Page 56 of One Cry Too Loud
The door flung open, and there-sitting with her knees curled up to her chest and with a thick silver ring wrapped around her neck, was Cindy. She wasn’t in some nondescript set of storage buildings miles away from us. She was right here. We had finally found her.
I rushed into the shed. I heard Holly’s screams rung out behind me and a flurry of footsteps, scrambling in the same direction I was. I didn’t need to turn around and look to know that Kat, Holly, and very likely Joe were following me into the three hundred square foot box.
The little girl looked up at me. She narrowed her eyes and tilted her head. She didn’t look afraid. In fact, she looked more delighted than anything else. I slid toward her, falling on my knees as I looked her over.
“Are you part of the game?” She asked. She didn’t have the English accent that so heavily painted both her parents’ words. In fact, she sounded more like Kat. That made sense. After all, both of them had grown up in Florida.
I looked her up and down. She didn’t seem to be hurt, and I could tell from the infliction in her words and the way she smiled as she looked at me that she wasn’t in any pain. So all that was left was to look at the thick silver band around her neck. It covered her tiny neck in full, locking with hinges that didn’t seem to have any sort of release mechanism. On the front therewas a little screen. I knew what this was. With sickening clarity, I understood what I was looking at. Duncan might have lied about where Cindy was being held, but he was lying about the bomb. It was right here, and it was strapped to that child’s neck.
“There we go,” Duncan said. Looking back at him, I could see him and Caroline standing on the other side of the doorway. “Now the endgame begins.”
And, with that, he slammed the door of the shed shut. I heard a twist and a red light illuminated atop the door. I didn’t need to be told we were locked in here. I knew it. Just like with the vault back in the United States, Nefarious had trapped us all again.
CHAPTER 37
“Is that what I think it is, Jack?” Holly asked me. I looked back at the woman. Her eyes were wide and swimming with tears. She had her hands clasped over her mouth and her entire body was shaking. “Is that-”
“Part of the game,” I said, remembering what Cindy had asked me just a second ago. She didn’t know what was going on right now. The little girl had no idea how much danger she was in, and I intended to keep it that way. The last thing we needed was for this child to freak out about the fact that there was a bomb wrapped around her neck. “It’s part of the game, Holly. Cindy here is playing a game. Isn’t that right?”
“With my grandparents,” Cindy said. “I’ve never had grandparents before. This is kind of fun.” She looked past me. “Who are your friends? Do they know how to play?”
“This is Kat,” I said, motioning to the woman.
Kat knelt down beside the little girl. “I actually don’t know the rules, but I’m sure you can teach me.” Ever the professional, Kat didn’t let any of her nerves show as she spoke. She ran a hand through the little girl’s hair and gave her a slight smile.
“I’m sorry. I don’t know the rules,” Cindy replied. “My grandparents said they would tell me once everybody got here.” She looked past Kat. “Maybe your other friends know.”
“This is Holly and that’s Joe,” I said, motioning to the pair.
“Holly?” Cindy asked, smiling wide. “Grandma says my first mom’s name is Holiday, and that’s kind of like Holly.”
“Did she tell you a lot about your first mom, sweetpea?” Holly asked. “What kind of things did she tell you?”
“Just that my first mom got into some trouble and couldn’t keep me,” Cindy said. “She said that Holiday got confused and didn’t think she could give me to her mom. So, she gave me to somebody else instead, and that’s how I got the mom I grew up with. I had a dad once too, but he-” Her eyes flickered over to Joe. “Oh, hey. It’s you. You’re my dad.”
“You remember me?” Joe asked, his voice breaking.
“A little bit, but my mom still has a picture of you on the counter in her office,” Cindy said. “She said you got scared and left. What were you scared of?”
Joe blinked a few times and wiped a tear away from his face. “At this moment, I honestly can’t remember.”
“That’s okay,” Cindy said. “I get scared too. I guess it’s better not to remember something if it scares you too much.”
“You’re a very smart girl, Cindy,” I said. “Are you scared now?”
She shook her head, blonde curls-like Holly’s went flying. “No. I’m not scared of games. I like games.”
“How about this?” I asked, motioning to Holly. “Why don’t we let Holly look at that necklace you’re wearing? She’s gonna see if she can get it off, and you can really still while she does. It’s part of the game. How does that sound?”
“It sounds okay, but my grandpa says that the necklace can only come off when the game is over,” Cindy said. “I don’t know if I even want it to come off then. It’s really pretty.”
“It is really pretty,” I said, standing to meet Holly.
“I’m not an engineer, Jack,” she said nervously. “And I’m certainly not a ballistics expert.”
“You’re what we have,” I answered. “You’re the smartest person in here and the smartest person I know bar none. Do what you can.”
“And if I can’t?” She asked.
