Silo

Chapter 11

When we sealed ourselves in, we closed the ventilation shafts. Our silo was big enough that we weren't concerned about having enough fresh air, but I doubted adding smoke to it was the brightest of ideas. I flipped the cover of our matchbook open and counted four remaining before shoving it into the cracked concrete for safekeeping. That'd be enough to warm up a couple of rooms after our self-imposed shutdown, hopefully enough to distill another few jugs of water.  

I rubbed my hands together briskly, the chill seeping into the silo quicker than I'd expected. The cold didn't bother me, but I wasn't the one getting ready to take a bath. "It's the best I can do," I said as I placed a bucket of room-temperature water next to her on the floor. "I'd heat it up, but we closed the shafts so there's no way to vent the smoke." 

I didn't bother to explain our reasoning. Hearing that we were afraid the people we'd taken her from would retaliate probably wasn't the best way to get her to talk. 

Sitting down beside her, I reached out and attempted to pull the remnants of what appeared to be elastic from her hair. She responded with glare and a not so playful slap across my cheek. I rubbed my cheek, still stinging from where she made contact, and made a mental note not to touch her without warning.  

Her hand was shaking when it fell back to her lap. She hadn't slept in days, and that small defensive gesture had sucked more energy than she had to spare.  

I motioned toward her hair, the tangled strands wrapped around the decomposing elastic. "If you don't take that out, the knots are only going to get worse."  

She reached up, her hand still trembling, and yanked at the band. It snapped back, taking with it a chunk of her hair. She didn't try again, just laid her head back against the wall and buried her hands beneath the quilt. 

"Let me try," I said, qualifying my request when she slid out of my reach. "That's not what I'm after. You need to get cleaned up and you need to sleep."  

When she eyed me warily, so I took the knife I had tucked into the back of my jeans and placed it in her lap. "Here, you can even keep this."  

It was a gamble on my part. She'd either see it as a gesture of my good faith and let me help, or decide I wasn't trustworthy and gut me alive. Either way, I didn't see another option. 

Giving a small nod, she tilted her head in my direction, giving me access to her hair. I suppressed a smile as I, once again, reached for the band. She winced as I gripped the elastic and attempted to tug it free. I mumbled my apology and went at it a little gentler, breaking the elastic rather than trying to unravel the mess of snarls.  

Her hair was longer than I expected; the matted up curls hanging by the side of her face nothing more than over-grown bangs. "I don't have any shampoo, but you can try and rinse it clean." 

She reached for the torn rag I'd put in the bucket and rung it out  

"Your clothes are going to get wet," I apologized as I handed her a cupful of water. Her eyes once again found mine, but this time they weren't as angry, they were calmer ... grateful. When she didn't slap my hand away or retreat into the corner, I took that as permission, dipped the cup back into that water and handed it to her again, waited as she worked the only scrap of soap I had into her scalp.  

I had to change the water three times before it finally rinsed clear. I'd been wrong; her hair wasn't brown, rather sandy blonde. Even wet it was beautiful, hanging down to her waist in small, tight curls. She towel dried it, then took the comb I offered her and began tugging her way through the knots.  

For a moment, I wondered what she was like before the storm, before they got their hands on her. I could almost imagine her sitting in her room, brushing her hair before another boring day of school. I wondered what it smelled like back then. Maybe vanilla, maybe that potent floral stuff Beth used.