I rub my eyes, the dust getting to me. I take my shirt and wipe my face. Then I scoot closer, swinging my light back and forth, looking along the wall and in little crannies as Quincy pushes the belt more so I can go deeper and he’ll have room to crouch under.

I swing my flashlight, see nothing around except Quincy’s eyes meeting mine. He looks away so the light doesn’t blind him.

“Over here.” I tap the vent.

I hand him my flashlight.

“Shiiiit.”

“Is right.”

Inside the vent is a gun.

PILLAR OF SALT

Two screws are loose. It’ll be easy to bust open. Quincy reaches for the vent.

“Wait.” I stop Quincy’s hand. “Let me think first.”

“This’s the whole point we’re here, right?”

“Yes, but maybe we shouldn’t be the ones who find it.” I roll my head from side to side, stretching my neck. The urge to grab the gun still itches, but the pause gets me to think more like a cop, rather than a girl who wants her brother back.

“The thought of leaving it here is hard,” I say. “We gotta do it, though.”

“This wasn’t covered in one of your workshops, was it? Like, I didn’t sleep through a section on how to not get caught up.”

I release a smile.

“We should call Beverly when we get out of here,” I say.

“You sure?”

I sit for a minute. Think of all the scenarios. If I touch the gun, then it’ll look like I planted it. This gun could mean nothing, or it could mean bringing back Daddy and Jamal.

“We gotta wipe up our prints, too,” I say. “Run over everything we touched on the ground, the conveyer belt, the walls.”

Quincy takes his top shirt off, leaving his sleeveless undershirt on. I scoot back on my knees as I wipe my side down. Duck out the space and run over the belt.

By the time we’re done, we’re both drenched. Coughing at the dust now stuck in our lungs.

“Thanks for being here,” I say. “I wouldn’t have been able to move that belt. It doesn’t feel good leaving evidence, but if it’s been okay this long, we might be fine.”

“Yeah. We should be—” Quincy stops.

The sound of a truck parking, an engine rumbling. Then turning off. Voices carrying, getting closer toward us. Searching for something outside, just like we were an hour ago.

“We’ve got company,” I whisper.

“Back down here.” Quincy points to the narrow gap we crawled out of a minute ago.

Something in me knows I can’t trap us back in that small space again. And if these people find us, we’ll have led them straight to the gun.