Safe House

Day Four

Safe House Three

            The hunger is starting to get into my system. Sure, there’s plenty of energy bars and protein shakes hiding in the storage corner, but I can’t seem to stomach any of them. I’m starving-yet I don’t have an appetite. I’ve gone two days only drinking water, sitting in the corner and apparently getting paler.

            I hope she’s okay. Josh told me that they had a couple of these rooms set up for emergencies. I can only hope she made it into one in time. Tonight would’ve been the camp dance-if not for everything else.

            I had never been around for a camp dance, as this was my first (and probably last) time staying for a month, but everybody said they were magical. They kept the main hall’s doors closed all day-if you had a class in there, it was moved. Everyone tried to catch a glimpse of the inside, but no one would ever find out until they opened the doors that night, at exactly seven o’clock, and everyone rushed int the doors. Apparently the room was filled with colored lights that delicately shone and glimmered off of the glossy main hall windows-giving the whole area a frosted, elegant, almost winterlike look. Then everyone danced and laughed and smiled and enjoyed themselves and I could only wonder how long it would be before we could do all those things again.

            I was going to ask her, too-I was going to ask her today at lunch if she wanted to go to the dance with me. She had a cute sundress, the color of an orange Creamsicle that poofed out in the shape of a buttercup flower when she spun around. And then she would giggle and I would fall in love with her all over again. She was going to wear it, she told me. And I told her she would look beautiful in it. And she denied it, like she always did.

            We could’ve slow danced together-how beautifully awkward and rejuvenating it would have been. And maybe, just maybe, her head would rest on my shoulder and her chest press against mine and everything would be right for once. And her little giggles would make her stomach vibrate and it would be perfect.

            But apparently perfection doesn’t exist.

            Margret has been trying to figure out where exactly the gunmen came from, to see if we can either escape down camp road or leave through the lake. We might even go down through the ropes course and run through the woods. It’s so weird to think that just three days ago, around this time I believe, I was climbing up a giant cargo net, only focused on getting to the top and not on the possibility of my premature death. I remember Isabel cheering me on-both her and her sister had that same, wonderful happiness always about them, a little golden aura. But now Isabel is in the corner crying and Emily is nowhere to be found.

            Alex was walking with Josh back from their class at the lake, messing up his hair with the bright green towel our mom had packed for him. He was only in his swim shorts, and he didn’t have time to go grab a shirt before we had to run into hiding. He’s wearing a blanket instead now, and I can see him wriggling in discomfort under the scratchy material. It’s also cold down here-I feel awful for him.

            I just brought him over, and I’m wrapping him up with my warmth to try and help him feel just a little better. “What are you writing?” he asks.

            “Nothing, nothing really,” I mumble. Time to put the journal away. Who knows how long he could tease me for if he found out I had a crush on bashful little Emily.

            But she’s not bashful, she’s brilliant.

Safe House Two

            The noises are still going overhead. I can hear them in the middle now, a muffled cracking, crashing, banging. I’m assuming the camp directors had a secret stash of gold or some shit like that buried under the farmhouse. That can be the only explanation, right?