Chapter Sixty-Two Eden #3
I walk as stiffly as I can so as not to slice my insides in half, because I have watched too much Grey’s Anatomy, and they always leave in the impaling object until the ER doctor can miraculously pull it out and save the patient.
Or not. I use the shadows to my advantage, the routes in these woods coming back to me as if I never left.
I avoid the gully over there, which has grown wider.
I stumble over broken branches and bite back against the sharp pangs of pain.
I close my eyes and reopen them when the blurriness hits to clear my vision and trudge on.
The muggy night sticks to me, and my breath is shallow. There isn’t enough air, especially when I hear Bennett scream.
“Where the hell is she?”
Then Danny yells back, “She was here a second ago.”
“Oh my God, she’s gonna tell. We are fucked!” Roger exclaims.
James says, “Just find her, okay? She’s in a bad way, and we can’t leave her like this.”
Only James cares, I think. If things had been different.
If I hadn’t been a Corrigan and he some regular guy who was smart enough to get noticed by Bennett and be in his orbit, James and I might have had a chance.
James was too sensitive for this lot. And so was I.
And he was too weak to fight them for what he knew was right.
Such was the case back then. Such is the case now. And so I begin to run.
My pace quickens. They are going to look for me, and I’m not moving fast enough. I zig and zag so that maybe they’ll move parallel and won’t pick up my tracks. Luckily the dark hides any blood trail I might leave behind.
All I can think is that no one knows I’m here.
No one knows I came back except them and Isla.
But Isla doesn’t even know who I really am.
And what if Bennett finds out about her?
What would he have done to a girl who no one would miss?
I can’t think about that. I don’t even want to think about the animals that may be out here, smelling me.
My steps are uneven. The world tilts, and the blood flows freer, my body automatically ejecting this foreign object. The branches scrape my skin, the underbrush tries to catch me, and sticky brambles hang on my clothes and somehow get inside my pant leg, pricking my ankles. I am a human pincushion.
But the tree line begins to thin, and I see a break in it. It is something unfamiliar, a narrow and overgrown road. One that surely has been closed off. A single vehicle has rolled up on it slowly, the brake lights the only things on. It’s not the guys. They are somewhere behind me. It is help.
I hitch toward it, grunting as I go, my legs barely holding me up, warning me they only have a little gas left in the tank. My vision blurs again. Out. In. Halfway. It’ll have to do.
“Help,” I croak, my voice barely above a whisper. It is raw from inhaling the capsaicin from the Mace. “Hey!” I can’t be too loud. They’ll hear me and come running. The world tilts sideways, but I manage to make it go back right.
Once I’ve seen help just ahead, my body betrays me, and my legs give way, pitching me forward.
The person leaps forward and catches me in their arms, holding me up as if I weigh nothing.
I am fading fast, as if coming down from an extreme high, the adrenaline and survival instinct seeping out of me like the blood from my wound.
“Please,” I say. “Have to get away. I’m a—” Am I really going to do it? Invoke the name I’ve shunned for two years because now it will save me? “A Corrigan,” I finish with much effort. It’s getting harder to breathe. “My father will pay anything. Vic—Victor Corrigan.”
Bennett calls my name in the wind. “Edie, please. Come back.”
He actually sounds concerned. For me. For himself. Who knows. I nearly say something. But I’ve been tricked by his faux concern before. Never again.
The figure looks at me, and recognition hits us both. Relief floods me because I don’t have to do it alone anymore. There is help. There is no more Bennett and his friends. “Hospital,” I say. “Please.”
Surprise crosses their face as they take me in, assessing the condition of my body.
We both look to the woods when my name is again called. And then a second time. A third. And a fourth. The figure recognizes the owner of that voice. And those of the other three that follow.
We refocus on each other.
Their face blurs again as their hands roam my pockets. Luck is with them like it isn’t with me, and they find the recorder that has been running the whole time. The one that’s recorded Danny admitting the truth about the accident they lied about.
The figure never answers me.
Instead of helping me up and guiding me to the car, the figure slides their hands down my side.
“Don’t!” I say, trying to stop their hands with mine. There is no hospital around. This will kill me.
They hesitate, but only for a moment, because the surprise and what I thought was concern shift to resignation. And then determination finally takes over, and any consideration for me is wiped into a blank, unreadable mask.
The hovering figure sighs like the weight of the world rests on their shoulders. Many unspoken answers hang in that sound, making everything perfectly clear, making everything final.
My desperate call for help is replaced by the only horrid sound I can make when the figure grabs ahold of the glass shard and—