Chapter 15

The next day, an utterly bewildered representative of the local fire department was sitting in Emma’s and Daniel’s living room, going over the stunning and unprecedented particulars of this mind-bending emergency situation. Emma was sitting in the corner, wrapped in a collection of large bedsheets, looking completely miserable as she stared straight ahead, unable to participate in the conversation. 

“So we’re thinking,” said the firefighter, casting another astounded glance in Emma’s direction, “That the easiest way for us to, uh…to solve this issue would probably be to remove a portion of the roof so that, uh…so that Emma here can just, um, you know…step out.”

“And you think that’ll be easier than knocking one of the walls in?” asked Daniel anxiously, leaning forward in his chair. He hated how miserable all of this was for Emma, but he needed to make sure that everything important was being covered. 

“Cheaper too,” nodded the firefighter. “If you knock in one of the walls, the roof for that portion will have to come down too. Better to just take off a portion of the roof and be done with it.”

“I see, ok, um, yeah that makes sense,” replied Daniel, nodding as he too cast a look in Emma’s direction. It had been an extremely hard night and day since Emma’s last spurt, which had put her a few inches over 12 feet tall. For the first few minutes after Daniel had returned home with the bags of Chinese food, they had both just exchanged a variety of incredulous one-word questions and answers…was she ok?…how did she feel?…was it hurting at all?…that kind of thing. But after a few minutes of apparent shock, Daniel’s heart had melted when he saw Emma’s lower lip beginning to quiver, as big wet tears began bunching up in her eyes and streaming down her face. Daniel had felt helpless, and he ended up doing the only thing that he could think of, which was to climb up and stand in her lap, wrapping his arms around her as wide as he could, and hugging her for all he was worth, as her tears splashed down on his head. 

Now, the day after, she had spent much of her time sitting in the same corner of the living room, covered in blankets, staring straight ahead with a kind of blank, doomed expression on her face. She only really moved to eat, which Daniel had more or less been spending all his time providing. In the 12 hours since her spurt, she had consumed enough Chinese food, vegetables, cold cuts, bread, protein bars, milk to feed dozens and dozens of people three times over. And yet…she was still hungry. A bottomless pit had seemed to have just opened up in the middle of her stomach, which mirrored the unfathomable pit in her mind, which seemed to envelop her completely, and make her distant…remote. 

“Emma?” ventured Daniel gently, his voice tinged with caution. “H-How…how does that sound? The fire department’s gonna come over here and…and raise the roof for you, haha. And then…um…and then you can at least, you know…stretch your legs and everything.” 

Daniel and the firefighter waited for Emma’s response, but she gave no indication that she had heard Daniel, or in any case, that she cared to respond. 

“So, uhhh…do you all have, like…a plan for where you’re going to go?” asked the firefighter, turning away from Emma and addressing Daniel, in an attempt to break the awkward silence. 

“Yeah, we’ve…um, we’ve agreed to go stay with…um, with Emma’s family out in the country. Heheh, as luck would have it, they have a pretty sizable farm out there and…well, we just thought that, you know…we could use the room.” 

The firefighter nodded and had opened his mouth to answer when Emma suddenly spoke. She wasn’t speaking very loudly, but her voice vibrated powerfully off the walls, and penetrated into the cells of the two men present. The china and dishes in the cabinets rattled loudly against each other. 

“We didn’t agree,” she pouted. 

“But Emma…” said Daniel, making a real effort not to sound either tired or annoyed, “We talked about this last night…for a long time…and…and you said that you would be ok with —”

“I said we didn’t have any good choices,” countered Emma, looking miserably at the floor. “It’s gonna suck going over there.”

“But…yes, I know it’s not an, um, an ideal situation,” said Daniel, treading with extreme care, “But…your parents are…are nice people. And Daisy, Emma! She’ll, uh…she’ll be there too! It…it’ll be like a fun little homecoming!” 

Emma turned her head slowly to look directly at Daniel. She had stopped crying a few hours ago, and somehow, the vacancy in her eyes now was more concerning than it was when she was crying. Daniel had been trying his best to make things seem light and ok, but one such look from Emma was all that was needed to sink any kind of buoyancy he was trying to maintain. 

“Just…stop it, would you?” she asked suddenly, her voice completely flat. 

“S-stop, Emma?” asked Daniel, his heart rate starting to go up. Emma blinked for a long moment, and when she opened her eyes again, there was finally something there…something smoldering, that made Daniel and the firefighter extremely uneasy. 

