Chapter 22 Chapter 20 Release

Jeb let me cry loudly and didn't get in my way.He didn't make any comments and just listened to my constant sniffling.He only spoke after I had been completely silent for half an hour. "Still awake?" I didn't answer, I'm too used to silence. "Would you like to come out of it and stretch?" he suggested. "My back hurts just thinking about that stupid hole." Ironic, considering I've been in a maddening silence for a week now, and I'm not in the mood for a companion.But his proposal wasn't something I could refuse. Before I could make up my mind, my hand dragged me out of it.

Jeb sat cross-legged on the mat.I watched his reaction as I swayed my limbs out and rolled my shoulders, but he closed his eyes.He looked like he was asleep, just like when Jamie was visiting. How long has it been since I saw Jamie?How is he now?My already aching heart trembled suddenly and painfully. "Feeling better?" Jeb asked, opening his eyes. I shrugged. "It's going to be all right, you know," he said with his mouth open and grinning all over his face, "well, what I told Jared, I'm not going to say I lied, exactly, because you got a That's true from one angle, but from another angle, it's not as accurate as what he needs to hear."

I was just blind-eyed and I couldn't understand every word he said. "Anyway, Jared needs breathing room. Not to avoid you, boy," he added quickly, "but as things stand, he'll gain some insight in his absence." I wondered how he knew exactly what words, what phrases, would make me sick.And, more than that, why does Jeb care if his words hurt me, or even if my back hurts, does it hurt?His kindness to me scares me in its own right, because it's incomprehensible, and at least Jared's behavior makes sense.Kyle and Ian tried to kill me, and the doctor happily rushed to hurt me—these actions were also logical.Friendly but not so what is Jeb trying to do to me?

"Don't look so gloomy," Jeb advised. "There's a bright side to this. Jared is really stubborn with you, and it's sure to be better now that he's out of sight." I frowned, wondering what he meant. "Like," he went on, "we usually use this place for storage. Well, when Jared and the others come back, we'll need somewhere to put their stuff, so we might as well find it for you now." A new place. Maybe a slightly bigger place? With a bed?" He smiled and "waving a carrot" in front of me to seduce me. I waited for him to change tack and tell me he was joking.

His eyes—a faded denim blue—have become very, very soft instead, and there's a look in them that almost chokes me up again. "Honey, you don't have to go back to that hole, the worst part is over." I found it impossible for me to doubt the sincerity in his face.For the second time in an hour, I held my face and cried out loud. He stood up and patted me awkwardly on the shoulder, tears seeming to make him uncomfortable. "Okay, okay," he murmured. This time I regained my self-control a little faster.I wiped tears from the corners of my eyes and smiled hesitantly at him, who nodded approvingly.

"That's a good girl," he said, patting me again. "Then we'll hang out here a bit until we're sure Jared is really gone and won't meet us." He conspired against I grinned, "Then we can have fun!" I recall that his idea of ​​fun was usually associated with a draw with arms. He looked at my expression and chuckled, "Don't worry, you might as well try to take a break while we wait. I bet even a pitifully thin cushion will look great to you right now." I looked from his face to the mat on the ground and then to his face. "Come on," he said, "you look like you need a good night's sleep, and I'll be watching."

I was touched again, my eyes were moist again, and I lay down on the mat with my head on the pillow.It was like heaven, even though Jeb said it was thin.I straightened my body, straightened my toes, and pressed them against the ground, and I heard the crackling sound of my joints.Then I let myself slump on the mat.It felt like it was hugging me, rubbing away the pain.I sighed. "Seeing that makes me feel better," Jeb said softly. "Knowing that someone is suffering under your own roof feels like you can't scratch a itch." He lay down a few yards away and began to hum softly.I fell asleep before he had finished singing the first scale.

I woke up knowing that I had slept soundly for a long time - the longest I've slept since I came here.No pain, no intrusion of frightful things.I would have felt pretty good, except waking up on my pillow reminded me Jared was gone and smelled of him on it.On the plus side, the top is not my taste. Just dreaming.Melanie sighed alone. I vaguely recalled the dream, but I knew that if I was able to go into deep sleep and dream, as usual, it must be about Jared. "Morning, boy," said Jeb, sounding brighter. I opened my eyes and looked at him, had he been leaning against the wall all night?He didn't look tired, but I suddenly felt guilty that I had better overnight conditions to myself.

