by Ilsa J. Bick
The hair rose on the back of his neck. Boy? Was she talking about him, to him? That’s nuts, that’s crazy. The words were only air. They held no meaning. They were so incredibly spooky, he did a one-eighty and beat feet and you could not pay him to go back.
Now, ignoring Aidan’s aggrieved sputter, Greg turned to Sam and Lucian. “After Kincaid patches him up, I want you guys to put Dale in a cell, all right? No more working him over right now. Just give him a chance to think about things.”
“Sure, anything you say, boss,” Sam said, his tone dripping with sarcasm.
“Yeah, boss. You want we should use the chains, hang him up by his arms?” Lucian asked. “It’d make things go faster.”
Kincaid shook his head. “That poor man’s so worn out, there’s no way he can support his weight. You let those boys string him up, Greg, and I guarantee he’ll suffocate by morning.”
“Yeah?” Greg said. “Ask me if I care.”
13
Nothing and no one could have prepared Alex for this.
She lost it. “Help, help!” Spitting and blowing, she tried turning her head but couldn’t move more than a few inches right or left. The snow’s weight was terrible, wouldn’t let up, and then she was wailing incoherently, a shriek that wanted to go on and on …
Stop stop stop! She muscled back her fear. Don’t move, stop screaming. You’ll run out of air and only kill yourself faster.
But so what? She was alone. She couldn’t reach her whistle. No one to hear it anyway. Her heart boomed; tears streamed over her cheeks. I’m going to die in here. Pulling in air was getting very hard, like sucking up the last dregs of lemonade through a slowly collapsing straw. Her lungs were starting to ache, and she was already gasping. Three seconds later, she realized that her eyelids had shut without her realizing it.
No, no! She fluttered them open in another spasm of panic. Not ready to die yet. Not … But her lids slipped again, and so did her mind. Below, so far away, it was so dark …
… not … ready …
14
“You ready?”
Boy. A voice. Not his. Whose? Chris didn’t know. His mind felt as if it were teetering on the brink, like the smallest tap or tiniest misstep would tip him hurtling over the edge and into oblivion and maybe, this time, for good.
“Pull,” the boy said.
A second later, a blowtorch went off in his back and scorched its way from his pelvis through his chest. The pain was enormous, like an atom bomb. Before that moment, he hadn’t realized he’d even been gone, but now he slammed back, hard and fast and all at once on a heaving red tide of agony. “Aaahhh,” he moaned.
“Is that him?” The boy sounded astonished.
“Yeah, wait!” A girl’s voice, young, and very close, almost at his ear. “Wait, stop! I think he’s awake! Hello? Are you there?”
There … yes … He lost the thread. Had he even spoken? Blacked out, maybe. He just couldn’t tell.
“Probably just reflex.” The boy, again. “Eli, let’s try—”
“Wait.” A second girl, older, her voice deeper, gently insistent. “Are his eyes open? Did they move?”
The boy: “What does that matter?”
The older girl: “If he’s conscious …”
“No, his eyes are still closed.” The younger girl, again, and now he realized that she was very close. He could feel the warm whisper of her breath. “But when you guys moved the door, his face twitched. Maybe we’re hurting him more?”
Door … what … where … He couldn’t hold the thought. He faded in and out, his consciousness like the bob of a lost balloon high above the distant lights of a faraway carnival. He thought he might be on his stomach. What was the last thing he remembered?
“I don’t know if we got a choice. Unless you guys have a better idea of how to get him out from under there?” When there was no response, the older boy said, “Okay, then let’s do this. You ready in there?”
“Just a sec,” the little girl called. Her voice dropped. “You need to go, girl. Go on.”
He sensed movement; heard the shuffle of something over snow, a crinkle, and then a strange chuffing. Dog? A moment later, the weight on his back rocked. His middle cramped against another grab of pain, and he heard the uhhh drop from his mouth.
“Sorry,” the little girl whispered. “Sorry, sorry, but I have to do this, I’m so sorry …”
“You ready?” the boy called.
“Yeah. He moaned again.” The little girl sounded shaky.
“Don’t get freaked, honey,” the older girl said. “He’s probably out.”