“Stop trying to cheer me up,” she said bluntly. Her words, even though she still wasn’t speaking very loud, were like a series of sledgehammers flying through the air. 


“Nothing you say is going to make me feel better right now, Daniel…nothing. Do you understand that? I don’t WANT to call my parents and tell them that I’ve grown into a 12-foot-tall freak of nature. I don’t WANT to deal with my sister’s reaction to seeing me like this…and I’m not even THINKING about how my parents are gonna react. I don’t WANT to go live on their farm, Daniel! I left to go to the city for a REASON, you understand!? And I definitely…DEFINITELY…do NOT want to sleep in their FREAKING BARN!!” 

“Ok!! Ok!! E-Emma!!! Emma p-please!!!” cried Daniel, holding up his hands in a gesture of pleading. Both he and the firefighter had involuntarily jumped to their feet as Emma’s voice had become louder and louder, and more insistently angry. The firefighter, whose face had gone white as a sheet, looked like he was a few seconds away from running out the door. Daniel looked up into her eyes desperately, hoping that his raw vulnerability in this moment would be enough to calm her down. Emma was breathing hard now through her nose, so hard that, even though Daniel was standing a good fifteen or twenty feet away from her, it ruffled his hair.

Emma looked down at her boyfriend as she breathed in and out through her nose, her mouth pursed shut after her diatribe, fuming. She felt one hundred percent crazy right now. Her big growth spurt the previous night had dissolved any foundation or connection she felt like she had with the real world. The pleasure of being back in their house, the joy of being back with Daniel, the comfort of food, the new clothes and boots that Ms. Bisset had made for her…all of that felt like nothing now. It felt like her condition had wiped the slate of her life clean, leaving her only with the horrible, lurid, blank reality of her freakishness. And it didn’t seem to be letting up. Even though she hadn’t experienced a second spurt like the first, Emma could tell, by the dull aching in her muscles and bones throughout the day, that she was still growing here and there. The spurts were much smaller comparatively, but they were still there — she was getting bigger. 

And yet still, somehow, Daniel was down there, trying to cheer her up, trying to negotiate arrangements with this tiny little firefighter (it meant nothing to Emma that he was actually 6’4), trying to pretend that everything was still somehow normal. It made her mad. It was all well and good for Daniel to carry on as usual, even as he tiptoed around her with that irritating…no, that sickening degree of gentle caution that made her feel like she was a powder keg, ready to explode. HE wasn’t the one who had to deal with this condition! HE was the one who was just fine living in a miniature little house, with tiny little pieces of porcelain for plates, and little pricks of metal for forks and knives. HE was the one who could change the channels on the TV, sleep soundly in the bed, take a shower, wear normal clothes, go out to the store, drive the car…EVERYTHING A NORMAL PERSON COULD DO. Did he really need to just rub her face in it by being so obvious with it all!? By being so…so CAREFUL and CAUTIOUS around her!? Didn’t he even realize how tiny and irritating he was?? 

‘Treating me like I’m some sort of ticking time bomb,’ she fumed to herself, staring down at Daniel viciously. ‘Fine then…if he treats me like I’m about to explode, maybe I should just explode then, and save him all that trouble he’s taking being so CAREFUL around me.’ 

Emma didn’t realize it, but her breathing had become quicker and quicker, and heavier and heavier, the longer she turned all these thoughts over in her head. Her face was beginning to turn red, and tears were again starting to pool in the corners of her eyes. The firefighter backed away towards the door; the only reason he didn’t bolt immediately was that he was worried that quick movements might somehow upset her more, and cause her to get violent quicker.

“Emma…Emma…” begged Daniel, his hands still up in a motion of surrender and placation. He had never been so terrified in his life…and suddenly, something snapped in Daniel. His sympathetic caution, his gentle intonations, his assuaging gestures, all seemed to seize up inside him, and were instantly replaced by an entirely different emotion: anger. Daniel didn’t get angry often, and right now, it was entirely due to feeling like his life was in danger. 

“Emma!” he barked out angrily. The gigantic girl blinked rapidly a couple times. She had no idea what she had been about to do, but she had never really heard Daniel talk like that before. His tone distracted her from her own anger for a few moments, long enough for her to take stock of her boyfriend’s figure in front of her. Daniel was shaking, and his hands were balled up by his side.

“What?” she asked, her voice more normal. 