"Those lads have been gone for a long time," he said enthusiastically. "How about sightseeing?" He automatically picked up the strap and hung the gun at his waist. My eyes widened and I stared at him in disbelief.go sightseeing? "Come on, don't think of me as a coward. No one will bother you, and you'll find your way eventually." He held out a hand to help me stand up. I grabbed him automatically, dizzy as I tried to understand what he was saying.i need to find my wayWhy?And what did he mean by "eventually"?How long does he expect me to live?

He pulled me up and led me forward. I've forgotten what it's like to have one hand leading me through a dark tunnel, so easy - walking requires little concentration. "Let me take a look," Jeb said softly, "maybe the right side first, to get you a decent spot. Then the kitchen" He went on planning his sightseeing route, and we walked through the narrow crack Enter the bright tunnel to the brighter great room.My mouth felt dry as the voice of the voice reached our ears.Jeb chatted to me to himself, either not paying attention or ignoring my fears. "I bet the carrots sprouted today," he said as he ushered me into the main square.The light blinded me, and I couldn't see who was there, but I could feel them watching me, and the sudden silence was as menacing as ever.

"Yeah," Jeb said to himself, "well, I always thought it looked really good that way, nice spring green like that." He stopped, held out his hand, and invited me to watch.I squinted to look in the direction he was pointing, but my eyes kept darting across the room, waiting for them to adjust.After a while, but that's when I saw what he was discussing.I also saw about fifteen people here today, all of them looking at me hostilely.But they're busy with other things too. The dark and spacious square that occupied this large cave was no longer dark.Half were green, as Jeb said.It's beautiful and amazing. No wonder everyone stands on this place, here is the vegetable garden. "Carrot?" I said softly. He replied in a normal voice: "The one half that has just turned green is the carrot, and the other half is the spinach. It should turn green in a few days." The people in the room got on with their work, still sneaking glances at me now and then, but most of them concentrated on what they were doing.It was simple enough to understand their behavior—the buckets on the cart, the water pipes—now that I recognized it as a vegetable garden. "Irrigation?" I asked softly again. "Yeah, it's easy to dry out when it's so hot here." I nod in agreement.It was still early, I guess, but I was already sweating, and the heat from the red-hot light overhead made the cave stuffy.I wanted to check the ceiling again, but it was too bright to see. I tugged on Jeb's sleeve, looked up and squinted at the blinding light: "What's going on?" Jeb smiled, seeming excited by my curiosity: "Same as magicians do - mirrors, kids, hundreds of sides, it took me a lot of time to put that much on it. When it needed to be wiped , it's a good thing to have extra help. Look, there are only four small vents in the roof here, and the light is not as much as I thought, what do you think?" He straightened his shoulders and felt complacent again. "Brilliant," I said softly, "shocking." Jeb grins broadly and nods, glad I reacted that way. "Let's go on," he suggested. "There's a lot to do today." He led me into a new tunnel, a wider, more natural tube-like passage extending from the Great Cave, a new territory.I couldn't move any muscles, and I dragged forward with stiff legs, unable to bend my knees. Jeb patted my hand without ignoring my nervousness: "Most of this is sleeping quarters and some storage, and the pipes are closer to the ground here, so it's easier to get light." He pointed upward at the bright, slender tunnel opening above our heads, where a palm-sized dot of white light projected on the ground. We came to a wide fork in the road - not really a fork, for there were too many small forks, the passage had many octopus-like branches. "Third from the left," he said, looking at me expectantly. "Third from the left?" I repeated. "Yeah, don't forget. It's easy to get lost in here, and it's not safe for you. Once you show up, people will stab you." I shuddered, "Thank you." I sarcastically said softly. He laughed, as if I pleased him with my answer: "There's no point in ignoring the facts, and it doesn't make the situation worse by speaking up." It wouldn't make things better either, but I didn't say that.I'm starting to entertain myself a bit, and it's nice to have someone talking to me again.If nothing else, Jeb was an interesting company. "One, two, three." Jeb counted, then led me down the third aisle on the left.We started walking through the entrance, which was obscured by various temporary doors.Some are curtains made of patterned sheets, others are made of large cards threaded through conduit.One hole had two actual doors—a wooden door painted red, and a gray metal door—against the opening. "Seven," Jeb counted, and he stopped in front of a small circle, the tallest being only a few inches taller than mine.The hole is protected for privacy with beautiful emerald screens—the kind that divide spaces in elegant living rooms—silk screens embroidered with