21. I’m not gonna let you down. I’m not gonna let you fade away
21
I’m not gonna let you down. I’m not gonna let you fade away
Moth
M y ears were ringing. When I walked out of the diner, I nearly ran smack dab into Carl Lee, another one of the firefighters. His silvery blonde hair reminded me of Draco Malfoy, and his icy eyes reminded me of those husky dogs. I stumbled back, slipping on the loose pebbles and nearly falling.
“Oh! Hey, there,” he said, reaching out and grabbing my arm. His hand wrapped around my bicep, keeping me upright, and when I looked down, that’s when I realized he was wearing thick leather gloves.
Why the hell was he wearing those in the middle of late September? It was still hot in Kansas. Why was he—
“You alright?” he asked, and I blinked up at him, dazed.
“Y-yeah,” I said, flashing a quick smile. “Sorry. I didn’t mean to—”
“You’re fine, sugar,” he said, smiling at me .
That’s when I realized how tall he was. He was taller than Sheriff Banner was. But his voice?
His voice wasn’t deep enough.
They have voice changers and stuff , Barrett’s voice reminded me from the back of my mind.
My throat went desert dry, and it took several tries for me to swallow.
It couldn’t be him. There was no way it was him. He was so nice, and—
“—hurt you.”
His words jarred me. I’d caught just the tail end of his sentence, but my brain honed in on two very familiar words.
“W-what?”
“I didn’t wanna hurt you,” he said, nodding as he passed me and moved into the diner.
My heart sped up to a dizzying speed, and I hurried to my car, my head spinning.
I was hearing things. This was stupid. I was overreacting. I was seeing shadows where there were no shadows.
Was I?
Wasn’t I?
Fighting to catch my breath, I tossed the journal onto the passenger’s seat and shoved the key into the ignition. I needed out of here, but I didn’t want to be alone. I didn’t want to go back to that house and wait for the next time he came for me.
With shaking fingers, I pulled my phone out of the glove compartment and flicked it on. Still no answer from Barrett. I knew he was busy, but this was urgent .
Slamming the car into reverse, I whipped out of the lot and gunned it down the street in the opposite direction from my dad’s house. I needed Barrett, and I needed him now.
The roads blurred past me as I sped towards his house. Panic clawed at my chest, and I fought for every breath. Questions swirled in my mind, each one more terrifying than the last. Had Carl Lee been lying to me this whole time? Was he involved in whatever was happening to me? Worse, was he my stalker?
What about Sheriff Banner?
I pulled into the driveway and practically leaped out of the car. The building loomed in front of me, all clapboard siding and glass in the fading light. In the distance, I could hear the barking and baying of his bloodhounds, screaming their discomfort at a new guest on their land. I burst through the doors, panting and gasping in the living room. I listened for any sign of him, but after a few minutes, there was nothing.
“Barrett!” I called out, scanning the room frantically. Falling quiet, a precarious sort of silence came back to slap me in the face.
He wasn’t here. How could he not be here?
A painful ache hit me right in the gut and I nearly doubled over. Sitting right there on the coffee table, his plain black phone case glared up at me like a beacon.
His phone was here, and he wasn’t. Something was wrong.
I knew I had to think fast. The fear that clawed its way up my throat threatened to suffocate me. My mind raced through possibilities, each one more terrifying than the last.
With trembling hands, I grabbed Barrett’s phone, hoping to find some clue, some message that could lead me to him, but the screen remained dark and unresponsive. Panic surged through me like a tidal wave, crashing against my resolve.
I could hear the bloodhounds outside, their howls growing louder and more insistent. They sensed my fear, my desperation. The more their otherworldly howls echoed in the failing light, the more I felt an icy cold finger touch my spine, and I shivered.
Why were they still barking? This wasn’t normal.
Normally, they barked to alert of a newcomer. Then, when that newcomer was out of sight, they went back to being silent. They had been barking when I pulled up, and now they were still barking.
Spinning on my heel, I rushed out the door and jumped the length of the steps, landing in the dirt. My ankle bent beneath me, twisting painfully, but I ignored it, sprinting across the yard towards the dog run, my breath sawing in and out of my lungs so fast that it hurt.
The hound’s barks reached a fever pitch as I approached the dog run. As I approached the chain link, I could see the massive forms of the dogs outlined against the darkening sky, their eyes glowing like hot coals in the shadows. The acrid scent of fear hung heavy in the air as I skidded to a stop in front of the enclosure, my heart pounding in my chest. I could smell hay and wood, with the underlying tang of iron.
Blood. I smelled blood.
As I reached the chain-link fence, a chilling realization struck me. The gate was wide open, swinging gently in the evening breeze, but the dogs remained inside, shying away from the door and slinking back into the shadows. Fear clenched my chest like a vise as I stepped inside. I was greeted by the dogs, as usual, six full-grown and numerous smaller ones. They sniffed my hands eagerly, their whiplike tails lashing out around them as they wiggled their happiness.
“Barrett!” I called out again, my voice barely above a whisper, but there was no response.
As I scanned the enclosure, my blood turned to ice in my veins.
