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Guilt. Pain. Fear.
I’m not going to be able to calm down until I try to make things right. Which is a tall ask when you’re trapped in a soundproof basement with no one around.
All my links to the outside world are gone too. Uri took away the Xbox and…
Wait. My tablet!
I’ve been so in my own head, I forgot that I can use the tablet to maybe contact someone. Or perhaps even track my laptop. I hadn’t seen it in my destroyed house and if my ransackers took it, it’s possible the tablet could tell me exactly where my laptop is. Which could be exactly where Lev is.
Maybe.
Hopefully.
My heart is thudding hard as I rush to the bed where I discarded my backpack after being pushed into the basement by a furious Uri.
Every time I blink, I see that heartless scowl staining every beautiful moment we’ve shared together. Will he ever forgive me?
That look in his eyes said no.
I try to turn the tablet on, only to realize it’s dead now. I didn’t bother looking for the charger back at the house, which means I have no way of using it.
“Come on, come on,” I mutter as I start combing the basement looking for a charger I might be able to rig up.
Half an hour later, I come up blank, my hopes deflated, my chest rising and falling painfully with the disappointment of it all.
“Ahhh!” I scream wildly toward the ceiling. “Uri! Please, let me out of here!”
I know he can’t hear me. No one can. No one who cares, at least. But I scream anyway because at the very least, it’s something to do.
And then—
Click.
I rush to the door, unsure of who I’m gonna be faced with. Then I see her dark ginger hair and those startling hazel eyes. “Polly!”
Her eyes are swollen and her cheeks are blotchy but there’s a determined slant in the set of her jaw that I resonate with.
“I’m sorry I couldn’t come earlier,” she explains. “I had to make sure my brothers were gone.”
“Do they know where Lev might be?”
“I don’t know. They weren’t super eager to share with me, as you might imagine.”
“I’m sorry, Polly. This is all my—”
“We don’t have time for that now,” she interrupts. “We need to find my brother.” I can tell she’s been on the same emotional rollercoaster as me in the last hour. “I heard some of Uri’s men talking earlier. Apparently, your laptop is missing from the house.”
I clutch her hopefully “Yes! But they left behind my tablet. If we can charge it—”
Polly’s eyes go wide as she finishes, “… then maybe we can maybe track it.” She nods, all action immediately. “Charger. Got it. I’ll be right back.”
She disappears upstairs and a few minutes later, returns with a charger in hand. We plug it in and then both of us huddle over it. I catch sight of our reflection in the black glass and look away immediately. I want to feel hopeful—but the look in my face says I’m already fearing the worst.
“Now, we wait.” The seconds move slower than they ever have. Every sound is overpowered by my stampeding heart. I can’t deal with long silences, so I break it with the other thing that’s been circulating in my brain since Lev was taken. “Can I apologize to you now?”
Polly sighs. “We had the best intentions. It went wrong. You’re not to blame, Alyssa.”
“Neither are you.”
