by Cari Hunter
Sarah lifted her head and, seeing what Alex was about to do, hurriedly wiped her face dry. “Are you okay?”
With the needle poised, Alex hesitated. “Shouldn’t that be my line?”
When Sarah nodded, Alex selected her starting point, pushed the needle through, and made her first stitch before she could lose her nerve completely. It became no easier after that, and although she tried to tell herself that it was just like mending a hole torn into a tent canvas, the analogy was less than convincing. Canvas was never warm and slippery with blood beneath her fingers, nor did it tense or flinch when she pulled a stitch taut. When at last the wound had stopped seeping blood around the bright green cotton, she felt sicker than Sarah looked. She cast the needle and thread aside and wiped her face dry with the bottom of her sweater.
“Sarah, it’s done.”
“Thank you.” The softest of whispers.
Alex pressed two Advil to Sarah’s lips to go with the Tylenol she had taken earlier, and held a bottle of water for her to sip from. By the time Alex was smoothing clean dressings over the seven neat stitches, Sarah was barely conscious. Alex covered her up with both of the remaining blankets, tucking them in closely, before adding more wood to the stove. The supplies in the duffel bag had included coffee, dried milk, and sugar, and after she had cleaned the blood from her hands, she made herself a strong, sweet drink. With the mug wrapped in both of her hands, she huddled close to the fire. A small leak marked time by dripping persistently in one corner of the hut. She sipped her coffee and listened instead to the deep, regular breaths Sarah was taking as she slept.
Gray, washed-out light was seeping through gaps in the ramshackle walls when Alex jerked awake. At some point in the night, she had moved to sit beside Sarah, and Sarah’s arm was flung casually across her lap, its hand twitching intermittently as she dreamed. Curling her fingers around Sarah’s for a second, Alex was relieved to find that dry warmth had replaced the cool clamminess of the previous day. Unconsciously, Sarah returned the slight pressure, and then her eyes opened blearily.
“Shh, go back to sleep. Everything’s fine.”
Sarah nodded sagely in agreement and settled without ever having woken properly.
Alex disentangled herself from the blankets, collected the pot from the stove, and tiptoed over to the door. When she stepped outside, she was greeted by a wall of fog that reduced visibility to a matter of yards, but she could see that the hut sat in the smallest of clearings. Huge fir trees crowded in on it, effectively sheltering it from sight, while a lively stream provided a useful water source. Walking around its perimeter, she saw no trails through the trees, nothing to make it easy for anyone to find. Any traces of whoever had once lived or worked here had long since been reclaimed by the forest. Feeling confident that they could safely spend at least one more night, she used a rock to dig herself a small toilet, and washed in the stream’s frigid water. She was refilling the pot when she heard a thud, and she tensed, turning immediately toward the hut. Sarah was leaning against the doorjamb, wrapped in a blanket. She smiled woozily as Alex dropped the pot and jogged over to her.
“What are you doing up?”
“I, um.” She waved a vague hand toward the trees. “I really need the loo.”
The phrase was temporarily lost in translation before Alex nodded in sudden understanding. “Right. You, uh, you need me to…?”
“No. I’ll manage.”
“Right.” She took hold of the blanket Sarah held out to her. “Give me a shout if…”
“If I split my stitches pulling my trousers up?” Sarah offered with a grin.
“Exactly.”
“I’ll shout. I promise.”
“Great.”
They both laughed, the absurdity of the exchange briefly alleviating the dire nature of their predicament. Alex waited until she was sure that Sarah was safe to walk unaided, and then stepped inside and began to look in Merrick’s bag for something suitable for breakfast.
*
“I can offer you mac ’n’ cheese or oatmeal.” Alex held the packets up as Sarah came back into the hut.
“I’m not really hungry.”
Sarah gripped the water pot tightly. Hoping to save Alex a job, she had managed to fill the pot and carry it back, but she could feel cold sweat dampening the hair at the nape of her neck, and her fingers began to slip from the metal. There was a scramble of movement and a hissed curse, and then she felt Alex grab her arm. Without ceremony, she was half-dragged, half-carried toward her improvised bed of blankets.
