Run to Ground(37)

“I’ll just…um, get your order in.” This time, he didn’t stop her as she hurried away.

After returning the coffeepot to its station, she rushed into the kitchen. Pressing her hands to her face, she felt the heat of her burning cheeks and bit back a groan. Blushing, smiling, touching his arm…could she have made her budding interest in him any more obvious? Theo must’ve thought she was an infatuated idiot, and she was beginning to worry that he wasn’t wrong.

“Need something?” Vicki called from her spot by the grill.

Yes. Some dignity. Maybe some pride. Definitely some self-control. “Nope. Just…taking a second. Oh, and Theo wants his usual.”

“Got it.”

When no insults or threats followed, Jules looked at Vicki curiously. She seemed to be in an unusually nonabusive mood.

“Before you go, would you mind grabbing another flat of eggs out of the walk-in?”

Jules tried not to make a face. She hated going into the walk-in cooler. She’d hated small spaces—especially small, dark spaces—ever since her father had remarried for the fourth time when Jules had been a shy fifteen-year-old. One of Courtney’s favorite punishments had been to lock Jules in one of the linen closets. Most of the time, it had been only for a few hours. A few memorable times, though, Jules had been trapped in the tiny, dark space overnight. Although she’d mostly gotten over her claustrophobia in the years since she’d escaped from that house, something about the cooler made all Jules’s old fears flare to life.

She had to suck it up, though. There was no way out of going into the cooler, unless she wanted to sound like a big baby. “Sure.”

Flipping on the light switch, Jules closed her fingers around the metal handle. After taking a breath, she hauled back on the door. There was a brief hesitation before the heavy door released its seal and swung open, releasing a gust of chilled air. Jules shivered, although it was more from nerves than the cold.

She glanced over her shoulder and caught Vicki watching her. As soon as she saw Jules returning her gaze, Vicki focused on the grill, whistling tunelessly as she poked at some hash browns. Jules frowned but turned back toward the cooler. The longer she stood there, dreading it, the longer it was going to take. She needed to just go in, grab the eggs, and get out.

Jules stepped into the cooler, reluctantly letting the door close behind her. In three quick strides, she’d reached the egg boxes lining the bottom shelf. Crouching, she eyed the top of the container and sighed. The box was taped shut, but she didn’t want to go get a utility knife and have to return to the cooler. Instead, she just picked at a corner of the packing tape until she could pull it up and off the top of the box.

As she reached to open the flaps, everything went dark.

Jules froze. Her whole body flushed cold and then hot, and her fingers went numb. She couldn’t feel the cardboard under her hands anymore, and she lost all sense of direction, all sense of balance. It was as if she were underwater, unsure of which way was up. Her legs gave out, and she sat down hard on the cold, tiled floor.

There. I felt that. She pressed her palms against the floor next to her hips, increasing the pressure until pain darted up her wrists into her arms. Strangely enough, she was relieved by the discomfort. It grounded her, made her feel like she was rooted to the floor, rather than floating in the dark space.

She heard someone gasping, short pants of air, and Jules realized the sound was coming from her. Even though no one else could hear it, she was embarrassed by how pathetic she sounded. She was much, much too old to be scared of the dark.

“It’s just a power outage,” she whispered, her voice coming out unsteady, her words interrupted by her shallow gulps for breath. “The door is right there.” Her eyes blinked, trying to adjust to the absolute blackness, and a light-green glow caught her attention. At first, she thought it was nothing, just a blob of false light caused by her squeezing her eyes shut too tightly, but the green shape was there each time she opened her eyes to stare into the darkness. Finally, she realized it was the glow-in-the-dark emergency release handle.

Her relieved breath came out too close to a sob for comfort. Vicki would never let Jules live it down if she came out of the dark cooler crying. Her head still spun from fear and the dizzying darkness, so Jules crawled toward the green glow, her apron catching between the hard floor and her knees.

She’d made it. The emergency release knob was right at eye level, and Jules forced herself to stand. Crawling out of the cooler would be almost as bad as being in hysterics. Jules’s hands followed the metal-lined surface of the door, helping her keep her balance as she rose to her feet. Once she was upright, she pushed against the door.