I am falling through darkness so black and deep it swallows my scream. From somewhere above me, I hear Emily call, Paige, and then I am on the ground. The pain radiates in my head, throbbing to the beat of my heart. I can’t move. Lying here, I realize now what a mistake it was to go so deep into this underground cavern. How angry my parents are going to be.
Emily slips her arm around my waist, comforting me. She’s lying behind me, cradling the length of my body with hers. Wake up, Paige, she says. It’s time to wake up.
Emily’s here? She isn’t dead? I open my eyes to pitch darkness. “Emily?”
But I’m alone. I was dreaming, and now I’m awake. My mouth is taped shut and my wrists and ankles are bound together so tightly they have gone numb. Beneath my cheek, I feel the tight weave of carpet. I’m in the trunk of a car, racing through the darkness to a place where the Shums are going to kill me.
There’s a sudden flash of light and the sound of my cell. I try to wiggle toward it, but can’t get there in time. My head aches and tears of despair trickle onto my cheeks. Part of me wants to go back to sleep, to tell myself that none of this is really happening.
But it is, and I have to fight. Despite the pain in my head, I wiggle deeper in the trunk and then strike out, mermaid-style, at the corners, where the taillights might be. Every kick escalates the level of pain in my head. Worse, it doesn’t work.
I’m almost relieved when the car slides to a stop. The doors bang, and then the trunk pops open. Both Shums loom into my vision, dark silhouettes against a darker backdrop.
Something wet falls onto my face as Dr. Shum bends over me, struggling to get his arms under me. He’s silently crying, and in a way that makes it even worse than if he were rough with me. I try to flop my body out of his grasp, but he scoops me up. Through the duct tape, I start to sob, and immediately it feels like I’m suffocating.
“Dr. Shum is going to cut your legs loose, Paige,” Mrs. Shum says. “But if you try to run away, I’ll have to use this.” She holds up a tire iron. A small, mean smile forms on her face. “I’ve gotten pretty good with it.”
I look at the heavy metal bar in her hands and the light in her eyes and have no doubt she means what she says. As Dr. Shum cuts off the tape, I look around, desperately searching for a way out of this. We’re in some kind of empty, unpaved parking lot. It’s surrounded by trees and lit only by moonlight. In the distance, I see a mountain, rising like a great black wave.
“Stop crying,” Mrs. Shum snaps as Dr. Shum straightens. “None of this would have happened if you hadn’t decided to act like a hormonal teenager.” She hands Dr. Shum a bungee cord and tells him to wrap it around my neck. With my hands still bound and my mouth taped, all I can do is beseech him with my eyes. He avoids my gaze and hooks it on tight.
Mrs. Shum gives my shoulder a push. “Get going.”
We follow the unpaved road toward the mountain. A gate blocks us, but Dr. Shum takes out a set of keys and, with a creak and groan of rusty metal, we pass inside. The road narrows, becoming no wider than a bike path and then even that disappears into a trail so poorly visible in the moonlight that several times I step in the wrong direction. Dr. Shum pulls the bungee cord, which simultaneously stretches and tightens around my neck. Once, it gets so tight that I nearly pass out.
“Not much farther,” Dr. Shum coaxes, loosening the cord.
If only I can get him alone, maybe I can talk him into letting me go. We follow the curve of the towering rock mountain rising like a shadow out of the night. It comes as almost a complete surprise when suddenly we step out of the woods and into a clearing. The path merges onto a concrete one, and all at once I recognize where we are heading.
“That’s right, Paige,” Mrs. Shum says as if she’s read my mind. “We’re going to the ruins.”
I shake my head violently in denial, and the bungee cord jerks tighter. I feel my eyes bulge.
“Yes,” Mrs. Shum says. “You’re going to climb up there. You really don’t have much choice.” She taps me hard on the shoulder with the tire iron. “Dr. Shum may be a coward, but he’s strong as an ox. It wouldn’t be hard for me to bash in your brains and then have him carry you up the cliffs. In fact, it might be his penance, the cross he has to bear.”
She looks almost pleased at the thought, and I shake my head again and make that guttural, unintelligible noise that is supposed to say, No, don’t do this. I taste the bitter peel of chemical adhesive, but when Mrs. Shum raises the tire iron, I stop protesting and nod eagerly. Yes, I’ll do what she says. I’ll do anything to stay alive.
“I thought so,” Mrs. Shum says. “I thought you would want to live as long as possible. If you’re good, Paige, before you die, you’ll see things you never imagined.”
The cliffs are in front of us now, blocking everything, even the moon. The thought of climbing up there, of what is waiting there, terrifies me. My legs shake so hard it’s hard to stand. But what choice do I have? If I stay alive, there’s always the chance they’ll mess up, and I’ll escape.
