Page 87 of Only the Small Bones
Even with everything going on in my head, I thought I’d been doing a good job at keeping track of the days. Either I was off, or we’d docked earlier than the man in the suit said we would.
“Time to go,” Declan barked, storming into our room and tossing our shoes at us. Asher startled awake, yelping when one of his shoes hit him on the shoulder.
“W-where are we going?” I asked, slipping my shoes on after telling Asher to put his on.
“No questions, now turn around.”
It was still dark out, but through the porthole I spotted a hint of light in the distance. The sun would be up soon.
Declan yanked on us until we stood side by side facing away from him. I took Asher’s hand as he started to cry. I wanted to hit Declan, to give him a matching scar on his other cheek, but the last time I did something stupid, they took Asher away from me.
Declan jerked our hands apart, first tying my wrists behind my back, then Asher’s. “It’s okay,” I whispered to Asher, but I couldn’t control the trembling in my body.
The whole ship sounded alive, orders were being shouted, and footsteps sounded from every direction. Asher and I were gagged next, and I nodded at him, trying to reassure him with my eyes when I couldn’t with my words.
Young men and women were being herded above deck. It hadn’t been just the four of us held prisoner on this ship. There were at least twelve more.
“Move it,” Declan ordered from behind us when I froze. Asher and I started walking again, faster this time as I searched the new faces for the two girls who’d been in that basement with us.
The morning air was cool, and I almost tripped over a crate as we hurried to keep up with the small crowd ahead of us. Declan continued to shove at our shoulders impatiently.
There were other boats docked along the port, and a huge warehouse and crane up ahead. We were the only ones around, though, and it felt like we were hurrying to make sure it stayed that way.
The sky began to brighten as the ramp was lowered and more orders were yelled. Two men appeared, each carrying one end of a body bag. I’d seen enough of them lined up behind caution tape in my neighborhood to recognize them now. Two more men appeared carrying another one. I remembered something the man in the suit said.
“You’ve already cost us two packages.”
I looked around again and still didn’t spot the girls. I became dizzy, the voices filling my ears, the visions I’d started having last night popping up in front of me. Asher bumping into me snapped me out of it, and I continued to keep pace with everyone else.
Nothing looked or felt familiar to me, and the signs along the dock were all written in symbols. I dry heaved behind the cloth covering my mouth.
“Round that group up and load them in there,” Declan told a tall, skinny man once we’d cleared the walkway. The man nodded, grabbing two young girls I’d never seen before and shoved them into a truck that already had a driver seated. A few other men dragged more girls that way.
“You two go in here,” Declan said, forcing us into a box truck with images of fruits and vegetables on the sides of it. Asher and I hurried into a corner and crouched down together. Men rushed over, stocking it with crates to hide us, then Declan rolled down the door, locking it.
Asher and I stared at each other as the engine started up and the truck began to move at high speed. We fell to our butts, and one of the crates nearly toppled over on us. I pushed myself up quickly, using my shoulder to keep it steady. Doing so must have caught the knot Declan made on the rope tying my wrists, because it loosened a fraction.
I sat back down, twisting my hands until my wrists felt like they were on fire, until I got one of them free. I tugged down the cloth tied over my mouth, then pulled Asher’s from between his teeth too.
“See,” he whispered through his tears, “you are a Small Bone.”
“Yeah, I guess I am.” I didn’t tell him it wasn’t the size of my wrists that helped me, but Declan’s poor knotting skills. “I’m going to loosen your rope, and then cover our mouths again. We have to pretend we can’t get out of them, then when the time is right, we run as fast as we can.”
Asher didn’t like the sound of that idea. “B-but what if we get caught again? W-we s-should just wait for Gargantuan.” He hadn’t said his superheroes’ name with much faith this time. It was more of a desperate plea for me to not get us taken away from each other again.
“We have to try,” I said, feeling my blood pulse in my veins. “This might be our only chance.”
“But y-you said you wouldn’t try anything. You promised the man with the glasses.” His body shook with his quiet sobs. The truck turned sharply, slamming us into the corner we were in.
“I have a bad feeling,” I said in a hushed tone, letting my fear slip free in front of him. Asher either hadn’t seen the bags holding the dead bodies, or he was too young to understand what they were. “We go together,” I reminded him of our pact. “Malcolm and Asher forever.”
Asher nodded, tears sliding down his cheeks as I fixed the cloth back over his mouth. I loosened his ropes, then slipped back into mine. We sat with our heads pressed together, my mind feeling like a strand of loose thread unraveling.
The crates went blurry in the truck, and suddenly I was looking into the watery eyes of my mother. “Momma?” I mumbled behind the damp cloth, straightening and squinting. She mouthed something, but I couldn’t hear her. Her body took on a more solid shape then, her voice louder.
“Come home, Malcolm,” she cried, and my heart pounded.
“Momma,” I repeated. My grandpa showed up next, his coughing rag in his hand. He didn’t look so good.
