Something kept me awake, driving me crazy. I’d been so tired watching the movie, why couldn’t I sleep now? This gnawing in my gut ate at me—a worry that wouldn’t settle. Was it Rick? Was it Alex? Was it Summer? Was it the terrorists? Or was it that voice in my head that offered protection?
My dry mouth prompted me to get up and get a drink. About halfway down the hall, I had this odd sensation and looked back. My tongue was so dry it stuck to the top of my mouth, so I continued down the hall, to the kitchen—stepping a bit lighter than before, more aware.
Passing the island in the kitchen, I grabbed a cup from the cabinet next to the sink, and reached to turn on the water, but was startled instead. Through the window, over the sink, I stared at a man’s back. His body started to turn, and I crouched down as fast as I could. It was some kind of a reflex. I almost stood back up, thinking I was being silly. He was just there to protect me, after all. He was talking to someone, and said, “Hold on.” He must’ve been talking on a phone. I could hear footsteps heading toward the back door. I scurried behind the island and held my breath as the almost silent sound of the door opening hit my ears.
Something inside me sounded an alarm, so tangible that I couldn’t ignore it. I put my hands over my mouth and held my breath. I couldn’t hear footsteps or any movement, but I felt someone there—just on the other side of the island. One part of me wanted to run, but something told me to stay still.
I heard the click of the door shutting this time. Then the voice again, almost a whisper: “I thought I saw bird one. Birds one to three ready for flight. No alarm.”
Then another voice, possibly coming out of a walkie-talkie, “ETA thirty.”
“Bird Catcher out.”
“Raven out.”
I knew one of those voices. From where? It sounded like the cold, harsh voice of the man who helped Jeremy question me at the FBI. The alarm inside of me kept ringing, louder now, more urgent.
Jeremy had said to hide in the closet if I was scared, but this guy had said he thought he saw bird one. Who was bird one? Bird one through three ready for flight. Were we being transferred… or captured?
“Move! Move! Go get Jeremy!” A voice boomed inside my head.
I was scared. Almost frozen. What if he was looking in the window and would see me move? It took all of my will to turn and look around the corner of the island and up at the window. No one was there. My head swam. I left my hiding spot, crawled past the stairs, down the hall, and stood once I reached Jeremy’s room.
Wasn’t he here to protect me? He couldn’t be a bad guy. If it weren’t for the constant ringing of warning in my heart, I would have gone back to bed.
I stood outside Jeremy’s door for several long seconds, just staring at the white panels on the door, wondering what I would tell Jeremy. Why did I hesitate? My whole body screamed for me to knock, but I just stood, breathing quickly and quietly, afraid to disturb him. I had to be crazy.
“Knock. Now. Knock,” the voice in my head urged.
What if someone heard me knock? I tried the door instead. It was locked. I very lightly tapped. No answer. I tapped a bit harder. No answer. I was too afraid to do it harder, so I knelt down and whispered into the door handle, “Jeremy…Jeremy... Jeremy.”
I heard the click of the door and jumped back. The door swung open and there was Jeremy, towering over me with a gun pointed right at me. I backed up against the wall behind me, covering my face with my hands.
“Christy?” he said. I peeked through my fingers, and he looked both ways in a flash down the hall and then back down at me, tucking the gun into his back waistband. “What are you doing? How did you—”
I put a finger over my lips and mouthed, “Shhh!”
He rubbed his hands over his face and into his hair then back down over his face again. He waved me into his room. He held his hands out to his sides, palms up. I went to his closet, but there was no panel in there. He followed me and shook his head. I sat cross-legged on the closet floor.
“Are you scared?” he whispered.
I nodded my head over and over again.
He looked around the closet, grabbing some things and pocketing them, only to join me, cross-legged on the floor, closing the door behind him and turning on a small flashlight.
“What’s up?” he whispered. “Why didn’t you climb into your closet?”
“I went to get a drink, when I saw someone outside the window above the sink. I hid. I just felt like I should, so I did. Then the guy outside said, ‘Wait a minute’ and I heard him walk toward the back door. I slid around the island so he wouldn’t see me. I couldn’t even hear him walk, but I knew he was there. Then, he was back outside talking to someone on a radio or something. He said, ‘I thought I saw bird one. Anyway, birds one to three are ready for flight.’ Then another voice said, ‘ETA 30.’
“Then the first guy answered, ‘Bird Catcher out.’ And the other, ‘Raven out.’ I thought I knew the voice, and I did. It was Agent Durrant from the FBI building that was with you when I was there, in that room when you asked me all those questions and….”
