Page 18 of Our Last Resort

We felt around. A hand brushed against my nose. The boy, already, was all limbs.

“Sorry,” he said.

“It’s okay.”

In the dark, a hand grabbed mine. Wrong side. I squeaked.

“Sorry,” the boy said again. “Did I hurt you?”

“It’s not you. It’s my arm. Something’s…wrong with it.”

He tried my other hand.

“This one’s fine.”

We searched for a resting position. You couldn’t sit in the Secret Place. There was no room. All you could do was crouch and feel your muscles pulling at your bones, your joints calcifying into place.

My shoulder pulsed. The pain was so bad I was shaking. When I tried to move my arm, it didn’t respond.

“I’m Frida,” I said through chattering teeth.

“Gabriel,” the boy said.

I nodded, then realized he couldn’t see me.

“Did he choose it?”

No need to specify who “he” was.

“Yep,” the boy muttered.

This wasn’t a surprise. It meant that the boy, like me—like all the kids I knew—had been born here. Only adults without children ever seemed to join. It was like it was too late for the others—once you’d built yourself a life with a house and a job and all those things people thought they needed, there was no more room left in your heart for Émile.

“First time?” the boy asked.

He meant first time here, in the Secret Place.

“Yeah,” I said. “You?”

“Same.”

The door opened.

“Please,” I said. “My arm—”

“I don’t want to hear it,” a mother said.

She thrust a hand inside the Secret Place. Something wet hit me, sending a fresh wave of pain down my right side. I grabbed my shoulder with a yelp and regretted it immediately.

“What the—”

The flashlight revealed the scene: two cups and a puddle of water on the floor.

“Look what you did!” the mother yelled.

She let out a sigh and shook her head, the flashlight casting shadows over her face.

“Seems like you need more time to reflect,” she said. Her tone was calmer then, almost sweet. “I’ll give you two some space.”

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