“D-don’t…don’t do that to me!” said Daniel shakily, breathing in and out rapidly. 

“Don’t do what?” asked Emma.

“Don’t…look at me like that!” Daniel burst out. “Y-you…you were freaking me out there, Emma!” 

Emma looked to the firefighter, who was standing there frozen by the door, his hand on the doorknob, and then back to Daniel, who was visibly shaking, though the anger had quickly faded from his face. 

‘Geez, they’re both terrified,’ Emma thought to herself, with a surprising degree of detachment. Ordinarily, Emma would respond to any distress in Daniel (or pretty much anyone else for that matter) with empathy and warmth. Her anger had been doused a little by the surprise of Daniel’s reaction, but it had been replaced by that same strange, expressionless void. The afterglow of her own anger, however, felt a little pleasant to her. At least it was something that she was feeling. 

“Uhh…ok, well, sorry I didn’t mean to be all freaky here in the corner,” she remarked dryly. When she saw that the firefighter didn’t seem to react to her words, she took it upon herself to take control of the situation. 

“Hey, don’t leave,” she said, extending a huge arm and beckoning him back with her massive hand. “Er, sorry that I made you feel scared or something. Here, uh…you all keep talking.” 

The firefighter made a kind of jerking motion back towards her, and Emma saw that he had made the motion simply because of the force of her presence — he was still terrified, and so he was doing whatever she said, in an almost-animalistic urge to placate her. For a moment, as she stared down at the small, scared little man, Emma felt something huge and indistinct well up inside her, something that felt incredibly vibrant and energizing…and powerful. For this quick snapshot of a few seconds, she realized the extent of her clout, her power, her potential to dominate her surroundings. All she had to do was raise her voice a little bit and all of a sudden these little people set to scurrying around, doing what she wanted. All she had to do was express a hint of frustration or anger, and she immediately set all the little people around her on edge. Her voice vibrated the walls, the furniture, the ceiling…she suddenly realized that she could just tear a hole through the ceiling herself if she wanted to…she could punch out one of the walls with her own fists without too much trouble. She wasn’t really a captive here. She was just patiently biding her time for Daniel, letting the fire department do its thing, in order to keep up the pretense of something. Without quite delving into why, Emma knew that she had to keep herself under control for Daniel; she knew that he could not see her lift the roof or punch her way through a wall without looking at her differently. And Emma didn’t want Daniel to look at her differently.

She looked away from the firefighter, and back to Daniel, who had lowered his hands and was staring up at her. His anger was gone, but that same apprehension remained, stretching across his face. 

‘God he’s so tiny,’ Emma thought to herself. She suddenly felt a crick in her leg; she needed to stretch it out. But she also wanted to just see…what Daniel looked like next to her leg. She slowly extended it out from beneath the mound of blankets, its bare alabaster length looking solid and well-formed in the daylight. Daniel made a motion to avoid the incoming leg, but he had seen the softened look on Emma’s face, and realized that her anger had passed away as well. still though, it was more than a little intimidating as, quite deliberately, Emma put her leg down right next to him, her bare, upright foot rising all the way up to his knees. Emma wiggled her toes playfully next to him in an attempt to lighten the mood, and she found her face upturning itself into a strange, toothy grin.

“Hey! Look at that!” she chuckled out into the room, “My toes are as high as your knees, haha!”

“Uhh, heheh, y-yeah…they are,” replied Daniel, forcing something of a chuckle out of his own tight diaphragm. 

“I just…haha, wow,” laughed Emma, feeling a bizarre sense of lightness lifting her spirits, “I know that I’m the one who’s, uh…the freak here…heh, but…geez Daniel…I just can’t believe how small you look right now. I, like, wish that you could see things from my perspective right now. Haha, I know it sounds crazy, but…you guys just look like little kids to me right now.” 

“Y-yeah…haha, yeah I…I bet we do,” forced Daniel. 

“Wanna say hi to my toes?” giggled Emma, moving her foot closer to Daniel, wiggling her toes up against his leg. Daniel actually stumbled backwards a little bit from the force of her toes, but he quickly righted himself, allowing Emma to tease him with her foot. Somewhere in his brain, he knew that he really, really needed to humor her right now, despite the craziness of the situation itself; it was not lost on him how drastically Emma’s mood had shifted. 

“Um…hehe, uh, hello there, little toes,” Daniel joked, looking down and waving. He felt surreal. 