“Calm down, Christy,” Jeremy interrupted. “Take a deep breath. It’s only Mack out there. He’s supposed to be there.”
I did take a deep breath, but it didn’t calm my nerves. Something was wrong.
“But you think the guy outside, is Agent Durrrant?”
“I know it’s him. It’s Agent Durrant.
“Christy, he isn’t even assigned to this detail. He’s not here.”
“He is here. I remember his voice. It’s him. He called himself, ‘Bird Catcher’.”
Jeremy stared at me, obviously thinking.
“Are we being transferred tonight or something?”
“Not that I’m aware of.”
“I knew it. We are the birds, aren’t we? Rick, Summer, and I—the three birds. They’re going to kidnap us in thirty minutes. No, less than thirty minutes now.”
“My alarm didn’t sound when you left your room,” he said quietly, like he was talking to himself. His eyes got big and I knew he finally understood. Jeremy stood up forcefully and opened a metal box on the wall inside the closet. There were all kinds of lights lit up in the box.
He mumbled something like, “No alarm. There’s no alarm.” Then he turned, slid open the closet door and walked away saying, “Crap! We need to get the others right now. Think Christy, how long has it been since you heard thirty minutes?”
“I- I don’t know, maybe five—ten?” I wondered what those lights in the closet meant.
He set his watch and sent me to Summer’s room to wake her while he went to get Rick. Sure. Send me to wake her. I’d probably never survive her wrath. It was pure luck that she was dead asleep and had almost no energy to even get out of bed. I told her to be super quiet, that we were being moved. I helped her put some of her “favorite” clothes on and then Jeremy walked into the room with Rick. Rick carried some blankets, and Jeremy went into Summer’s closet and came out with a few more.
“Listen,” Jeremy whispered to the three of us, “We’re going to go through a tunnel to a secret exit. There’s an entrance to the tunnel in the game room. We must move quickly and quietly, but we must crawl. Follow my directions, and we’ll make it.”
The crawling part was anything but quiet. Every movement we made sounded like we were dragging heavy boxes along the floor.
Once in the game room, Jeremy crawled under the pool table and moved a rug. He yanked on a big metal ring on the floor, lifting a trap door and motioned for us to climb in. One by one we disappeared down the hole. We climbed down for a long time before hitting the ground. It was musty, and I could hear water dripping. We all stood, huddled together, until Jeremy joined us and whispered to quietly follow him. He flipped a switch that lit up little vent-like lights along the floor, like upstairs on the main floor, so we could see a little bit. We walked quite a ways before coming to a door. Jeremy didn’t open it. He pulled a cap off of something that looked li
ke the end of a pipe and put one eye up to it, I guessed looking out to see what was on the other side of the door.
He whispered several colorful words and put the cap back on the pipe.
“This is no good. They’re watching this exit. We’ve got to go back.”
“Go back?” Summer squealed, looking in the direction we’d come. She was finally awake. “Is it blocked? Did you take us to the wrong place? What’s wrong with you?”
“Shh! Listen,” Jeremy said. He looked at his watch and continued. “There are men out there who want to take you away. There’s only the four of us, standing right here that we can trust. We don’t have much time to hide, but we will, and they won’t find us. Now, you all need to be more quiet than you have ever been your whole lives and do as I instruct you. No questions. Understand?”
Everyone nodded, even Summer.
“Good, we’re going to go back into the house to find a better place to hide. Follow me.”
No one was about to stay behind. Everyone was petrified. After climbing back into the game room, he had us take our shoes off and rub them on the backside of the carpet beneath the rug that covered the hole. Then we crawled back through the kitchen and into Jeremy’s room. Jeremy shut the door behind us and went to his closet, pulling out several different tools, stuffing them into his pockets. He then led us up the stairs and into Rick’s room. He went straight to the window, pulled out some tools and worked in silence for what seemed an eternity.
He sighed and then looked at all of us, motioning with his head to come closer. “We’re going to climb out onto the roof. Rick, you will go first and lay four of the blankets on the roof for all of us to lie on. I will bring the other four blankets to cover us. I will come out last. Be careful not to let anything roll down the roof or make a noise. Be as silent as possible.”
I was so tense I could feel pressure in my ears. I waited motionless for endless minutes until Jeremy beckoned for me to join Rick on the roof. Please don’t let me fall.
CHAPTER TWENTY-SIX
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