Daughter of Deep Silence Read Online Free

it?”
    It’s cold in the room, the air-conditioning running full blast, and I cross my arms tightly over my chest as I shake my head.
    “How old are you?
    “Just turned fourteen,” I mumble.
    “Where are you from?”
    I tap my fingers against my thumb, nervous. “Small town south of Columbus, Ohio, sir.”
    “You have family there?”
    My fingers still and I stare at them, motionless, in my lap. “No, sir.” I take a sharp breath. “My parents were both only children.”
    “Any siblings? Grandparents?” He’s frowning.
    I shake my head. “There’s no one.” Clearing my throat I test the word out for the first time: “I’m an orphan.” It’s horrible, making my stomach churn.
    His lips purse together as he ponders this.
    “It wasn’t a wave,” I blurt into the silence. I lift my eyes, watching confusion flicker across his face. I lean forward, needing him to understand. “The
Persephone
was attacked. They killed everyone on board.” My voice breaks and I swallow, trying to hold the memories at bay.
    The guns. The blood. The screaming. God, the screaming.
    “The coast guard interviewed Senator Wells and his son and there hasn’t been any mention of armed men or—”
    “They’re lying,” I interject bitterly.
    He shakes his head. “Why would they lie about something like that?”
    It’s the question I’ve been asking myself; one I don’t have an answer to. So instead I lift a shoulder and tell him the only explanation I could come up with. “Maybe they were somehow involved. The attackers weren’t wearing masks. Maybe they’re afraid that because they’re witnesses those same men will come after them.”
    It sounds even more far-fetched when I say it aloud and a blush flares up my neck.
    But Libby’s father doesn’t laugh. He considers the idea for a moment. “And you,” he adds. I glance up at him sharply. “If you’re also a witness,” he clarifies, “it stands to reason they’d come after you as well.” It’s not clear whether he believes it’s a possibility or is merely placating me.
    A chill tightens the skin between my shoulder blades. But what I feel more than anything else is exhaustion. For the past week all I’ve done is fight to stay alive. The prospect of having to keep up that fight is overwhelming.
    My eyes flick toward Libby and I find that a part of me is jealous of her. That she was able to escape. How nice it would be to slide into oblivion. “It’s not like I won’t be hard to find,” I mumble.
    There’s silence for a moment, the only sound our breathing. Confirmation that we’re alive and Libby is not. “Do you know if my wife . . . if Barbara . . .” He trails off, unable to ask the question.
    My eyes flutter shut, the memory coming against my will.
    The screaming doesn’t stop. Neither do the gunshots. I curl into a ball, arms over my head as though that will make it all go away. But it won’t.
    All I see over and over in my mind is my mother kneeling on the floor of our room across the hall, tendrils of blood writhing like venomous snakes across the front of her shirt. Her eyes wide as she glances toward the dumbwaiter—terror not for herself but for the fact that the gunman might discover my hiding place.
    And now she’s broken. She and my dad both. And I’m next if they find me. But moving is unthinkable. What if they hear me? What if they see me? What if they kill me?
    The smoke billowing down the hallway grows thicker, dark tendrils coming for me in my little metal box. I choke on the terror of being trapped and press the up button, cringing at the sound of grinding gears. When it wrenches to a stop at the top I wait, hand over my mouth, for someone to find me.
    Nothing happens and I force myself to run. The silence in the hallway is shrouded in cotton, thickening the air so that it feels like moving through water. It’s only a few yards to the O’Martin’s suite and I blow through the doors.
    And she’s there—Libby—like