I pulled the kid close in the darkness and pressed my mouth to his ear. His hair smelled like the soap in the little bottles that mom and I found at that hotel that time. I whispered, “Hold onto my hand. Be quick and quiet.” I tried to pull him onto his feet, but he resisted.
“Stop,” he said. He stayed crouched against the tiled wall. Somewhere outside, men were shouting. A little kid not far down the wall started to cry.
“We have to go now,” I whispered.
“We can stay here,” he whispered back, his voice tight. “We can stay with these people. They’re nice people. They can find Danny.”
“No. They can’t.” I almost told him Danny was dead. I tasted the words in my mouth. Bitter. “Not now, they can’t. This is bad. We’ve got to go before it gets worse.”
“But there are people here…” he said and his narrow shoulders started to shake.
New words came into my mouth: “We’ll look for Danny together.”
He muttered, “After you find the vault, you mean.” He put his hand in mine, submissive. And then the new words tasted just as bitter as the last ones. I led him through the dark basement. Upstairs the electric lights were off but I could see daylight coming through an open door at the end of the hall. In that light I could see the tears on the kid’s cheeks.
I got down so he could look me in the eyes and said, “Do you want to know the truth?” He nodded. “I do want to go find the vault my dad told me about. That’s true. And I don’t know if it’s any safer there than here. But I need…” I wanted to cry all of the sudden. I could barely talk. “This is hard,” I said.
“Because it’s true,” he said.
I nodded. “I need you to go with me.” I started to cry. “I’m not good on my own.”
His hand squeezed mine and he started to pull me toward the light at the end of the hall, toward the sounds of distant gunfire.
