In that moment, Ama knew she couldn’t stay here and bide her time until Eddie and Martin found them. Each day she would be weaker. Minutes from now she would probably be chained to the shelves alongside Hazel. If they wanted out, they would need to act now—together—with absolutely zero communication and even less of a plan.
Michael’s footsteps approached from behind, and the door swung shut, trapping them inside. Even though nothing in front of her had changed, the underground bunker felt smaller with the exit closed and Michael’s breath close enough to warm her bare shoulder.
She and Hazel needed something, anything, to gain the upper hand on Michael. Neither of them were as physically strong as he was. Could they outrun him once free, Ama on one good ankle and Hazel half dead?
Michael reached past her and set his walking stick on the table, just out of reach of her and Hazel. Behind her, she heard the click of a lighter igniting.
“I’ve been waiting a long time,” Michael said softly in her ear. “I have learned that the first sounds are the purest. The rest are tainted with fatigue. The pain becomes dulled over time. You’ll get breaks when the tone weakens; then we’ll start again. It’s art, yes. But I have studied how people respond to stimulus, how the notes devolve in a session. I have this down to a science.”
Ama’s limbs tingled with adrenaline. Michael was a planner, methodical, tidy. The way to throw him off, the way to get ahead, was to make a mess. A big, loud fucking mess. And to do it sooner rather than later. She couldn’t let herself get locked up; she couldn’t trust that the tracker was transmitting, that Martin and Eddie were on their way here. She had to assume it was her versus Michael. Right here, right now.
Ama felt the presence of heat at her back, intense enough to make her instinctively flinch away. She would be like Hazel—she wouldn’t make a sound. She wouldn’t give him that. She stared at Hazel, desperate to channel her, to not end up like her, a skin-covered skeleton chained to a wall, and mouthed the words circling her mind as she tensed for the first burn: Scream, Hazel. Scream!
The sharp, heated end of a wire buried into Ama’s back, scorching the skin covering her spine. She slammed her teeth together. Her arms shot straight out. She wouldn’t make a sound, she wouldn’t, but there was a scream in her ears, so loud it drowned out every thought—just pure rage and pain and fuck-you.
But it wasn’t Ama’s voice. It was Hazel, her mouth open, her dark eyes blazing like two lit coals. Ama heard the wire hit the ground and Michael began muttering notes. She flattened out her hands, pressing palm to palm, spun on her heel, and struck Michael directly in his Adam’s apple. He gasped and coughed, but his hands came forward. Ama ducked under his reach and stumbled across the room. Michael barreled toward her and suddenly was sprawled face-first on the ground, one foot caught over the twiggy shape of Hazel’s leg.
Ama grabbed the table and flipped it over. His walking stick flew across the room and clattered against the concrete. She slung a chair in the direction of his head. Hazel screamed again, a different pitch, high and shrill.
“No! Wait. Hazel, wait,” Michael sputtered, and began crawling in her direction. Ama let out a roar, and Michael swung his gaze to her, lips opening, eyes bright. Hazel shrieked, notes flying from her mouth like a flute in a centrifuge.
Ama jerked open the other drawer. Sheet music was stacked inside. She snatched the paper out first, tore it down the center, threw it in the air.
“What are you doing?” Michael yelled.
Ama yanked open the cabinets and began flinging everything out of them, hurling canned goods and bottles of water in his direction, and then leaped across the room as he swung out at her. Michael followed, nostrils flaring, head lowered, teeth bared, when Ama saw Hazel climb on a chair, reach up, and slip the length of her chain through a gap in the wall and loose metal. She jumped down, snatched up the wooden stick, and swung.
Ama heard a crunch, and Michael’s legs went out from under him. He struck the side of his head on the corner of the overturned table and slumped to the ground.
AMA Chapter 77 | 7:03 PM, December 9, 2006 | Tarson, Georgia
MICHAEL’S BREATHS CAME SHALLOW AND wet. Blood leaked from his nose, mouth, and ears.
“It’s okay,” Ama said. She reached out for Hazel, who jerked away.
No, it is not okay Not by a long shot.
Ama’s gaze turned to the door. “My name is Ama. Your dad is on his way. Your dad and a detective. They’re coming.”
“They won’t find us. Not down here. Everything is locked. We have to get aboveground.” Hazel’s shoulders shuddered, and her tiny frame began to shake. “If we can get this door open, I can get us all the way out.” She staggered to the door and began pounding it with her fists.
“What kind of lock is it? Combination?”
“Yeah. Bill… Bill said it’s a four-number code, but Michael had changed it.”
“What’s the biggest number on the dial?”
“One hundred,” Hazel answered.
Ama sat quietly, remembering the day she walked out of that courthouse following Michael’s verdict, knowing immediately she was leaving there for the last time. How for years she would do her best to convince herself she didn’t remember the date, didn’t care that Michael was free.
“Try ten, ten, nineteen, eighty-nine,” Ama said quietly. “You’ll need to spin four intervals to the left on the first one, then it’s just like a high school locker.”
“We don’t have time to be wrong,” Hazel cautioned.
“Ten, ten, nineteen, eighty-nine,” Ama repeated.
Hazel heaved a jagged breath, and then spun the dial as directed. The hatch popped open, and she let out a child’s laugh, swinging her gaze at Ama.
“No!” Hazel shouted suddenly. Ama turned in time to see Michael swing the walking stick at her injured leg. The cane cracked the outside of her knee, and she dropped, smacking the side of her face on the floor.
“Run!” Ama sputtered, gasping, nearly blind with pain as starbursts clouded her vision. She kicked out and slapped her hands in the space above her. She was able to flick her eyes briefly to the open door—it was empty. Hazel was gone.
Michael gripped her wrists and dragged her to her feet. Heat and anger rolled off him, and his face was the portrait of rage. She would have one shot to survive the next sixty seconds. One. And it was going to take everything she had.
MICHAEL Chapter 78 | 7:04 PM, December 9, 2006 | Tarson, Georgia
AMA STOPS FIGHTING. I STARE at the back of her head, bewildered and panting, my brain pounding in my skull. She raises her hands to the welt blooming on her face. The door is open, but she isn’t lunging for it, isn’t screaming. She doesn’t want to run with Hazel… she wanted to drive her away.
“You remember,” I say, the pieces clicking together. “You remember the day this began. You remember what you said about our paths crossing. It was a test, wasn’t it? You wanted to see how committed I was. Fate used you to test me.” I nearly laugh. “You want this to be your song. And you’re right, Ama. The two of you together, the voices didn’t work; they competed instead of complemented. Hazel was throwing you off. The notes weren’t clear at all. You’ve been a part of this from the beginning, from the very moment it started. I’m the one to blame here. You didn’t have to do that. You didn’t have to make such a mess. I’m not mad, though. A man I once worked for told me the most talented artists are the most volatile, the most difficult to work with. He said you have to admire the fight and passion in them instead of resenting it, that it’s what makes them different, makes them great.”