cherry blossoms in full bloom. "It's the only place I can think of right now, the only decent place for human habitation. It'll be empty for a few weeks, and we'll think of a better place for you before it's needed again." He pushed the screen aside, and we were greeted by a lamp brighter than the one in the walkway. The room he presented to me gave me a strange sense of vertigo—probably because it was so much taller than it was wide.Standing in it felt like standing in a tower or a cellar, not that I'd never been in such a place, but those comparisons that Melanie made.The ceiling is twice as high as it is wide, and it is riddled with cracks.Light is everywhere like ivy, cracked and nearly stitched together.It seemed dangerous to me—unsettled, but unafraid as it led me deeper into the depths. There was a double pad on the floor, occupying about a yard of space on three sides.Two pillows and two blankets are neatly folded and placed on two cushions, making the room look like a couple.A thick wooden post—sort of like the handle of a rake—stretched across the shoulder-high walls on both sides, with both ends inserted into holes like Swiss cheese.A few T-shirts and two pairs of jeans hang from it.A wooden stool emerges from the wall next to a makeshift cloth shelf, and beneath it lies a pile of tattered paperbacks on the ground. "Who?" I asked Jeb softly again.This place is so clearly owned by someone, it doesn't feel like we're the only ones here anymore. "It's just the two boys who went out to search for supplies. They won't be back for a while, and we'll have found a good place for you by then." I don't like this - not the room, but the idea of ​​temporarily living in it.The owner is clearly here, albeit with simple possessions.Whoever he is, he wouldn't be happy to have me live here, he'd hate it. Jeb seemed to read my mind—or maybe the look on my face was obvious enough that he didn't even need to. "Come on, come on," he said, "don't worry. This is my home, and it's just one of my many guest rooms. It's up to me who is my guest and who isn't. Now, you are my guest." My guest, I invite you to stay in this room." I still don't like it, but I don't intend to upset Jeb either.I swear, I wouldn't mess with anything if that meant sleeping on the ground. "Okay, let's keep going. Don't forget: the third from the left, the seventh inside." "The green screen," I added. "exactly." Jeb took me back to the big vegetable garden room, around the edge and directly opposite, through the largest tunnel exit.As we passed people watering, they stiffened and turned, fearful that I was behind them. This tunnel is very well lit, and there are bright cracks appearing at a certain distance, which is too regular and unnatural. "We're much closer to the ground now, the air is drier and it's getting hotter." I noticed this almost immediately.We are not being steamed now, but roasted.The air is not so stuffy or stale, and I can taste the desert dust. There were more voices ahead, and I tried to adjust myself to the inevitable reaction.If Jeb insists on treating me like this, like a human being, like a welcome guest, like this, I'm going to have to get used to this kind of thing.There is no reason to let it make me sick again and again.Regardless, my stomach churned. "This way is the kitchen," Jeb told me. At first, I thought we were going to turn into another tunnel, which was full of people.I pressed myself against the wall, trying to keep my distance. The kitchen was a long corridor with a high ceiling, higher than it was wide, bright and hot like the place where I slept.This place is not a narrow crack through the deep rock, but a huge spacious hole. "Of course, you can't cook during the day. Cooking smoke, you know, so we mostly wait until after nightfall to use the place as a canteen." All conversations cut off abruptly so that everyone could hear Jeb clearly.I tried to hide behind him, but he kept walking in. We interrupted their breakfast, maybe lunch. These people—about twenty at a rough estimate—are very close together here, unlike the big cave.I wanted to keep my eyes on the ground, but I couldn't stop them from scanning the room, just in case.I felt my body tense again and wanted to run for my life, but I didn't know where I could go. There are long rows of rocks stacked on either side of the corridor.Mostly jagged, purple volcanic rock, a lighter colored substance—cement?Sandwich them between them, forming the seam that joins them.These stacked rocks are topped with different stones, darker than brown and flat, held together by light gray grout.The end product is a relatively flat surface, like a cooktop or a table, which obviously serves two purposes. People sat crowded together, some leaning on top of others.I recognized their bread rolls hanging between the table and their mouths, and each of them froze in disbelief as they understood Jeb and his visit alone. Some of them were familiar, Sharon, Meggie, and the doctor were the closest group to me.Melanie's cousins ​​and aunts were staring at Jeb angrily - and I have a strange belief that they wouldn't even look at me as I stood on my head, screaming songs out of Melanie's memory at the top of my lungs - But the doctor looked at me with frank, almost friendly curiosity, which