I’d wake up alone.
Not this time. I held on. And when I finally let go, my father didn’t go anywhere.
“Oh my God,” Myron shouted, running toward us. The two brothers hugged so hard that they both fell on the floor. Myron cried. We all did. We cried. Then we laughed. Then we cried again. Eventually Myron let my dad go. Then Uncle Myron picked up his cell phone and called my grandparents.
Boy, did that lead to more crying.
My father, Brad Bolitar, had been down in that secret room alone, in the dark, for nearly eight months. But he would be fine. Luther was still out there. But capturing him would wait for another day.
When I met again with Spoon, Ema, and Rachel—when I told them about this amazing discovery—we celebrated. But not for long. Because we also knew the truth.
It wasn’t over for the four of us.
We had more questions to answer. We had more children to rescue.
But all of that could wait.
Right now, as my father and I faced each other in that tunnel, there was something that mattered much more to me.
“We have to go,” I said to him.
Dad nodded. I think somehow he understood.
• • •
So now we were walking into another dark room. He stayed in the doorway, out of sight. I moved toward her bed.
“Mom?”
My mother looked up and saw the expression on my face. “What is it, sweetheart? What’s wrong?”
I choked back the tears. “Remember I said the next time I came back, I was bringing Dad?”
“What? I don’t understand . . .”
And then my father stepped away from the doorway and came toward us.