No … here … I’m …
“I’m okay.” Pause. “Got my feet up.”
“All right, on three,” the boy said. “You push, I’ll pull.”
That snagged his attention in a way nothing else could. No, wait … hurt, don’t hurt me again. Marshaling his strength, Chris put everything he had into the simple act of opening his eyes. But there was a strange pressure around his forehead and over his eyes, and he just couldn’t.
A second later, there came another fiery jolt. No, no. A grinding shudder rocked his hips, and he moaned. Door. That must be it. They’re trying to lift … His mind skipped, tried tripping off that cliff of what passed for consciousness again. “Nuhhh …”
“Stop, stop!” The little girl, her voice hitching up a notch. “We’re hurting him!”
“Can’t help that.” The boy again, not angry but impatient and unhappy, almost annoyed: the voice of someone who’d rather be anywhere else. “It’s going to hurt no matter what—”
“Wait, let’s think this through,” the older girl said. “If we can give him a few seconds and let him wake up, he might be able to help us help him.”
“How’s he going to do that if his back’s broken?” the boy said.
Broken. The word was a razor that sliced through Chris’s pain. Broken?
“I can’t assess him until he’s fully conscious. Even if he can’t move his legs, he could brace himself with his arms,” the older girl said.
“I don’t know,” the boy said. “You saw his hand.”
Hand. What were they talking about? Chris didn’t feel anything. God, maybe that meant his hand was—
“Maybe we can bandage it. I don’t know. But if he can help, enough for us to slide something solid underneath, get him off the snow …”
Snow. As soon as she said it, he could feel the wet against his right cheek and beneath his chest where his body warmth had melted the snow. I’m on the snow. No, that wasn’t quite right. He was in it. That had to be it. He was down in the snow. Yet he wasn’t freezing. The air felt warm and carried a scent that was strange and wet, not snowmelt or regular water but like a rusted fender.
“Hannah’s right.” Not the older boy but one closer to the little girl’s age: the kid called Eli. “I bet I could get in there with the bolt cutters. Then all I got to do is cut the spikes and we lift the door right off. Bet it wouldn’t hurt him as much. It might even be faster.”
Bolt cutters? Spikes?
“It would be better than taking a chance of ripping them out, Jayden,” Hannah said. “He’s already bleeding pretty badly.”
Blood. What he smelled—that wet rust stink—and lay in was his own blood. Hurt. Bleeding … what … But his back couldn’t be broken, it couldn’t, it—
“I thought you said he’s bleeding out,” Jayden said.
“I said maybe, and there’s no point in making this worse. The more I think about it, the more I worry that if a spike’s compressing an artery and we pull it out—”
Oh Jesus. The girl, Hannah, was still talking, but her voice receded to a buzz as the memory suddenly crashed into his mind as if the dam holding it back had burst: Nathan, the brittle snap of his neck as that gigantic log swept back to knock him from his horse. Then he’d started forward—stupid, a mistake—and there had been a monstrous sound of something crashing through trees, but not from the side. From above. Something d
ark, huge, rushing for his face. For a moment, he hadn’t been able to move, not only from surprise but because his feet … No, snowshoes, they were stuck, jammed into the snow … He’d spied a bottle-green glint of glass, the bristle of iron spikes, and then he’d understood: the thing was a tiger-trap made out of a huge barn door, barreling straight down from the trees, heading right for him.
Pushed off, tried getting out of the way. But he hadn’t been fast enough. He remembered the weight driving him down, that ripping in his legs, his flesh tearing. The unbelievable pain of those spikes. The sudden pulse of blood. Can’t let them move the door. He had visions of the spikes that might be both threatening and saving him being suddenly withdrawn, popping free like corks, and then his life surging in hot red rivers onto the snow.
Come on. Chris put everything he had into it; felt the twitch of small muscles. The pressure against his eyelids was huge. Or I’m really this weak, and if I am, I will die.
“Hey!” the younger girl called. “Hey, guys, he’s opening his eyes, he’s—”
“Uhhh.” His lids cranked back by degrees, a superhuman effort that brought out the sweat along his upper lip and on his neck. But he just couldn’t manage to open his eyes all the way. “Huhh …”
“Oh gosh,” the girl said, and then he felt her fingers tugging, the pressure suddenly easing as she pushed his watch cap onto his forehead. “No wonder. Is that better?”