chilled me to the bone. At the end of the corridor-like room, I recognized a tall man with hair as black as ink, and my heart thumped.I thought Jared would have brought the most hostile of the brothers with him, and that would have made Jeb's task of keeping me alive a little easier.At least it was brother Ian, whose conscience was long overdue—not as bad as leaving Kyle behind, and yet the comfort didn't slow my racing pulse. "Everyone's full so quickly?" Jeb sarcastically said loudly. "No appetite," Meggie complained. "How are you," he said, turning to face me, "are you hungry?" A soft murmur rose through our audience. I shook my head—a small but flustered movement.I don't even know if I'm hungry or not, but I know I can't eat in front of this group of people, they'll eat me with glee. "Okay, I'm hungry," Jeb muttered.He walked toward the aisle between the tables, but I didn't follow.I just can't stand the thought of being caught in someone else's reach.I stayed where I was, still leaning against the wall.Only Sharon and Meggie watched as he walked to a large plastic bucket on a counter and took a roll.Everyone else was looking at me and I was sure if I moved an inch they would pounce on me and I was trying not to breathe. "Okay, let's keep going," Jeb calmly walked towards me, took a bite of bread, and suggested, "No one seems to be able to concentrate on lunch, and these people are easily distracted." I watched these people suddenly move, without actually seeing their faces after the first moment I recognized the few I could name.So, I didn't notice Jamie was there until he stood up. He was a head shorter than the adult next to him, but taller than the two younger children squatting on the other side of him.He jumped easily from his seat and followed Jeb.His expression was serious and tense, as if he was doing mental calculations, trying to solve an equation.When I was almost in touch with Jeb, he narrowed his eyes and studied me.Now I'm not the only one holding my breath in the room, other people's eyes are flicking between Melanie's brother and me. Oh Jamie.Melanie thought.She hated the sad adult look on his face, and I probably hated it even more.She wasn't as guilty as I was for making him look like that. If only we could take it away.Melanie sighed. It's too late, what can we do to make things better? I didn't mean to make the question rhetorical, but I found myself searching for an answer, and Melanie thinking too.In the brief moment of thinking about it we found nothing, nothing to look for, I'm sure.But we both know that after this ridiculous excursion we will think again when we get a chance, if we live that long. "What do you want, kid?" Jeb asked, not looking at him. "Just wondering what you're doing," Jamie replied, trying desperately to sound nonchalant but failing. Jeb stopped when he came to my side and turned to look at Jamie: "Show her around the place like I would any newcomer." There was another muffled groan. "Can I come?" Jamie asked. I saw Sharon shaking her head violently restlessly, her face was angry, and Jeb ignored her. "Don't bother me if you watch your behavior." Jamie shrugged: "No problem." Then I had to move - twist my fingers in front of my face.I wanted so badly to push Jamie's hair away from above his eyes and wrap my arms around his neck.That's not going to go very well, I'm sure. "Let's go," Jeb said to both of us, and he led us back the way we had come.Jeb walked on one side of me, Jamie on the other.Jamie seemed to be trying to keep his eyes on the ground, but he kept glancing up at my face—just as I couldn't help glancing down at him.Whenever our eyes meet, we quickly look away again. We were about halfway to the hall when I heard soft footsteps behind me.My reaction was fleeting and unthinking.I ran nimbly to the side of the tunnel, grabbing Jamie by the arm so I could be between him and whatever was running towards me, whatever it was. "Hey!" he protested, but he didn't break free from under my arms. Jeb was just as quick, the gun spun out of its straps with lightning speed. Both Ian and the doctor raised their hands above their heads. "We can also check our behavior," the doctor said.It's hard to believe that this soft-voiced, kind-faced man could be a chronic tormentor; he's all the more terrifying to me because he looks so kind.A man is alert and prepared on a dark and eerie night, but on a clear day?How would she know to run when she couldn't see the danger lurking? Jeb squinted at Ian, and the barrel of the gun followed his gaze. "I'm not going to get in trouble, Jeb, I'm going to behave like the doctor." "Okay," said Jeb tersely, putting the gun away, "don't test me. I haven't killed a man in a long time, and I kind of miss the excitement." I gasped and everyone heard it and turned to look at my terrified face.The doctor was the first to laugh, but after a while even Jamie joined in. "It was a joke," Jamie said softly to me.His hand moved away casually, almost as if reaching towards me, but he put it in the pocket of his shorts quickly.My arm - still in front of him protecting him - I let it hang down too. "Well, time wasted," Jeb said, still unfriendly, "you all have to keep up, because I'm not waiting for you." He was striding forward before he could finish.