Finders Keepers (22 page)

           
“You can’t do this.
 
Taylor is my best friend.
 
If you’re really broken up, then I want to hear it from her.”

           
He narrowed his eyes.
 
“You don’t need to talk to Taylor.”

           
“Exactly.
 
Because Taylor has eyes.”
 
Taylor’s voice came from behind Manny.
 
His lean torso swiveled around.
 

           
“Don’t open your mouth
Manesh
Anand
.
 
I am sick to death of hearing your lies.”

           
Ellie opened her mouth but didn’t know what to say.
 
She promptly shut it again.
 
Taylor walked toward them and Manny straightened to his full height.
 
She looked from Manny to Ellie and back to Manny.

           
“You know we’ve been over almost from the beginning, Taylor,” he said.

           
Taylor’s usually porcelain face screwed up into an angry scowl.
 
“Uh huh.
 
That’s exactly what I was thinking when you kissed me this morning.”

           
Ellie gasped and shoved further away from Manny.
 
He reached for her but she batted his hand away and slid off the cushion seat.
 
It seemed like everyone she thought she knew, she didn’t, and with a punch to the stomach she realized she couldn’t spot the liars.
 
Her life was turning out to be the real live version of the reality show
Survivor
.
 
Both Manny and Taylor were blurry now.
 
Ellie’s throat burned and she stumbled her way toward her bedroom.

The sound pierced the walls of the house as if there were no walls.
 
By the time she made it to the front hall, she was the last to arrive and only got a glimpse of the red and blue flashing lights through all the people who clustered around the front door.
 
Her father was the one to invite the round, bumbling officer who Ellie recognized from her night in the ER.
 
His face was flushed, his bald head shiny with sweat, and he spoke rapidly.
 
When he spotted Ellie, his voice rose to an even higher pitch and he waved his hands around for emphasis.
 

           
“What’s going on?” Ellie asked.

           
Taylor, who was closest, turned wide, fear-filled eyes on her.
 
She grabbed Ellie’s arm and said in a very low voice, “They picked up Gibbs and Sky on an anonymous tip, saying they were the ones behind your attack.”
 
Her fingers dug into Ellie’s skin.
 
“But the police cruiser was ambushed before they made it back to the station and the boys were both abducted from the car.
 
They are calling up all the local authorities and organizing a manhunt.”

           
Stunned, Ellie stood frozen in the hallway.
 
Then, without a word, she turned on her heel and headed back for her room.
 
Taylor hurried after her with Manny following behind.
 
Taylor slipped through Ellie’s door and then helped bar the opening against Manny.

           
“Don’t worry Elle-belle, they’ll catch them and everything will go back to normal,” he said through the small crack he held open with his foot.

           
“Catch them?
 
Why were they arrested in the first place?
 
There were no fingerprints.
 
No evidence.
 
No one else knew about their involvement except for Taylor.”
 

Taylor raised her hands in front of her and shook her head.
 
“Wasn’t me.”
 
Ellie glared at Manny.
 
“You did this, didn’t you?”
 

           
 
Manny’s face transformed and he pushed his upper body through the door .
 
“It’s called Stockholm Syndrome.
 
I did it because I care about you!”

           
Taylor shoved him back and Ellie slammed the door in his face.
 

           
In Ellie’s closet, Taylor rummaged through Ellie’s things.
 
She threw Ellie’s tennis shoes at her.
 
“I can’t go with you.
 
Someone has to stay and pretend you’re upset and won’t come out of your room.”
 
She looked up.
 
“You are going after them, aren’t you?”

           
Ellie wandered over to her bed and plopped down onto it.
 
“Were you telling the truth about Manny?”

           
The rummaging in Ellie’s closet stopped.
 
“Yes.
 
He’s not your forever, Elle.
 
I know how much you’ve idolized him…”
 
Taylor scooted completely out of Ellie’s closet and turned to face her head on.
 
“…but if a boy ever looked at me like the way Sky looks at you I wouldn’t even hesitate.”

           
Ellie slipped off the edge of the bed.
 
“I’m not hesitating.”

13

           
Luckily, Ellie’s window was significantly easier to climb out of than Sky’s had been.
 
It was a tall ground window and after removing the screen, she was able to step out without even so much as a scratch from the bush that grew in front of it.
 
If her hunch was correct, she wasn’t going to have to go further than her back yard.

           
 
There were six huge pine trees in her backyard.
 
The house had been built around them thirty years ago, and she remembered her dad guessing they were more than fifty years old.
 
He’d thought maybe as old as 70.
 
If there were a tunnel entrance underneath one of those pines, it would explain how and why Sky flew right into their sliding glass door.
 