Yes. His lids creaked open, and there she was, less than six inches from his face. He couldn’t tell much. Not only had the effort drained him, the light was dim, and his eyes didn’t want to focus. “Uhhh,” he said again.
“Hey, he’s awake! His eyes are open!” The little girl beamed. “Hi.”
“Huh,” he grunted, then raked his swollen tongue over numb, dry lips.
“Are you thirsty? Do you want a drink of water?”
“Mmm.” He thought her eyes were light blue, and she looked about eight, maybe nine years old. How had she found him? Nathan was dead. Then who? Someone else … Then he had the name, saw her face floating like a gauzy cloud across his vision: Lena. They were on their way to Oren, had taken the long way because … Rule, chasing us, Weller …
“Hey, he’s thirsty!” she called. Beyond the girl, he now saw a wide funnel trenched out of snow where she must’ve dug her way in. “He wants a drink!”
“Scoot on out, honey,” Hannah said. “Let me take a look at him.”
“Okay.” To him: “Don’t worry. There’s plenty of time before dark. We’ll get you out. We found you, me and Eli. I shook out my emergency blanket to make you a tent, and then me and my dog crawled in to keep you warm until Eli could get back with help. But it’s going to be okay now. We got you. What’s your name?”
“Cuh …” His parched throat made a clicking sound. “Cuh-Chrisss.” The word sounded like a balloon with all the air rushing out. “Chrisss …”
“Chris?” she said, brightening as he managed a nod. Sudden tears pricked the backs of his eyes because, oh God, hearing his name never had seemed quite so wonderful.
“Well, hi,” the little girl said. “My name’s Ellie.”
15
Ellie? That warm bloom of relief suddenly shriveled in his gut. He remembered the argument, Alex pleading with him to search for the little girl. There just couldn’t be that many Ellies in this general area. She’s the right age. This has to be her.
“Chris, are you okay?” A wrinkle of worry creased the space above Ellie’s nose. “Are you feeling sick? Does it hurt more?”
“I …” His tongue balked. With fresh terror, he thought, Can’t tell. Mustn’t. They might leave him here to die. They might kill him. “Y-yes, it … it h-hurts,” he managed, and this was no lie.
“Ellie?” It was Hannah. “Is he—”
“I think you better get in here. He doesn’t look so good.” Scooting sideways, Ellie batted away one crinkly corner of that emergency blanket. A spoke of light speared the gloom. Chris could clearly see how the barn door had driven him a good foot into the snowpack before lodging itself tight. He also had a much better view of the blood.
No. A fresh spasm of horror twisted in his chest. When he exhaled, his breath showed in small red ripples. That’s too much, I’ve lost too much—
Beyond the limits of his prison of snow and spikes and blood, he heard a dog’s welcoming huff and then Ellie say, “What?” Pause; a murmur from the older girl. “Yeah,” Ellie said, “there’s a lot, and I can feel it still coming. It’s not spreading, but—” Evidently, someone up there understood this might not be great for him to hear, because that emergency blanket dropped back into place, shuttering out the light.
Talking about the blood. He swallowed back a scream. Not spreading, because it’s melting into the snow under me.
A moment later, he heard a rustle, saw the gloom peel back and then a gloved hand appear, followed by an arm, a shoulder, and finally a girl, on her back, slipping down the chute.
“Hi.” Stopping short of the blood lake in which he lay, she brushed a thick, buckwheat-brown braid from her shoulder and hitched onto her side to face him. “I’m Han—” She stopped dead, a look of disbelief spreading over her face.
“Oh my God.” Her voice was small and shocked. She raised a gloved hand to her mouth as if to somehow stopper what came next. “Simon?”
16
“What?” His own voice was faraway, foggy with pain. “Who?”
“I—” she began, and then he saw her eyes, which were the color of soft ash, flit to his throat. Her eyebrows tented in a frown. “What did you say your name was?”
“Cuh-Chris.” His dry throat gnarled. “Prentiss.”