There, lying crumpled on the ground, was Barrett’s jacket—torn and stained with blood. As I reached out to grab it, a movement ahead of me caught my eye and I gasped as I looked up, wide eyes finding a low shadow slumped against the far wall of the pen.
“Barrett?!”
I ran to him, dropping to my knees in the thick straw. In the shadows, I could see that he was alive, if only barely.
His normally vibrant blue eyes were half-closed, his face contorted in pain. Blood oozed from a wound on his temple, matting his dark hair against his skin. Panic surged within me as I gently touched his shoulder, trying to rouse him.
“Barrett, can you hear me?” I whispered frantically.
His eyelids fluttered open, and he groaned weakly. His hand moved to touch the wound on his head, and I could see the pain etched in his features.
“We need to get you out of here,” I said urgently. I reached down, tucking my hands beneath his arms in an attempt to help him up, but he yelped in pain and I jerked away. “I’m calling 911.”
“You c-can’t. Don’t call them. ”
His shaking hand reached out, knocking my phone from my hands. It spun through the shadows, landing at my feet with a dull thump that felt like a knife in my chest.
“What?! Why?! Barrett, you’re hurt! You’re bleeding, we have to—”
“If you call them,” he groaned. “He’ll know.”
I froze, the weight of his words sinking in like heavy stones in my stomach. Who would know? What was Barrett talking about? The questions swirled in my mind, but he weakly grabbed my hand before I could voice them, his fingers trembling against mine.
“Who?” I whispered, my voice sputtering and cracked. Somehow, I knew, even before he told me.
“He’ll kill me if I tell you who he is,” he whispered urgently. “You have to listen to me.”
“He d-did this to you?” I asked, shaking my head. I didn’t want to believe it. “My stalker did this to you? He hurt you… why? Because of me ?”
“Vanessa!” He shouted, and I fell quiet, too scared to talk, to move, or even to breathe. “My leg is broken. At least one, maybe both. You need to help me into the car and drive me yourself.”
Broken? My mind couldn’t even compute the word.
I felt eyes upon me, cold, undead breath slithering down my neck. My knees shook, threatening to betray me and spill me down into the hay right alongside him.
“Now, Vanessa!”
The urgency in his voice spurred me into action. I reached down, grabbed my phone, and shoved it into the front of my bra. With trembling hands, I carefully helped him to his feet, taking on more of his weight than I thought possible. His groans of pain sent shivers down my spine, and I had to fight to blink away the tears.
It felt like an eternity, each step a battle against the encroaching darkness. The thought of his broken leg made my stomach turn, a mix of anger and helplessness boiling within me. When we stepped out of the dog run, I swung the door shut behind me and hastily latched it. Looking down, the moonlight illuminated the inhuman angle of his leg, and my stomach sloshed and churned, threatening to spill my peach cobbler across the grass.
Looking up, I caught sight of his face. His skin was ashen, soaked with a sheen of sweat, and his mouth was down-turned in a deep, hollow frown.
“Okay,” I groaned, adjusting my hold around his waist and planting my feet. “We can do this. We have to do this.”
I pulled him forward, taking the brunt of his weight across my neck and shoulders. With every step, he screamed, his voice grating on my soul until it was bared, raw, and bleeding.
Finally, we reached my car, and a jumble of relief and dread washed over me. I carefully helped Barrett into the passenger seat, his face contorted with pain as he settled in. The moon cast an eerie glow over the scene as I circled to the driver’s side, throwing myself into the seat and slamming the door closed. My fingers shook as I pulled out my keys, fighting to slot them into the ignition. Finally, they found a home, and I forced the engine to life, peeling out of the driveway and leaving a cloud of dust in our wake.
His breathing was labored as I sped towards the nearest hospital, my knuckles white on the steering wheel. The world outside was a blur, the wind whipping past me and the treeline fading into a violent blur on either side of the road. My mind was a tornado, tearing through my emotions and pulverizing them into dust.
“Why would he do this?!” I sobbed, not daring to take my eyes off the road. I slapped at the tears racing from my eyes, and the lake of snot that had gathered beneath my nose. “Y-you’re not a threat to him! You’re not… t-taking me. I don’t understand!”
I couldn’t breathe. My breaths came in small, rapid gasps, and my heart was a drumbeat inside my chest.
“This is my fault!” I sucked in a deep, pulling gasp of air, fighting to stay sane. “You’re hurt because of me!”
“Nessa, listen,” Barrett said, his voice a whisper in the passenger seat. I chanced a glance at him. He was on the verge of losing consciousness. “You n-need to let this go.”
“Let this go?!” I barked, and a manic laugh slipped past my lips. “He could have killed you!”
“For the sake of us both,” he said, his voice fading with every syllable. “Let this go .”
“Tell me who it was!” I begged, blinking hard as I fought to force the words from my throat. “I can make all of this go away! All you have to do is tell me who did it!”
There was no answer, and when I looked over, he was silent, his head slumped forward against his chest.