“Put your head between your knees.”
The last thing she wanted to do was move any part of herself, but instead of thinking up a suitably pithy response, she sagged onto the floor. “I’m going to be sick.”
She made no effort to resist when Alex guided her to lie down on her uninjured side, and she closed her eyes as the room swam in front of her. She opened her eyes again at the touch of a warm cloth on her forehead, to find Alex carefully wiping her face.
“Still feel sick?” Alex placed an old bucket within easy reach and waited as Sarah took a tentative breath.
“No, I think it’s passed, thanks.” She wanted to tell Alex to stop, that Alex had already done so much more than she could ever hope to repay, but the touch felt so reassuring that she kept her counsel and lay still beneath it.
“Let me take a look here.” With one hand resting on Sarah’s hip, Alex used her other to lift Sarah’s sweater and check the dressings she had applied the previous night. Both were speckled with only the slightest amount of fresh blood, and the fear eased from her expression. “Those look good. I think it’s shock that’s making you feel so bad.” She sounded as if she was trying to work it out for herself as she went along. “You lost a lot of blood, and you probably dropped your blood pressure by standing up for so long. I think that’s how it works.” Her hand and the cloth resumed their soothing motion across Sarah’s face, her fingers easing the tangles from soaked strands of hair. “I had a friend who was an EMT, used to get real pissed at people telling her someone was in shock when all they’d had was a fright. ‘There are five types of clinical shock,’ she would say, ‘and that’s not one of them.’”
“Are you a police officer?” Sarah asked softly.
The question seemed to catch Alex off guard. She dropped her hand away, her eyes not quite able to meet Sarah’s.
“I was,” she said at length. “What made you think that?”
“Last night, when you said ‘misdemeanor,’ it seemed like a police-type thing to say, but I don’t know.” Sarah hesitated, struggling to follow her logic through. “You also seem pretty good at all this,” she gestured around herself, “which confuses the issue slightly.”
“I work near the park now. I quit the force.” Alex left the statement hanging and stood to balance the pot on the stove. “Oatmeal okay?”
Sarah might have been shocky, but she recognized the end to a conversation when she heard it, and she nodded. “Oatmeal’s fine.”
“Be about five minutes.”
She nodded again, settling down and studying Alex obliquely as she readied bowls and sugar and poured packets of powdered fruit drink into mugs. She was a good couple of inches taller than Sarah, with short hair whose style would probably have flattered the shape of her face had sleep not left her hair stuck out at all angles. Her movements were cagey, as if she knew that she was being watched and was afraid that the simple act of preparing a meal would somehow reveal all her secrets. Remembering Alex helping her to undress the previous night, Sarah averted her gaze and wondered how long she could keep her own secrets.
Chapter Seven
“Battery died on this yesterday.” Alex dropped the radio back into her bag, where it landed with a dull thud.
“No signal on this.” Sarah set her phone where they could keep an eye on it in case some kind of network miracle occurred and it resurrected itself.
“So, we’re here…”
Sitting
close together in front of the stove, they were trying to take stock of what they had, where they were, and exactly what they were going to do next. Sarah looked at where Alex was pointing to on the map.
“We’re in the middle of nowhere,” she said.
“Yup, closest thing to civilization is probably here.” Alex tracked downward and miles across wilderness, back to the campsite on Ross Lake. “Oh, that reminds me, Johnno and…Shit, I forgot the other guy’s name. They said to say hi.” She shook her head in apology.
“Johnno and Zach? You met them?” Sarah found herself smiling. “I hope they got away okay.”
“They were the ones who told me you were out here. Last I saw them, they were safely on the boat.” Alex topped up Sarah’s mug. “Drink more. You need the fluids.”
Sarah obediently took a sip and then made a face. “Ugh, my bloody eyeballs are floating.”
It took Alex several seconds to decipher her meaning, but when she did, she snorted with laughter. “That’s disgusting.” The fact that she was still laughing somewhat belied her declaration. “Okay, I’ve tried to work it out and I have no clue. Where the hell in Britain are you from?”
