As quietly as I can, I lower my hand to my side, my teeth grinding against one another when I feel the soaked shirt. My breath is stolen from me at the small movement. How did I run? How did I run through this shit?
More importantly, how much blood did I lose?
My head rests against the tree and I blink away the memory of getting shot. I can barely breathe, I can barely stay up straight, exhaustion pulls me down and whispers that I should give in. I should let go. I reach in my pocket, but my phone’s gone.
Fuck. Fuck! I can’t die like this.
I need to go. I need to tell Jase what happened. They have to save Laura. The cops were there. She needs help and protection. I need to know what’s happening.
Crack. Snap.
Branches break behind me. Thin ones and my eyes focus straight ahead as my back stiffens. The rust-colored leaves are eerily beautiful as I overhear the horrid words from one end of a conversation.
“If we don’t get him, we can get her.”
Steven Davis.
Her. Laura. Each realization is like dominoes falling.
My instinct is to react and with the small movement up, my body revolts. The need to vomit is strong from the sharp gutting pain. I hate myself. I hate being weak. He’s threatening Laura. He will suffer a slow and painful death. But first, he’ll give me three other names. The slight satisfaction is immediately drowned out by fear at hearing more of his one-sided conversation. I strain to hear the voice on the other side of the phone, but it’s impossible.
“Yeah, she’s in custody,” he says. “Make sure they don’t let her out and plant someone in the cell with her.” My blood runs cold, freezing every inch of me down to the marrow of my bones.
“Make it clean, she doesn’t need to suffer.”
No. No, they can’t hurt her. She didn’t do anything. My body begs me to plead with the man. I’ve never begged for anything but I can’t fight him, I have nothing left.
Thump. My heart pounds and my gaze shifts to the ground.
There’s a set of stones on the edge of the hill. A path of them. It’s a foot long, maybe longer and the rocks are strategically placed. They follow along the side of the steep hill, as if it leads somewhere. Hopefully, somewhere with a phone.
I have to save Laura. It’s the only thing that matters.
The man breathes heavily, gasping for air behind me and I stare at the closest stone, imagining grabbing it and slamming it into the back of the man’s head. It’d be heavy enough. Could I do it fast enough, though? If I can’t, there will be no one to tell Jase. No one will know she’s there, no one will know they’re going to kill her. She has to live. I have to save her.
My right side screams in pain and I nearly pass out from my first attempt to stand.
Fuck. Fuck!
I hold my breath, waiting for the prick to get out of earshot before I crawl and climb my way down the path.
I can’t die until I know she’s okay. Wherever this path leads will have a phone. I just need to get to Laura before they can. I breathe a silent vow to save her. I’ll kill them all before they lay a finger on her.
The promises I make silently to her are the only thing that keeps me going.
Laura
I keep finding my hand pressed against my shirt as if I can calm down my freaked-out heart. All the while, my body rocks steadily on the metal bench. It’s fine.
I’m fine. My arrhythmia has never really been an issue. It’s just a butterfly feeling in my chest.
The first time I remember this feeling, the sporadic fluttering in my chest, was when I stood in the doorway of my grandma’s house, lying to Seth. I remember it so clearly. I even held my shirt the way I am now.
The memory makes me smile; it’s a welcome distraction.
The door creaked open and I stood there in my thin pajamas as the wind shook through the house. I folded my arms over my chest because I wasn’t wearing a bra, and although I knew that when I opened the door, I hadn’t anticipated the cold. The wind blew by though, forcing the door to open wider and I struggled to keep myself covered while still keeping a handle on the door.
“Why aren’t you dressed?” Seth’s eyes roamed down my body leisurely. It may have been cold that day, but he made me feel hot from head to toe. Ever since we’d had sex, with one look he turned my knees weak.
I wasn’t his girlfriend though and I couldn’t keep going like that. He didn’t want anything more from me and I was convinced I was only going to get my heart broken. At the thought, my heart did an odd thing. I opened my lips to lie to him, but my heart protested.
I gripped it, telling it to shut up and calm down. That was the first time I remember feeling my heart acting up.
“You all right?” he asked.
“I’m sick,” I said and the lie came out tight. I just need to be away from him right now. I need a chance to think. Because when I’m around him, I can’t think right.
He stood there in jeans and a leather jacket, a jacket he’d put around my shoulders a week ago. I don’t know how I could have lied to him back then so easily, especially with the way he made me feel. “I’m not going to school today.”
He nodded, a short nod, and asked if he could do anything for me. Even as I shook my head he kept asking, “No homework to turn in?”
It physically hurt to lie to him, but I didn’t want him to keep walking me to and from school. I didn’t want him to feel obligated to do anything at all with me. My heart was all sorts of tangled up in his touch and the way he cared for me... it wasn’t right. He never made a single move; I did it all. I knew what that meant. That’s not how love happens. I could easily see a new woman walking by, catching his eye, and then I’d be gone.
When I shut the door, I hated myself. I spent the next twenty minutes doing what I’d done all morning, figuring out how to get the hell out of Tremont. I didn’t have much money and I didn’t have any family outside of this town, but I knew Grandma would let me if I found a way.
That’s what I was doing when the knock sounded at my door. My jaw dropped when I looked through the peephole.
There Seth stood, with a plastic bag from the corner store a few blocks down. I couldn’t unlock and open the door fast enough.
“What are you doing here?” I questioned him as if he was crazy and it only made him smirk.
He lifted the bag and said, “I got you soup and a few other things.” I didn’t offer for him to come in, but he did anyway, like he belonged there. As if he was supposed to be there in that moment, taking care of me.
The little pitter-patter in my chest lifted, trying to stop any words of protest I had from coming out.
“Sorry you’re sick, Babygirl, but I hope you like chicken noodle soup.” As I stood there, my back falling against the door, I watched him make his way to my kitchen, fully prepared to take care of me. I knew in that moment, I was utterly and completely in love. I was certain there was no way I could ever run from him. I knew I should. I knew it with everything in me.
The butterfly feeling hits me again, only this time it’s harder and much worse than it was before. I don’t remember it ever feeling like this, so painful that I can’t ignore it.