The Things We Bury - Part 2: No Big Apocalypse [Completed]

Chapter 11: Rebirth (Parts 4 & 5 of 9)

The taxi driver was prattling on about politics but his words had no more weight than the sound of cars passing them on the highway. Emily wished he'd shut the hell up and put the peddle down. She just wanted to get home.

She might have yelled at him to hurry but raising her voice, even speaking, had become something she wasn't sure she wanted to do. The taillights in front of them streaked across her vision and a small hand pounded its palm against the inside of her forehead searching for a weak point. The car's air conditioning coaxed a slug's trail of icy sweat down her neck. In a thought that lay somewhere between horror and amusement, Emily realized that if the taxi was too slow reaching her destination, the chatty cabbie's tip was going to be the awful mess she'd leave behind.

She pushed the image from her mind along with all the unpleasant feelings that were hastily turning it into a reality. But the brief window of emptiness was disturbed by the memory of Amy.

Was she okay? Where was she?

When Emily woke up around eleven, the girl was gone. It didn't take a detective to figure out she had run away. The broken screen in the bathroom made it pretty clear she had snuck out. Although it didn't explain how she got down from the third floor.

Emily wandered the street for hours in vain before calling Max.

"I have a problem," she told him. Wasn't that what she was always telling him?

"Did you reach Davenport? It's okay. This is a secure line. You can talk."

"I never got there. And now she's gone." Emily did her best to explain what had happened. When she was done she asked, "What should I do?"

"Go home."

"But she out there all alone and..."

"Listen to me: she can take care of herself. She sent trained soldiers screaming into the night. If Amy wants to do this alone, I don't think you can stop her. And you have other responsibilities."

"Aaron. I know I should get back to him. But I feel like I'm abandoning her to the Agency."

"If she keeps her head down, she'll be okay. There are no agents actively in pursuit. So long as she doesn't attack anyone no one will come poking around after her."

"So suddenly they don't care anymore?"

"Oh, they care. The just think—or hope—that she's out of the country and someone else's problem."

"But what if she screws up and brings them down on her?" It was like following a knot that twisted around itself with no beginning or end. No matter how much she wanted to believe Max her mind always came back to the certainty that Amy needed help.

"Then she screws up. I know you feel close to her, but you're not going to do her any good wasting your time looking for her. For all you know she got on a train or took a boat out."

"I don't think she took a boat." Of everything, that was the one thing Emily was sure of. How many times had Amy bitched about getting on that stupid boat?

"Well, whatever. The point is she's been gone for approximately eight hours. Personally, I wouldn't have the first idea where to look for her. If she was determined and got in a car, she could be as far as Kentucky by now. Your search radius is nearly a sixth of the continental U.S. and the longer you look, the bigger it gets. Go home, Em. Get back to Aaron. I'll come by and check on you in a few days."

She had boarded the first flight back to Phoenix. It felt like the longest journey she had ever taken. The migraine started while waiting at the gate and blossomed with every mile but at least the taxi got her home before she hurled. They pulled into her driveway and Emily paid him with the cash she had gotten in New Orleans.