“The north. Well, northern England, which is way below Scotland.” Sarah sketched a vague outline over their map and pointed in the right general direction. “I was living with friends. Oh, it’s easier to show you. Here we go. This is Ash and Tess, and their son, Jamie. I’ve not met him yet.” She handed Alex her phone. “They’ll be worried sick. Tess has been fretting since I set off traveling, and with good reason this time.” Alex passed the phone back, and Sarah closed the image down with some reluctance.
“They look real happy,” Alex said, a wistful note in her voice.
“They are. They’ve been together for years. Ash has been trying to play cupid for me in the Village for as long as I’ve known her, but she reckons her arrows shoot about as straight as her.”
Alex looked slightly bemused. “The village? What, like an English country village, with a bowling green and a duck pond?”
Sarah all but choked on her drink. “God no, not quite. This village is a patch of gay pubs and clubs in Manchester. She’d drag me down there, try and fail to set me up with someone, and we’d head home together with fish and chips to tell her wife all about it.” She shifted a little, curling her knees up in an attempt to alleviate the throbbing in her side. “They’re as good as family to me.” The tears that suddenly blurred her vision had nothing to do with the pain. She wiped them away quickly and forced brightness into her tone. “So what about you?”
In response, Alex held up a finger to call a temporary halt to the conversation. She thrust her hand deeply into her pack and felt around until she found what she needed. She made short work of the wrapper, then snapped the bar of chocolate in two and offered Sarah half.
“If you’re getting my life story, we’re definitely going to need chocolate,” she said, scooting down a little and crossing her legs at the ankles.
“Shit. Did I open a can of worms?” Sarah sounded genuinely worried, but Alex waved away her concern.
“I was brought up in Boston, lived there for…” Alex paused to work out the math. “Twenty-three years. I have two older brothers, and parents who liked to leave us with our nanny while they entertained friends, played golf at the country club, or took cruises to far-flung parts of the world for months at a time.” She swallowed the last of her chocolate and licked her fingers. “Needless to say, Father did not approve when I joined the Boston P.D., and he pretty much cut me off completely when I started seeing Meg.”
“Ah,” Sarah said pointedly. She didn’t seem to be shocked by the direction the conversation was taking.
“Yeah, ah,” Alex repeated, mimicking her intonation. The empty wrapper crinkled in Alex’s hand as she twisted it nervously. Her parents had made coming out such an ordeal that she was more than a little gun-shy on the issue, even when she was obviously in good company. Fingers gently wrapped around hers, loosening their grip on the paper, and she looked up.
“Go on,” Sarah said. “But only if you want to.”
Alex took a couple of seconds to study Sarah. Although she’d only met her a few hours ago, there was something about her that seemed familiar: a look in her eyes that Alex had seen in the mirror countless times since that night in the alley. Suddenly conscious that she was staring, and not wanting to make Sarah feel uncomfortable, she lowered her gaze, but Sarah hadn’t let go of her hand, and that alone was enough for her to resume telling her story.
“Meg was an artist from LA, and back then when I was young and stupid, I thought she was the most beautiful girl I had ever seen.” She rolled her eyes at the cliché. “When my dad threw me out of the house, I transferred to the LAPD, and twelve months later, Meg ditched me for a performance artist whose sole work of genius comprised five minutes of her standing naked in front of a black screen, screaming and crying.” She tried to smile, but she was unable to disguise the bitterness in her voice, bitterness that was partly aimed at the way she had been treated, but mainly at her own blind naivety.
“Is that when you moved out here?”
“No, that came later. I stayed in LA for five years. There wasn’t a whole lot for me to go home to.”
As much as Sarah looked like she wanted to ask what had happened next, she didn’t push the conversation in that direction.
“Maybe later,” Alex murmured, in response to the unvoiced question. “Maybe later we can both swap our war stories.”
Sarah nodded, one hand pressed protectively across her abdomen as if that would somehow erase the marks that Alex had already seen. “Need something stronger than chocolate for that,” she said, and Alex gave a short laugh of agreement that managed to sound at once terrible and completely without humor.