I was hysterical when I pulled into the ambulance bay at Morris County Hospital. It was almost a thirty-minute drive, but it was the closest we had. Scrambling out of the car, I sprinted towards the double doors, pounding on the glass with hands that I hadn’t even realized were covered in blood, leaving gory smears across the glass .
“Help me!” I shrieked, my voice tearing from my throat. “I need help! Somebody help!”
The doors swung open, and a team of nurses rushed out, followed by a pair of doctors, their voices calm and soothing as they guided me away from Barrett’s car.
“No!” I spat, twisting away from them. “I-I’m staying with him! I’m gonna stay—”
“Miss, listen.” A dark-haired, olive-skinned nurse pulled me away from the commotion, with a gentle voice and a soft hand entangling both of mine. “We need to get him assessed, okay? We need to figure out what’s going on, and then we can come and get you, okay?”
She wouldn’t let me pull away, and after a minute, I ceased trying.
It didn’t matter. I didn’t have the energy. My mind was a whirlwind of fear and guilt, each emotion crashing against the other in a tumultuous storm.
My fault. My fault.
He could die because of me.
I numbly followed her inside, my mind painfully numb. She led me to a small room and handed me a damp cloth to wipe away the blood on my hands. As I wiped them, I looked up at her, searching for answers in the calm sea of her brown eyes.
“H-He’s gonna be okay?” I asked, my bottom lip quivering.
“I can’t tell you that,” she told me simply. “But I can tell you we’ll take care of him as best as we can. Wait here, and we’ll be back soon with an update. ”
Minutes morphed into hours, and they all passed in a blur of antiseptic smells and fluorescent lights. I heard families around me talking animatedly to themselves, some watching me as I fought to scrub the gore from my hands.
Let them stare. Let them judge me. They could kiss my ass as they did it.
I was still scrubbing when I heard footsteps approach. Looking up, I saw a short, white-haired doctor coming toward me. He was older, and when he looked at me, his kind eyes crinkled at the edges behind his wire-rimmed glasses.
“Miss Harper?”
I nodded.
“He’s stable for now,” the doctor said, his voice gentle but tinged with concern. “No internal bleeding, but he has severe injuries. A concussion, and some broken ribs. We need to operate immediately to try to save his leg.”
I nodded numbly, my heart a heavy weight in my chest.
“Do you know…” he paused, sighing as he crossed his arms across his chest. “Was he in an accident? Maybe a farm accident? The injuries seem to be blunt force, so I thought maybe he had a run-in with a bull. He seems like the farmin’ type.”
“I-I don’t know,” I whispered, tears flooding my vision. I was lying. I had to. “I came over for a visit and I just found him in the pasture.”
“He’s a lucky guy,” the doctor said, giving me a warm smile. “Much longer and he may not be as stable as he is right now.”
There was another pause, and while I tried to smile, all I managed was a pain-filled grimace instead .
“Why don’t you go ahead and find Shelly at the front desk? Fill out some forms for her, and give her your number. He’s in for the long haul, and sitting here in this uncomfortable chair isn’t helping either of you. Go home, and we’ll call you when he’s out of surgery.”
I did as he said, mindlessly numb as I floated up to the receptionist. She was a kind redhead with bright blue eyes and a welcoming smile. She was pretty. She was also very calm and patient with me as I fought to rattle off the information for her.
“Alright,” she said after a while, tucking the papers into a folder. “I’m here for the rest of the night, so I will personally give you a call when he gets out of surgery. Doctors said it could be hours, so why don’t you get home and get some sleep?”
I nodded, stumbling away from the desk and back toward the double doors, still smeared with Barrett’s blood. As I walked, my eyes fell upon a flier taped to a nearby wall, sitting crooked and barely holding on with the sticky-tack that kept it in place. Something about it seemed familiar. Shuffling up to the wall, I squinted at the tiny type through narrowed, blurry eyes.
Cottonwood Falls Harvest Ball
Saturday, September 21st
Reaching up, I ripped the flier off the wall, looking down at the tiny, off-center leaves and acorns that dotted the outside, and the blurry, too-big red and orange text.
That was this weekend .
Sniffling, I shoved the flier into my bra and wove my way out the doors and into the parking lot. Shaking hands found the phone in my bra and pulled it out.
I dialed the familiar number, my heart pounding in my chest. The phone rang twice before she picked up, her voice warm and surprised on the other end.
“Nessa?”
“Amelia,” my voice cracked, and I swallowed the lump in my throat. “I need your help.”
“What’s wrong?” Her voice was sharp now, all humor and light gone.
“It’s Barrett,” I whispered, tears streaming down my face as I climbed into the car. “Someone attacked him. He—he’s in surgery right now. He was hurt. Bad.”
There was a gasp on the other end of the line, followed by a long silence.
“Do you think it was—”
“I know it was.”
“I’m on my way. Where are you?”
“I’m headed back to my dad’s house,” I murmured, sniffling loudly as I started the car and backed out of the parking space. “Can you do me a favor?”
“Anything,” she said firmly, determination coloring her tone.
“Swing by my apartment. I need the dress I wore to the charity banquet at the hospital. Bring yours too.”
There was a telling silence on the other end of the line.
“Why?”
“I have an idea.”