrists. “Why won’t you let us go?” I hated that Asher had to see me that way. I got to my knees. “M-my mom will give you money. We have a lot of it,” I lied.
The man in the suit turned for the door, signaling for the other men to follow him out. The sound of a bolt sliding into place made me flinch. I sank to the floor, a hand to my stomach as I tried not to puke.
“I have to use the bathroom,” Asher panted, still wearing his stained khakis.
A few minutes later the door opened again. The two men returned, one carrying two pails of water and washcloths, the other a bucket and a roll of toilet paper. They set everything down before locking us in again.
Asher was too busy crying into his hands to notice me doing the same. I let my tears flow quietly, letting my fear get the best of me.
Drying my eyes with my filthy shirt, I scanned the tiny room. Two sleeping bags, a lantern, and a small stack of clothes rested in a corner. For now, sunlight filtered in from a small porthole too high for me to see through, but the lantern would come in handy at night.
My body grew heavy as I became more afraid. Where were they taking us? I turned back to Asher to find him sniffling, staring at me through swollen eyes.
“W-what do we do now?” he asked.
“Let’s, uh,” I glanced at the bucket and pails of water, “get cleaned up. My mom says feeling refreshed helps sometimes.” It never worked for me, but he didn’t need to know that.
Taking a deep breath, Asher pushed his hair from his sweaty face and wobbled to his feet. He stared at the bucket and pails, and I thought he might cry again.
“We’re going to get out of this.” I rested a hand on his shoulder. “We’ll make it back home.”
Asher’s bottom lip quivered. “I don’t have a home.” He took cautious steps over to the bucket, and I moved to the opposite side of the room, facing away from him. What did he mean he didn’t have a home? Did he mean he lived in an apartment? I did too, but I still called it home. It was where I felt safest, where the two people I loved most loved me back. It didn’t need to be an actual house to be called a home.
