Chapter Thirty-Seven
Thirty-Seven
There is a path of dirt cutting through the grass up the slop of the ditch, where the car’s tires skidded. The blood has started to dry on my arms and legs, adding stickiness to the pain swirling through my limbs.
The road. If I can make it to the road. A quiet road, unlikely to have too many cars on it, but someone has to drive by eventually.
Someone has to find us. I heard my phone ring somewhere up the embankment.
Maybe it has enough battery for one last call.
Maybe if I can get to it, someone will save us.
Maybe, maybe.
The black spots in my vision are more like blobs slowly overtaking my field of view. My heartbeat is a low, steady pulse, like a slow drum in the back of a song. Slower than I think it should be.
I never really understood the concept of death by exposure. Inaction never seemed powerful enough to end a life. A wild animal attack, an untreated wound, bacteria-infested water, sure. But the elements themselves aren’t powerful enough to take a life.
But as time crawls by and the sun makes its descent, it takes the warmth with it.
I understand now. The overwhelming pain trades itself for numbness, which is scarier than the aching, pulsing, fiery burn of hurt.
The accident might not have killed me, but the cold will.
I roll onto my back, head flopping back against the snowy incline.
“Get up.”
I peer through slitted eyes. Standing above me is a girl, her hair a blond mess around her head, her skin pale and face gaunt.
I shake my head.
“You have to wake up, Jo.”
“I’m tired,” I say, the words thick in my mouth.
The girl kneels at my side. She doesn’t fit in this picture. In this memory. She’s too bright in the darkness.
“I know,” she says. Her hand ghosts across mine, but I feel no pressure. No brushing of skin. “But they’re dying.”
“So am I,” I murmur. At least aware enough to understand this fact.
And it is a fact. My phone is a few yards up the ditch, and try as I might, I can’t reach it.
“You have to wake up, Jo,” the girl says. Her light eyes hold mine hostage, prompting an understanding I’m too tired for. A reminder that I’ve been here before, that I’m not truly here now.
I’m so sick of fighting. Sick of pushing the stone up the hill to watch it fall back down, rolling over my toes as it goes.
Tears blur my already messy vision.
“They need you,” the girl says. “You’re all they have.”
“I can’t. I can’t.”
“You can,” she says. “And you will.”
She says my name again and again and again. Louder, sharper, and then—
For a single second, I think I’ve woken from a nightmare and am curled up in my own bed. In my own house.
I used to cherish that second after waking up; for a single, solitary moment, Harper was still alive. I was still in that little apartment, with Margot tossing and turning in her own bed across the room. My mom was in the kitchen, the smell of microwaved bacon filling the entire apartment.
Then reality slams back into place.
I am in a hospital bed, but this is not a hospital. Slick cement walls. A counter with a set of medical tools resting atop it.
I have no way of knowing how long it’s been since Holden left. There is an old clock hanging on the wall. I’ve always been terrible at reading them. It takes a moment: 1:27. But a.m. or p.m.? Have I lost a few hours or a whole day?
The IV sticking out of my arm traces up my bicep, over my shoulder, and up to a pole resting near the bed. A bag hangs off it. Whatever is inside is turning me to mush. I yank on my wrists until they burn, trying and failing to catch the IV.
I’ve cringed each time a character in a movie or show yanks out their IV without warning; it seemed counterintuitive to me. Dangerous. But panic lights a fire in my blood, tunneling my attention to the IV and whatever drugs are pumping into my veins.
The dream comes back to me in fragments: Ingrid kneeling at my side.
You’re all they have.
Jasper. Finn. Sloane. Aisha. If I’m here, they are, too. Closer to me than they’ve ever been.
It would be so easy to give in.
I blink away my tears.
I’m not dying here. No one else is dying here.
I crane my neck, following the IV line. It rests against my shoulder, cloudy liquid slowly sliding through it and into my arm.
There is one clear option and it’s a crappy one, but I’m already strapped to a bed in some monster’s lair.
I shrug my shoulders. The IV slides down into the crook of my neck. I have to shrug a few times to move it close enough to my mouth.
This could fail. This could make things worse. But things are already pretty fucking horrible.
I catch the IV between my teeth. Bite down, hard. I have to gnaw, scraping my teeth against each other, and I can’t decide which sensation is worse—bone on bone or teeth on rubber.
