Agent Martinez stands up, and Detective Jackson follows. Agent Martinez glances at Ember, then at me and says, “That’s all for now. I’ll be in contact if we have any further questions.”
“Mr. Martinez,” Ember calls to him as he begins to walk out of the room.
He turns to face her but doesn’t answer.
“Is it possible for me to have that photo of me as a child? I don’t have any photos. I don’t have anything.”
I am prepared to lunge for the man and rip the file with her photo right out of his hands if I have to, but luckily, he nods and hands it to her.
“Thank you,” she says as she stares down at the picture I’m sure she doesn’t truly even recognize.
My heart breaks for what Ember must be feeling. In a matter of hours, she has lost everything. She’s been told her mother, who she has feared her entire life, is dead. She’s also been told that the father she was forced to live with in captivity could now possibly be alive.
Her eyes remain on the photo as she says, “I’ve never been on a plane before.”
The number of firsts coming up for her are sure to be staggering. All I can do is try to help her muddle through them.
“Well, the good news is, my mother insisted on a private jet, so we won’t have to deal with all the crowds. It will be more comfortable too. We can have something to eat on the plane and get some sleep. You look tired.” I know I sure as hell am.
Finally breaking her gaze from the picture, she looks up at me with eyes that could tell a lifetime of horrific tales. “You called me your wife,” she says in a monotone voice with zero emotion on her face. A blank pallet that leaves me wondering what she’s thinking.
“Because you are,” I say.
I don’t have the mental bandwidth to dive into what our future looks like beyond getting on a plane and getting the hell out of here. I need distance from this nightmare before I can even think. I need clean clothes, shoes that fit, and a goddamn drink. I need normalcy. I fucking need a minute where I feel ordinary.
“I’m scared,” Ember admits, but I don’t need to hear the words to know that she is.
I pull her up out of the chair and embrace her tight. “We’re going to figure this all out. I don’t have all the answers now. I don’t know what happens next. But you and I will figure it out.”
2
Ember
“Oh my God. Oh my God. Oh my God. Oh my God,” an older woman who has the same facial bone structure as Christopher says as she walks toward us, stunned with her mouth wide open. “Oh. My. God.” She places her fingers on her lips as a floodgate of tears releases from her eyes. “You’re alive. You are really alive. You’re really here! Oh my God.”
“I’m alive,” Christopher says as he approaches and pulls her into a hug. “I’m alive, Mom.” He looks up at the sky, then inhales deeply, closing his eyes briefly as he does.
I can’t look away, even though I feel as if I’m invading their privacy by observing this twisted reunion. What it must be like to embrace a ghost. To hold your dead son in your arms, only to feel the warmth of life and the breath of the living.
“I know I heard your voice on the phone, but to see you.” His mother pulls away from the hug and looks Christopher over from head to toe. “You’re really here. I can’t believe you’re really here. How did this happen? How?”
“There’s a lot to tell you,” Christopher says as he then turns away from her and reaches out his hand for me to take. “But first, I want to introduce you to Ember. She was with me in Hallelujah Junction, and we escaped together.” When I cautiously approach and take his hand, he adds, “Ember, this is my mother, Louisa Davenport.”
Louisa glances down at my hand intwined with her son’s and then paints a smile on her face as she gives a slight nod in acknowledgement. She then reaches her hand out to me. I’d never shaken a hand before but know what to do from all my reading. It’s odd to touch someone else—a complete stranger—but I want to be polite. I want Christopher’s mother to like me.
“Nice to meet you, Ember,” she says as she grips my hand firmly.
“Nice to meet you, Mrs. Davenport.” I make eye contact with her and notice she has hazel eyes beneath very thick eyelashes against heavily gray-eyeshadowed lids. I’ve never worn makeup before and wonder if Louisa will someday show me how to apply it like she does.
She is still smiling, but her upper lip twitches, and her eyes seem to bore right through me. I reposition myself from one foot to the other as I feel the weight of her assessment on my shoulders pushing me down and making me feel small.
I need to escape, and yet I have no place to go. No place to run to.
I also don’t want to stand on the pavement near the large jet any longer. I wish I could flee and go hide in a corner somewhere out of sight. I need to breathe someplace that is all my own, and yet I can’t. I release Christopher’s hand, which oddly briefly frees me from the stare of Mrs. Davenport when I do.
“You both look like prison inmates,” she says with a wrinkle of her nose as if we possess an odor.
Rather than being offended, Christopher chuckles, and for the first time, I see laugh lines around his eyes and a look of genuine… glee. It’s foreign to me, and that fact smacks me hard with what our reality was and what it is now.
“Fitting, since we both were in a prison of sorts for months.”
I don’t like Christopher referring to our life in Hallelujah Junction as a prison. I understand why he does, but it doesn’t sound right. It doesn’t feel right. And even though we are both dressed in clothing given to us by the police, I don’t like being compared to an inmate either.
She looks at Christopher, finally breaking her searing stare on me. “Is she coming with us?”
I look at Christopher for an answer as well. Am I?
Christopher swallows hard and nods. “There’s… something… that happened while I was held captive.” He looks at me and places his palm on my lower back, which gives me a sense of comfort. “The man holding me there forced me to marry Ember. She’s my wife, Mom. We’re married.”
Her fingertips flutter to her lips as her eyes widen. “Your wife? He forced you to marry? You can’t be serious.”
He nods. “There’s a lot I have to tell you about my nightmare, but right now, Ember and I really need to get on the plane, eat something, and get some rest. I also really want to get the hell out of Nevada and never step foot in this godforsaken place again. I can tell you everything once we’re in the air. I’m sure you have a lot of questions, but I could sure use a stiff drink.”
I look at the jet with the door open and stairs leading up to it, beckoning us to enter. I can’t imagine how something so big and what looks so heavy can possibly get in the air and not fall out of the sky.
“Ember?” Christopher prompts as he breaks me from my thoughts. “You ready?”
Without waiting for an answer, he leads me to the plane and up the stairs. His hand stays touching some part of me the entire time, and I realize just how much I need it. I cling to it. I focus on it to try to calm the flutter in my chest and tone down the ringing in my ears. My legs feel weak as I walk up every single stair, and when we enter the jet, I try not to focus on the thin metal walls that surround me. It’s as if I’ve been swallowed up, and it suddenly seems harder to breathe.