*
The cigarette flared and crackled as Nathan Merrick took a deep, agitated drag on it. Smoke billowed from his nostrils when he exhaled. The fire he had managed to keep alight for the past hour hissed as rain began to fall again. Large scattered drops battered ground that was already saturated, picking up momentum and finally driving him back to the small tent where Bethany was sleeping. He sat just within its confines and aimed his smoke out the open flap. Behind him, Bethany muttered and turned over, the thin blanket she had covered herself with tangling awkwardly around her. Merrick watched her struggle for a long moment before he turned back to the night and to the storm that he hoped would continue to rage until he had the chance to sort out the mess he had gotten himself into.
Three days’ grace. That was all Nicholas Deakin had given him. Three days to get to the safe-box, collect the order, and rendezvous for the pickup. Initially, everything had run smoothly; his escape had been far easier than he had anticipated, the weather forecast had conveniently emptied the park, and even the storm hadn’t really hampered their schedule. Heat rising to his face, he flicked what little remained of his cigarette onto the ground and lit a fresh one. That left the pack in his hand empty, and he screwed it up furiously in his fist. That bitch had stolen everything, and he knew that running out of cigarettes was going to be the least of his problems. Deakin had sounded wary at their last radio check-in but had grudgingly agreed to extend his deadline by two days, a concession that probably owed much to the fact that Beth—his niece—had corroborated everything Merrick had told him and begged her uncle for more time. As if it had been necessary, Nicholas had reminded Merrick exactly how much the group had risked for him so far and how great a payoff they were expecting.
“Nate, it’s cold with that open.” Bethany’s voice drifted out of the darkness.
He ignored her, laying out his map instead and casting his flashlight over it. “She can’t have gotten this far,” he muttered, mainly to himself, but he felt the warmth of Bethany’s arms as she wrapped them around him.
“We missed her, then.” Bethany stroked the hair back from his face.
He brusquely shrugged her off. “Go to sleep.” H
e pushed her again, more forcefully this time, and she fell back against her crumpled blanket. “First light, we head back up. We’re not gonna miss her again.”
*
The hut door was slightly ajar, and the faint breeze filtering in through it was enough to wake Sarah. Comfortable and drowsy, she breathed in the fresh scent of moist pine and rain, glad that the draft had alleviated the stifling heat that had built up in the small room through the night. She shifted experimentally, trying to gauge whether the pain in her side was any easier and finding that it was nowhere near as severe as it had been. When she pushed herself up to tell Alex, she saw that the space beside her was empty, Alex’s blankets already neatly folded and piled together. In their place, the map was spread out, with all of Merrick’s falsified identity papers scattered on top of it alongside the GPS device that Alex had found in his bag.
Dizziness reminded Sarah why it wasn’t such a good idea to change her position abruptly, and she had just settled down again when Alex came back into the hut. Barefoot and wearing only a sports bra and combat pants, she had obviously been bathing in the stream, and her short hair was damp and spiky where she had ruffled her hands through it to dry it. Her eyes unaccustomed to the hut’s dull light, she hadn’t noticed that Sarah was awake, and Sarah was on the verge of speaking when Alex turned her back and stooped to pick up the rest of her clothing.
The firelight cast a butter-yellow glow across her back, dancing over lean muscles honed by months of manual labor, and picking out in perfect delineation the jagged edges of the scarring that marred the lower third of her torso. Horrified by her unwitting intrusion, Sarah quickly turned her face away, but she had already seen the telltale mismatched tones of neatly positioned skin grafts. Remembering Alex’s earlier reference to their respective “war stories,” she shivered despite the warmth of the room. She heard a whisper of cloth as Alex pulled a sweater on and the murmur of happiness she made when she realized that it was dry. Although Sarah was desperate to apologize for what she had seen, instinct and her own miserable experiences told her that that would only make matters worse. With her eyes still tightly closed, she exhaled slowly into the scratchy wool beneath her cheek and forced herself to keep quiet.
