I couldn’t believe it.
We had made it.
We had escaped.
It seemed almost too easy. As though my ankle didn’t throb, my head didn’t ache, and I wasn’t consumed by a whole-body level of exhaustion that I didn’t know how I was still conscious. Yet it felt like it should have cost more. My relatively minor injury and discomfort weren’t price enough.
After a while of driving, the sun had risen and the back of the van was brightly lit. Still, I could not see where we were going, and I was too scared to try and turn to look in case the driver spotted me.
Remy gripped my knee.
“I’m sorry.” He silently mouthed the words.
I was confused. What did he have to be sorry for?
He exhaled rather loudly before abruptly standing and picking up a small, heavy-looking box and lunging forward, battering the box against the metal grating that separated us from the driver.
The driver was startled, the van swerved, and I was thrown against boxes with the motion.
“What the fuck! Who the fuck are you!” The driver yelled.
Remy kept battering the metal grating, which put up little defence against the abuse. Remy ripped the whole thing out when it had caved in at one side.
The van swerved again. The driver tried to brake to avoid some obstacle but was unsuccessful. The van came to a shuttering, sudden stop and once again I was flung into boxes, packages falling around and on me. It felt like my bones had been rattled.
In the chaos, I could hear grunting and groans. I managed to lift my head to see Remy in the front of the van, his fist raised and bloody before he flung it back down to the driver’s head.
The driver opened his door, falling out and trying to get away from Remy.
Remy followed him, hopping out of the van. I managed to push myself up and began climbing over the crushed and fallen boxes to the front of the van. When I reached the front and began climbing into the passenger seat, I witnessed Remy dragging the driver up from the ground and placing him against the van's footplate. The driver was groaning in pain, his face badly busted and bleeding, one eye was already swollen shut.
It wasn’t until Remy stood tall and put his hands on the top of the open van door that I realised what he planned.
“NO!” I shouted. He crashed the door shut as I cried out. Once, twice, thrice.
Blood was spattered against my face and chest. Something like a rotten pumpkin, cracked and mashed, slid to the ground.
It was silent. I noticed.
There was no sound, no screams and cries of pain from prisoners. No men working. No tyres on gravel. No grunts of fighting. It was silent. There was no chaos for the first time in what felt like a very long time.
But there was no peace either.
“Percy - flower girl, can you hear me?” Remy called, and I watched as he stepped on the body and back into the van to reach me. “I’m sorry, I could think of no other way. We couldn’t wait for him to make his next delivery, and we couldn’t have expected him to pull over, let us out and not say a word to anyone about us. It was my only option,” he explained.
I felt myself nod in understanding.
I was correct - it had been too easy, but I wasn’t the one paying the price.
“Okay, that’s good. You’re in there, a little shocked. I understand. Listen to me. I’m going to move…him, out of sight from the road. When I return, we’ll see if we can get this van started and ditch it further up the road where there is more cover. I know where we are, and we’ll travel on foot for a while. Safer that way. Someone might come looking when he doesn’t show up to his next delivery.”
23. Red Sunflower Fields
Persephone Flores
Remy had, without hesitation or any fuss, carried me piggyback style for miles across fields and hills of tall grasses, crops, and grazing farm animals.
My ankle had swollen quite a bit, but I could do nothing for it.