“Little!?” laughed Emma, rearing her toes back in an indication of attack, and then pointedly smacking them with force into his lower legs. Daniel stumbled again, and this time he did actually fall backwards, landing lightly on his back. In an instant, Emma’s bare foot was on his chest, not pressing too hard, but nonetheless applying enough force to prevent him from rising again. Her toes kept wiggling against his chest, forcing the air out of his lungs in wriggling increments.

“Little??” Emma repeated. “Haha, well if MY toes are little, what does that make YOU, Daniel? Come on, try to get up!”

Daniel made several attempts, again just to humor her, and each time, Emma pressed him back down with her toes.

“Oh!” she said mockingly, each time he tired and failed. “Oh! Oh! Oh! Can’t get up, huh? Guess my “little” toes are too much for you, haha!”

“Y-yeah…heheh…o-ok…ok Emma,” laughed Daniel. If the situation had not been so bizarre (and embarrassing in front of the firefighter), he might have actually been able to enjoy himself. As it was, though, he just wanted her to stop, and was relieved when, a few seconds later, Emma relented and let him stand up again. 

“S-so…um,” came the firefighter’s hollow voice from the doorway, “So we’ll just…get the department over here, uh…this afternoon, alright?” 

Daniel and Emma both turned to look at him, and saw that he was thoroughly weirded out, and desperate to leave. 

“O-ok, um, thanks…thanks so much!” said Daniel, lifting his hand to wave. Emma lifted her hand as well, accidentally bumping it into the ceiling and sending the whole house shaking, like a tree limb has just hit the roof. 

“Uh, byeeee!” she called as the firefighter hurriedly turned and fled through the door. “Sorry if I scared youuu!” 

A few moments of silence passed. 

“I really did scare you guys, didn’t I?” asked Emma quietly, looking at the door the firefighter had just closed. 

“Yeah…you really did, Emma,” said Daniel gently, but matter-of-factly. 

A few hours later, the fire department was just about ready to lift off a big chunk of the roof that they had just cut into. Emma had crawled to the far corner of the kitchen, to give them some space, but even then, the stunned firefighters who came into the house couldn’t get too far away from her outspread limbs. She was simply too big to avoid. Miss Bisset had arrived, responding immediately to Daniel’s emergency call, and she was able to quickly sew together a quick, impromptu dress from their bedsheets. Miss Bisset’s calming, empathetic presence made Emma feel a little better, as did the elderly fashion designer’s reassurance that Emma would look good in this short white dress when she stepped out of the house. 

“You’re sure I won’t look like some kind of…of sheet-wearing freak?” she murmured as Miss Bisset sewed quickly away. 

“Of course not, dear,” intoned the venerable old lady, “Everyone is different in their own way. You just happen to be different in a way that is…a lot more obvious than most.” 

“That’s…actually a pretty good way of looking at it,” said Emma, scratching her chin. Daniel, who was on the phone with the fire department (covertly assuring them that Emma would stay under control), couldn’t help but notice how, even when Emma moved her hand and fingers slightly like she was doing now, the muscles and sinews in her forearms moved powerfully. She was undoubtedly proportional, and quite curvy and pleasant-looking, in fact…but it was just…that she was so huge. 

When the fire department arrived, they were conspicuously accompanied by several police officers, armed with guns, and their faces hard-set. The lead officer, however, appeared to be more casual and lighthearted. Daniel knew, however, that he was just doing his best to diffuse the whole situation — everyone had seen Emma’s reaction when the cops came walking in, ahead of the firefighters. 

“So, what…what are you guys doing here?” Emma had asked, sitting up a little in her corner, next to Miss Bisset (who had been sitting in Emma’s lap). 

“Well hello! You must be Emma!” the lead officer had said brightly, as he wordlessly pointed around the house, stationing his men around at different points. It immediately became clear that all of this had been pre-planned. 

“Yeah, that’s me,” said Emma, warily eying the police officers. 

“No reason to be alarmed!” the lead officer said pleasantly, noticing how Emma’s eyes flit from one officer to the next. “Everything’s all a-ok.”

“Then what are you doing here?” asked Emma flatly. The way that the other officers were looking at her was starting to make her feel like she had done something wrong. 

“Easy there, dear,” cooed Miss Bisset up to Emma. Daniel (whose heart was thumping painfully in his chest) went up to her and put his hand on her elbow, which, with her hand planted firmly on the floor, was just about even with his waist. 