Dr. Shum cuts me free. I rub the raw skin on my wrists and flex my fingers. Mrs. Shum moves ahead of me, holding the bungee cord like the leash of a dog. She puts her foot on the first rung. “You try to pull me off, and you go over with me. Understood?”
I nod, but inside I’m wondering if falling from the cliffs and taking Mrs. Shum with me is the best option I have.
We climb slowly, steadily, with me sandwiched between the Shums. I think about my mother. How upset she’s going to be when she drives to the Shums’ house and I’m not there. I wonder if she’ll believe that I ran away. If some small part of her will be relieved that now she and Stuart can start a new life without me. Hope stirs in me when I think about Jalen, who will not believe the Shums and start asking questions.
He’ll look for me. I need to leave him clues, and so I wipe blood from my scalp and smear the sides of the cliff in places where hopefully Dr. Shum won’t notice.
The moon is high and visible once again as we climb onto the lip of the cliff. As we stand on the ledge, Mrs. Shum pulls me away from the edge as if she’s guessed I might take my fate into my hands and jump.
I delay again. Falling. Letting them drag me. Even pretending to faint. Dr. Shum carries me the last distance to the ruins. Cradled in his arms, I have a terrifying view of the grim set of his mouth, his broad nose, and his eyes that refuse to meet mine.
My bare shoulder scrapes rough stucco as we squeeze through the T-shaped opening. I hope I’ve left behind some blood or skin—something for Jalen to find. Mrs. Shum drops her backpack and extracts a flashlight. There’s a click, and then a cone of yellow light illuminates the pitch-dark, box-like chamber.
“Down there,” she says, pointing to the hole in the center of the floor.
Dread uncoils in my stomach and my legs start to tremble. There’s no way I’m going down there. It’s a death pit. I shake my head violently.
Mrs. Shum shrugs. “Your choice, Paige, but you’re going to miss something truly special if you don’t go down there. You see, when Dr. Shum did his structural analysis of the ruins, he noticed an interesting anomaly. The way the ruins sit in the cliffs, there was room for another chamber beneath the one below us. So he did some exploring… I really should let him tell the story. Would you like to, Raymond?”
Dr. Shum folds his arms and looks down at the ground. “No,” he says, “I wouldn’t.”
There’s a long, poignant pause, and then Mrs. Shum sighs. “You always leave everything to me.” She draws a breath, as if she’s determined not to let this relatively minor detail bother her. “To make a long story short, Paige, there’s a false bottom in the si’papu, and underneath… well…you really need to see it to appreciate it. There’s a wonderful old skeleton down there and some of the best-preserved pre-Columbian pottery that’s ever been discovered. There’s quite a market for it—did you know that? The Chinese can’t get enough. But Ray was showing off, trying to impress the little bitch. He told her about it!” Mrs. Shum shakes her head. “I heard him! And so I hid in the ruins that night and waited. It didn’t take long for your little friend to show up.” She sighs. “I guess the hour for telling stories is past. Will you climb down into the basement chamber, or shall we just get on with it?”
No. No. No. I chew the gag, and to my shame, fresh tears stream down my face.
Mrs. Shum sighs. “Oh, Paige, there’s no sense dragging this out.”
I shake my head frantically. Through a blur of tears, I watch her take out a thick, plastic bag like the one she uses to keep clay moist. My heart sinks as I realize I’ve waited too long. My moment to escape isn’t going to come. I’m going to die.
“You must think I’m a monster,” Dr. Shum says, gripping my wrists together so tightly it feels like he’s crushing my bones. “But I’m just a man. Like all men, I am flawed. Mistakes are inevitable, and fate is a cruel master. But you won’t be forgotten. I’ll always remember you. You and Emily. My two lovely corn maidens.”
He nods. Mrs. Shum rips the tape from my mouth and slips the plastic bag over my head. Pulling it tight over my face, she peers into my eyes. “Goodnight,” she says.
I suck in air, and plastic seals off my nostrils. My legs strike out. Even though I know I shouldn’t, I take a deep breath. The plastic crinkles and molds to my face. I suck harder, desperate now. The plastic melts over my face, a warm, moist second skin. I can’t breathe, but I can’t stop trying. A thousand dancing black dots fill my vision. I’m dizzy. My mouth opens. My legs kick, but there’s no strength in them. I think of Jalen, want his face to be the last thing I see, but it’s the Shums who fill my blurred vision. They watch me intensely with no compassion or doubt—only a cruel sort of waiting.
The black dots connect. My lungs explode and there’s nothing at all.