The rubber cracks, and bitter liquid fills my mouth. I keep biting, biting, biting, until the IV splits into two. The top half swings, spewing liquid onto my arms and face, onto the floor.
In the movies, the main character would feel immediate relief. An instant clear to the brain fog brought on by the drugs. But everything is still muddled like I’m underwater.
My head smacks the mattress, exhaustion weighing my limbs down. I let my eyes slide shut. I’m not sure how much time passes before I open them again.
I have no clue how long the meds will stick in my system. It certainly won’t be a quick recovery. Which means whatever I do, I have to do it like this.
My ankles are strapped tight to the far end of the bed. The leather straps around my wrist are tight but not nearly as much.
I see an image of Holden strapping me down, leaving the barest amount of space when he pulls the leather straps over my wrists. Telling himself he’s being merciful by not cutting off the circulation in my hands. Convincing himself an inch of comfort makes up for all the blood on his hands.
They say that a human is capable of biting off their own finger like a carrot. That the strength is there, but the will is not. That common sense will stop the force before enough of it is applied.
This is not the place for common sense. I’m no longer a human but a rabbit with its foot in a trap, chewing off its own limb to escape.
I take a deep breath. Squeeze my eyes shut. Test my wrist restraints. The right, a hair looser than the left. It’s my dominant hand, but dominance means nothing with both hands tied, anyway.
I stretch my fingers out straight, pressing my thumb into my palm, the joint straining and screaming as a dull ache sparks in it. I have to fight the instinct to stop as much as I have to fight against the leather strap.
The strap digs into the top of my hand, digging, digging, digging, and the pressure builds in my thumb, and I keep pulling.
Something in my hand gives a pop, and my hand flies free. I’d expected the pain to balloon, but instead it settles into a pounding ache, dull, not so big I can’t breathe around it. My thumb sticks out in a way that I know isn’t right, but it’s hardly my biggest problem.
I tug the IV free of my arm, ignoring the tiny prick when it comes free. A drop of blood pools in the crook of my elbow and slides down my arm, dripping onto the white sheet.
I make quick work of the other restraints. The leather straps are cinched down and easy enough to break free from.
I slide my legs over the side of the bed, bare feet brushing the cold cement. I make the mistake of trying to stand, and my knees buckle, smacking hard into the cement. But it’s another serving of pain on a full plate. Not large enough to stop for.
I push back up, clinging to the hospital bed as I regain my footing. I feel like I’ve had a few too many drinks; my brain takes a second too long to register what my eyes land on.
My legs aren’t quite in sync with my brain, and I lurch for the counters, using them to guide me to the door. Before I push off, my gaze snags on a few needles sitting next to the medical tools. Filled with the same murky liquid as in my IV bag.
I don’t care what’s inside them. Whatever it is, I hope it’s enough to take Holden down if I run into him. And if it isn’t, the needle is still sharp enough to do some damage.
I tug on the door handle, gripping one of the needles tightly in my left hand, and the door creaks open. No use locking doors when everyone inside is tied to a bed, I suppose.
I ease out into a hallway, leaning heavily against the wall. The walls and floor are the same cement as the room I came out of. Along the ceiling, a long strip of fluorescent light casts the hall in stale light. It is a scene from every horror movie Margot has convinced me to watch.
There are no windows along the hall, but there are four doors apart from the one I slipped out of. Behind me, a set of metal stairs leads up to a steel door. Even from here, I can see the keypad. I don’t bother checking to see if it’s locked. I know it is.
And even if it isn’t, I can’t leave yet.
The air down here—and it must be a down here, if the stairs are any indication—is stale and muggy. Vaguely, I can hear the whirring of some kind of air system. It’s painfully cold, and the bottoms of my feet sting with each step I take on the freezing concrete.
I check the next door on my right. This room is full of boxes and medical equipment.
One is full of files, with Dyebucetin trials scrawled across it.
Some of the boxes have names and expiration dates.
The dates are all passed. Xylazine. Propofol.
Isoflurane. Medication names, I think, though their purpose is unclear, and I kind of want it to stay that way.
I stumble to the next door. I have to stop twice to catch my breath and blink the blurriness away.
I stop at the door, leaning heavily into the wall, willing the fog in my head to subside. Then I turn the knob and shove the door open.