“Oh no, that’s a totally fair question, Emma,” answered the officer, not seeming to miss a beat (even though his heart was thumping fast as well). “Well, let’s just say that we’re here just to make sure everything goes according to plan and…and that there aren’t any irregularities or issues, you know? Haha, it’s not every day that the fire department, uh…does this kind of thing, and we just want to be able to help out in any way we can.” 

Emma was staring down at the head officer, unblinking, obviously unsatisfied with the response. Something smelled fishy to her about this whole situation. She did not like the look of the other officers, whose faces were masks of hostility and fear. Emma could already feel herself responding to the officers’ energy around her, and once again, she could feel herself getting angry. It was the feeling of being cornered, of being trapped with nowhere to go, that reminded her so much of that horrible night at the Institute when she had had her breakdown. And she resented it…she resented all these little people, with their little guns and tasers and batons and all the rest of it. She barely even noticed the firefighters streaming in (looking nervously over at her as they got to work), but when she did, it was in tandem with the understanding she was developing around all these little miniature cops she was staring down. The cops were in their little uniforms…the firefighters had their own little uniforms on…

‘God, it’s dress-like-who-you-wanna-be-when-you-grow-up day in elementary school,’ Emma couldn’t help but think as she looked down at them all. She was giving the head officer a strange look, so much so that he felt like he had to say something more. 

“So…so we’re all good here, Miss Emma?” he asked, trying as hard as he could to maintain his pleasant facade and hide the anxiety that was threatening to bleed into his voice. 

“Huh?” she asked, blinking and seeming to snap out of something. “Uh, yeah…sure.”

She looked around again at the officers.

“So,” she said suddenly, smiling strangely, “You’re not here to, like…arrest me or something?”

“Emma, no!” said Daniel, shaking her head and rubbing her arm. “It’s ok, it’s fine!”

“Calm down, sweetheart, no one’s gonna hurt you,” intoned Miss Bisset, rubbing Emma’s other arm. 

“Haha! Arrest you!? I think…haha, I think we’d need more than just a few of us to, uh…to do that, now, wouldn’t we?” laughed the head officer good-naturedly. 

“Yeah, you would,” said Emma quietly. 

“So no, no not here for anything like that,” said the officer, deftly sidestepping the menacing implications of what Emma had just said. “We just wanna make sure that…that everyone outside is orderly and behaves in an acceptable manner toward you when you finally get to, um…to stretch your legs.” 

“Everyone…outside?” asked Emma, deadpanning. 

“Well, people have been…you know, intrigued by seeing you walking around the neighborhood,” said the officer. “And when people got word that the fire department was gonna be…lifting the roof for you today, haha, well…some, uh…a few people decided to gather to…to see you.” 

Emma suddenly leaned forward, extending her body out in a long, crouching position, as she got on her hands and knees. Daniel and Miss Bisset had to scurry out of the way. When Emma put her forearms down on the floor, the hardwood cracked beneath the force and weight of her hands. But Emma didn’t even notice — she was too busy crawling over to the window. A couple seconds later, she was peeking out of the top portion of the upper blinds, and her mouth dropped open. It looked like there were at least a hundred people who had gathered on the sidewalk to watch as the firemen carved a hole in the ceiling, both from the inside and the outside. A few more nervous neighbors were watching in supposed safety from the other side of the street. 

Emma turned to the officer, incredulous.

“A few people!?” she burst out, her voice rattling and rumbling through the house. “A FEW!?” 

She hardly heard the array of calming, soothing, stumbling, and fumbling responses from the officer, from Daniel, from Miss Bisset, and from a few of the firefighters. She knew they were all just trying to calm her down, to chill her out, but it suddenly became so obvious, so crystal clear to Emma what all of them had in common — they were AFRAID of her…ALL of them. And for a second or two, as her own sense of personal hurt and freakishness boiled dangerously close to the surface, she seriously considered doing something to validate their fears. 

‘I could just…push through the roof myself,’ she thought crazily to herself. ‘Maybe THAT would show them how right they are to be so careful around me.’ 

But almost as soon as she had that thought, the more rational part of her brain kicked in.