The condition she’d found him in, she knew he couldn’t have flown for more than a few yards.
 
That fact had bothered her for quite some time after she’d taken him into her care.
 
How did his wing become partly disintegrated in their own yard?
 

           
Ellie crawled over the dried brown grass, her knees bruising on the frozen ground.
 
The low branches of the nearest tree brushed the top of Ellie’s head, pricking her scalp in several places.
 
She grimaced and ducked lower.
 
This would have been easier if she’d allowed herself a light.
 
Her good hand patted the ground feeling for the roots of the tree.
 
Several large hard lumps pressed into her palm, but aside from that and a few abrasive pine cones, there was nothing.
 
On her elbows, she army crawled over to the next trunk.
 
The kitchen light flicked on.
 
Her parents’ outlines were visible through the back door.
 
One of the trees was slightly lit from the glow of the house.
 
Bingo.
 

           
On her stomach she scrambled for that tree.
 
A thick, long tree root arched out of the ground near the base of the trunk.
 
Trembling, she slid her hand under it.
 
Her stomach dropped just as her hand did, right into the ground.
 

           
Unlike the other entrances, this one was significantly more primitive.
 
A wide crack in the earth dropped vertically into the ground.
 
The walls were close together and uneven, though the dirt was hard and compact.
 
Ellie only breathed slightly easier knowing that she wouldn’t be buried alive.
 
It had the same earth damp smell of the first tunnel she and Gibbs entered under the oak tree in the park.
 
Half-lodged into the sides were a variety of fist-sized rocks.
 
Other than that, it looked like a deep, dark pit of blackness.
 
Welcome to The Pit of Despair
.
 
Under any other circumstances, she might have giggled.
 
She wiggled around until her feet were over the hole and then she started to lower herself down.
 
She held onto the great big tree root, her sneakers scraping against the wall blindly searching for a foothold.
 
A toe bumped one of the rocks and she gingerly balanced the tip of her sneakers onto it.
 
Then her other foot found another rock and half her body was now inside the narrow opening.
 
She dug her teeth into her lip, let go of the tree root one hand at a time and continued her descent.
 

           
She moved slowly, deliberately, and clumsily.
 
Several times her foot slipped.
 
Fire spread through her left hand, but she didn’t loosen its grip on the rock even when her bandage turned sticky with blood.
 
The minutes
creeped
by.
 
Her back, upper arms, calves, and thighs screamed in agony.
 
One hand.
 
One foot.
 
The other hand.
 
Other foot.
 
Down into the abyss she continued.
 

           
Her arms started to shake.
 
She clung to the rocks, desperate, but her fingers still slipped.
 
And then she fell.
    

           
The free fall lasted a few terrifying seconds before the ground rose up to meet her.
 
She struck, bounced, and rolled several times.
 
When she finally came to a rest, her head pounded, her vision was blurred, and her right arm was pinned underneath her oddly.
 
With a massive effort, she picked herself up just enough to drag her arm out and straighten it.
 
It hurt like the dickens, but as it still moved, she didn’t think it was broken.
 
Ellie let her cheek rest against the cold, hard dirt and ignored the grit and small pebbles that dug into her skin.
 

Doubt flooded her now.
 
What was she doing down here in the cold, damp, and dark…again.
 
It’s true she would have come for Sky, regardless of anything else.
 
She protected him once, and she would do it again.
 
But when Taylor had said she wouldn’t hesitate, it wasn’t Sky Ellie had been thinking of.
 
What if she were as wrong about Gibbs as she was about Manny?
 
Ellie hoisted herself up onto her elbows and looked up.
 
She sensed the tunnel above her more than saw it.
 
There was no way she’d be able to go back that way.
 
She either had to find another way out, or freeze to death where she lay.
 
Her fingers were already cold and numb.
 
Why hadn’t she thought to put on Sky’s pink gloves?
 
Groaning, she picked herself up steeling her body as well as her mind.
 
She reached out and felt for a wall, then started following it in the direction she thought the park was in relation to her house.
 

Ellie inched along the wall, one arm outstretched before her, and one directly on the wall for balance.
 
The way went on and on and on.
 
A scrabbling sound echoed behind her.
 
It’s nothing
.
 
But her stomach dropped and her heart picked up in speed.
 
She continued even more cautiously and quietly until she heard it again.
 
She stopped and held her breath.
 
It was like footsteps, except not linear—almost as if the sound was walking up and down the walls toward her as well as following directly behind.
 
And it was getting louder and closer.
 
The image of a goblin crawling the walls like a giant spider flashed through her mind.
 
Ellie dropped her hands and ran.

Almost immediately she tripped.
 