“Oh. I see.” She gave him another close look, then seemed to recover herself. Stripping off her gloves, she laid two fingers on his neck at the angle of his jaw. “Sorry. I’m Hannah. I’m here to help you. Let me check your pulse.”
“H-how …” His throat clicked when he swallowed. “How b-bad …”
“Shh.” Her lips moved as she silently counted the seconds on her wristwatch. “How’s your breathing?”
“H-hurts. Hard to …”
“To breathe? Like you can’t pull in enough air?” Her gray gaze studied his face. “What about pain?”
“Like nuh-nuh-knives.” He grimaced against another inhalation. “Get … getting …”
“Harder to breathe?” When he moved his head in an incremental nod, she continued, “Is the pain worse on one side?”
“R-right.” He closed his eyes a moment to gather himself. “How b-bad?”
“Very.” Her fingers traced the hump of his Adam’s apple, and then her gray eyes clouded. “Where else does it hurt?”
“St-stomach.” His tongue was so huge he was afraid he might choke. “B-b-back.”
“The back, I’d expected. That door’s very heavy. Can you move your toes?”
It hadn’t occurred to him to try. Had he before he passed out? He focused, sent the command down to his feet. After a few anxious seconds, he felt the bunching of wool, but the sensation was very distant, as if the signal were being relayed on a very long and sluggish cable. “Yes.”
“Okay,” she said, although Chris thought her expression didn’t match the word at all. “Listen, I’m going to slide my hand under and press on your stomach a little. I’ll try to be as gentle as I can, but I have to check, okay?”
He steeled himself as her fingers wormed beneath his sopping parka and began working their way along his right side. When she pressed, he winced. “That hurts?” she asked, those eyes never leaving his face. “How about …?” She abruptly pushed in, then let go.
“Ugh!” A bolt of nausea streaked up his throat, and he could feel sudden tears oiling down his cheeks. “D-don … don’t …”
“Okay, okay.” She touched a hand to his cheek. “Try to relax.”
“Jus …” He was shuddering, and that only made the pain much worse. Not moving was best. “Puh-please, get m-me out, g-get me �
��”
“We will,” she said. He wasn’t sure if it was his panic, but it seemed to him that her smile didn’t make it to her eyes. “I’m going to get you some water, all right? Are you thirsty?”
“Y-yes, but d-don’t leave … don’t leave m-me here.” He heard how freaked he sounded, and didn’t care. The fear and a sudden sensation of doom draped him in a dense, airless mantle. “Puh-please.”
“Of course not. Try not to panic, Chris. Just let me …” Turning away, she rolled, pushed back a corner of the emergency blanket, and called, “I need my water bottle, please.”
“Which one?” It was the older boy, Jayden.
“Left saddlebag.”
A pause. “Okay,” Jayden said, at the same moment that Ellie said, “What? Wait—”
Hannah cut her off. “Eli, I think you and Ellie should make sure we’re in the clear.”
“In the clear,” Ellie began.
“Okay,” the younger boy, Eli, said. “Come on, Ellie.”
“No, don’t,” Ellie said. Her tone was sharp and—through the filter of Chris’s fear—angry, verging on horrified. “You know it’s—” Whatever else she was going to say was lost in the crunch of snow as someone, probably Eli, took her aside.
Upset. Why? He watched as Hannah took a Nalgene bottle that was passed through, tugged out a long drinking tube, and slid the mouthpiece to his lips. “Here,” she said.
Both the water’s scent, warm yet somehow sweet and earthy, and the scream of his need were so overpowering his fear and apprehension vanished. Yet he was so horribly weak that when he pulled at the mouthpiece, only a thin trickle spilled over his parched tongue before dribbling from the corner of his mouth.
“Oh.” She made a small sympathetic sound. “Wait a second.” Moving closer, she unwound her scarf before slipping a gentle hand beneath his cheek. “Let’s raise you up a bit,” she said, supporting his head and balling the scarf into a makeshift pillow. She was so close, he could smell her skin, an aroma of milk and warm oatmeal. Cradling his head in the crook of her arm, she offered him the mouthpiece again. “Try now,” she said.