‘No that’s insane,’ she chided herself, ‘The roof could collapse and hurt Daniel or Miss Bisset…I’d never forgive myself…’

She immediately felt guilty for even considering such a thing, and, combined with being upset about the inevitable prospect of being a neighborhood spectacle, she felt herself start to sniffle again. But she was determined not to cry…absolutely determined. She snorted the tears away, shut her eyes tightly, and bit her tongue purposefully, letting the pain distract herself from the oncoming deluge of emotion. She breathed deeply in and out, in and out, through her nostrils, and when she felt in control, she opened her eyes again. The house was totally still and silent — everyone was watching her. She felt something warm wash over her inside…and she found herself smiling. She didn’t really know what this feeling was, but in any case, she was just going to ride it until she and Daniel were out of this situation, with all these people. 

“Ok just tell me when it’s all done,” she said flippantly, shrugging her big shoulders. “I’m gonna…uh, take a little nap here, I think.” 

“Aw ok I’ll take one with you,” said Daniel quickly, not even thinking about how bizarre the prospect was of taking a nap in the same room that firefighters were cutting a huge chunk out of the ceiling. 

“Good idea, dear,” nodded Miss Bisset. 

“That’s…wow, what an awesome way to deal with all this,” said the officer vigorously, nodding his head and smiling a little too widely. “Haha, ok Miss Emma, you do your thing, and we’ll just…we’ll just…hang out, haha.” 

Emma was brushing past him on her hands and knees, not even listening to him (although she did realize how, with her arm straight out and her hand on the ground, her shoulder was even with the officer’s chest). She reached the corner of the kitchen, curled up in a ball, with her back to the firefighters, and actually managed to doze off, with a very-much-awake Daniel as the little spoon, anxiously rubbing her huge hand. 

An hour or so later, everything was ready. Emma was carefully woken up, and she crawled up to the hole, looking out at the blue sky above. The contrast in her head was so strange that it was really throwing her off — it felt incredible to look up at the blue sky, at freedom. She hadn’t been outside in days. But at the same time, seeing the gaping hole in their ceiling…it made her sad. 

“Ok Emma,” said Daniel as she prepared to stand up. “I’ll just, uh…get the special truck that we ordered, ok? And…and I’ll have it all ready for you when you step out. So you don’t have to deal with all those people, ok?”

“Ok babe,” said Emma quietly, feeling distant from the whole situation, but at the same time feeling truly grateful to have him. She leaned down and gave him a kiss on the lips, which he gladly returned as best he could, despite her lips easily encompassing the area from his lower chin to the top of his nose. Then Emma waved goodbye to Miss Bisset, thanked the officers and firefighters, and stood up, rising through the hole in the ceiling. 

A confused din of noise greeted her ear. She saw the big crowd of people in front of her house, and across the street, but she felt, in some weird sense, that they weren’t really even there. Yes, she was still a bit groggy from being asleep, but something else was going on. Emma could hear some people cheering, some people yelling, and some people screaming. She was vaguely aware that the crowd immediately seemed to back away from her as she rose up through the roof, and that a few people even took off running down the street, as soon as they saw her. But she was focused on getting out of the house without doing any more damage, and so she lifted her leg up carefully, extending it out over the house’s front wall, and planted her bare foot down in the cool grass of their front yard. 

‘Huh, that was easier than I thought,’ she said to herself. 

She brought her other leg up and over, accidentally banging it a little into the top part of the wall on the inside of the house, kicking through a healthy chunk of drywall and taking the outer brick layer with it. 

“Ah shit!” she cursed. She didn’t realize it, but when she had spoken out loud, the crowd had backed up even further. The only person in the crowd who didn’t seem to react (though of course, he blended in perfectly) was the same man in a dark suit, wearing sunglasses. But once again, his presence went unnoticed. 

“Don’t worry Emma it’s ok!” called Daniel from their driveway. He had already started the truck, which was an even bigger version of what he had driven Emma home in before. The first truck was for a farm animal or two…this one was for five or six, and had been especially fitted out with pillows and mattresses for Emma’s comfort. 

“Don’t worry about it!” Daniel repeated from the driver’s seat of the truck. “Come on — just hop in and we’ll get outta here!”

“Awww Danielll!” cried Emma, feeling overwhelmed with emotion, even as she registered how cute he looked driving the truck. Somewhere in her head, she knew that this was a hard, tense situation, with lots of people, and lots of yelling and shouting. But she stayed focused on Daniel, and somehow managed to block it all out as she crossed the entire yard in two paces and crawled into the back of the truck. Emma pulled the truck door closed behind her (shaking the whole vehicle as she did so), and a minute later, she and Daniel were on the highway, rifling towards her parents’ farm in the country.