Her hands flew out in front of her and she stumbled, but caught herself just before her hands and knees skidded across the floor of the tunnel.
 
She picked her feet up higher and continued running.
 
Besides her own heavy breathing and thudding footfalls, she could hear nothing in front of or behind her.
 
A stitch stabbed her in the side and Ellie doubled over, letting her mad sprint slow significantly.
 
Her shoulder scraped against the wall beside her.
 
And then she saw it--a light flickering in the distance.
 
Then two.
 
Fighting the spasm in her side, she pumped her arms.
 

“Holy crap,” Taylor’s breathless voice huffed behind her.
 
“If I knew you could run like that, I would have forced you to try out for track two years ago!”

  
Ellie spun around.
 
Even in the dark she could see elongated black tubes where eyes should have been staring back at her.
 
She screamed and continued to scream even after Taylor slapped a hand over her mouth.
 
Using the hand not glued to Ellie’s face, Taylor yanked the strap at the back of her head and released the contraption, pulling it free from her face.
 
“They’re just night vision goggles, Ellie.
 
My dad’s latest and greatest.
 
He’s going to blow a fuse when he finds them missing.”

When oxygen finally returned to her lungs, Ellie hugged Taylor hard.
 
“I thought you were staying behind to cover for me.”

Taylor hooked her arm through Ellie’s.
 
“It became dull after about five minutes.”

The girls giggled together, although Ellie’s laughter was forced.
 
She was between freaking out on Taylor’s behalf and selfishly feeling very relieved that she wasn’t sneaking into goblin territory on her own anymore.
 

They followed their noses.
 
It wasn’t much of a plan, but Ellie’s sense of direction was sketchy at best (she frequently got lost at the mall), and she remembered only that Flora’s house was somewhere in the middle.
 
“Think Martha Stewart,” she told Taylor as they sneaked in between houses heading toward the center as if the cave were a giant bulls-eye.
 
Not sure whether to avoid the light or the shadows, they did a little of both, Ellie leading most of the time until the blackness
 
became so oppressive that Taylor would temporarily step in front.
 

“Peanut butter cookies” Ellie said at the same time Taylor murmured, “
Mmm
…cookies.”
 
Taylor skipped ahead of Ellie before Ellie could stop her, leading her between two closely built houses.
 
They emerged right across the street from Flora’s atypical cheery front porch, complete with a cornucopia, and directly into a trap.

The trap wasn’t for them, but they walked into it just the same.
 
Flora was the one being coaxed out of the front door with pleas that her sons were in trouble.
 
Lola’s silvery blonde hair was illuminated by the crack of candlelight escaping the door.
 
Like a deer in headlights, Taylor froze in the middle of the street as soon as she realized there were bodies in the shadows surrounding the house.
 
Ellie ran after her and then smacked into the back of Taylor when she abruptly stopped.
 
The light from the windows was enough that Ellie could suddenly see a dozen or so flashing green and yellow and one pair of red eyes.
 

The outcry from the front door snapped Ellie back into the moment.
 
She didn’t think.
 
She just darted forward and launched herself at Lola, barely escaping the swarm which descended on Taylor.
 
Using her shoulder as a battering ram, Ellie pummeled right into Lola, knocking her away from the door and breaking the clasp she had on Flora’s wrist.
 
“Run!”
 
Ellie saw Flora’s wide, frightened green eyes flicker understanding just before she slammed the door shut.
 
With the speed and agility of an Olympic gymnast, Lola flipped over Ellie and pinned her down.
 
And then an explosion in Ellie’s head made the darkness even darker and she couldn’t see any more.

The constant, dull throb which beat in time with her pulse was her first sensation of still being alive.
 
Her head felt so heavy.
 
Her eyes opened first and she realized she lay on her side, her cheek molded onto a scratchy Persian rug.
 
The geometric design moved around in front of her like a game of
tetris
.
 
A boot came into focus next, which was connected to a leg.
 
Ellie’s self-preservation instincts kicked in and she frantically scrambled to sit up.
 
She cringed when the boot shifted, half-expecting to be kicked back down.
 

“What I would like to know is how a pretty, little human girl like you got involved in all this treachery.”
 
The tone was just like her father’s when he lectured her.
 
Ellie gulped.
 
The man appeared as if he’d just walked out of a storybook.
 
His clothes were immaculate, but old-fashioned.
 
He wore a tunic over leather jerkins, and knee high boots.
 
His hair hung in long, silvery blonde sheets down past his shoulders, with just the top part tied back revealing long pointy ears.
 
He was younger than her father, but in his middle years.
 
Whatever that meant for a goblin.
 
He could be nine hundred years old for all she knew.