Chapter 28
CHAPTER TWENTY-EIGHT
Slowly, so I don’t scare her, I angle my body so I can try to see the extent of Holli’s wound. I can’t see much, but what I do see doesn’t look good. It makes my skin prickle. I don’t know much about injuries, but I do know they need to be disinfected and covered up.
Grabbing for my backpack, I catch the wary look she throws at me.
“You’re hurt.”
She says nothing.
Opening the first aid kit again, I look through the items. Bandages, alcohol wipes, gloves, and Band-Aids. Not much else. I stand to hand it to her, and she backs up quickly, almost in the rain again. “Fuck off.”
Raising my eyebrows, I still. The water has given her more life. And with that life, she looks like she wants to cut me.
“Here.” I hold the kit out like an offering. Holli stares at it, then stares at me, a burning look in her eyes. But I can’t help but notice how pretty she looks with her bright eyes.
I shake my head. I’m a deranged fucker to be thinking that right now.
“Sit down,” I tell her. “You need to clean it and get it covered.”
There’s a silence where I think Holli’s considering if she can hang me with the bandages, eyes flashing. Then, she grits, “It’s a bite.”
I stare at her. “What?”
“It’s a bite. Centipede.”
I blink. I’m not sure what happens with centipede bites, but the way she says it doesn’t sound good.
“It looks infected,” I say.
“Well, it’s not going to look easy breezy covergirl.”
Hot anger washes over my skin, but I bite back a retort. If she doesn’t let me help her at least a little, there’s no way I’ll get her off this island with a bunch of people who would rather see her dead. I need her to trust me.
How would she trust me? She clearly doesn’t believe I’m here to help her. Because she sees me as the enemy. Maybe I need to change my tactics.
So, I raise my hands. “Look, you don’t have to like me. But I don’t want to be here just as much as you don’t, so just…go easy.”
She just looks at me.
I let the implication that I’m not here willingly settle, looking away from her, out into the rain.
Lying to her feels wrong. Not that I’m actually lying—I don’t want to be here. But I’m responsible for it. For both of us.
What she doesn’t know can’t hurt her, right? Once she’s home, it doesn’t matter how I got her there.
Out of the corner of my eye, I see Holli look around.
Oh shit, she’s going to run. I tense, but she doesn’t. Holli just backs against one of the roots, bracing herself partially on it and resting the supplies there. Then, she starts ripping at the hole in her pants.
She’s trusting me. Goosebumps prick across my back, but I continue to face away. Either that, or she’s doing what I asked, and that’s all I needed.
Stealing a glance back to assess how bad her leg is, I see the red, inflamed skin.
I suck in a breath, and Holli glares at me. “What’s the matter, princess?”
I have the sudden urge to puff up my chest and yell at her that I’m not the enemy here. I open my mouth, but Holli flashes me a look. Underneath all that fury is something like…fear, and it makes me pause.
There’s silence for a while, just the sound of the rain hitting the leaves of the trees. Holli snarls at me, and I wonder if I saw the fear in the first place.
She hates me. The turmoil makes me want to rip my skin off. I don’t like her thinking badly of me.
Then, Holli snaps, “Tell me about your childhood.”
I glare at her. My…childhood?
She ignores me, cleaning at her mark with a wipe. I see now that there are two distinct scabs that have crusted over with pus. Without meeting her gaze, I can tell hers is on my face, and my skin heats. What does she see? Suddenly, I’m self-conscious about the fact that I don’t have a shirt on.
I clear my throat and bark, “What?”
“Who did you grow up with?” she asks.
“Amy and Bill,” I recite.
“Do you always call your parents by their first names?”
I freeze, defensiveness making me want to cross my arms. But there’s nothing to be ashamed of. Fostering is not a bad word. “No,” I cut back, too quickly. “They were my foster parents.”
There’s a pause, and I look to see if Holli feels any sort of embarrassment for being an asshole. She just stares at me, then gets back to work.
“Did people say you were a problem in school? Did you get bad grades?”
I scowl. My grades weren’t anything great, but I still passed.
“Did you wet the bed?” She’s still going.
“No.” I glare at her.
“Start fires?”
“No.” I feel hot.
“Hurt animals?”
Hurt animals? I squeeze my hands into fists so hard my fingernails dig into my palms. “What the fuck is your problem?”
“Just trying to figure out how you turned into the person you are.” Holli looks up at me, throwing the used wipe onto the ground at my feet.
I can’t keep the growl in. “You know nothing about me.”
“Oh, really?” She arches an eyebrow. “Did you have any friends growing up? Or were you the loner? No one understood you.”
“I had friends,” I fire back, but her words make me remember Jeremy and how he left me. And how I could never seem to get friends to stick.
She arches an eyebrow. “Abuse in the home?”
“No,” I say with finality. Amy and Bill never did anything to me.
Holli waits with a loaded silence, but I hold my ground. Amy and Bill were good people. My mom was a good person, too. Even if she did leave me to fend for myself for days. She was just sick.
Holli gets back to her leg, acting like she can see through me, and doesn’t like what she sees. It makes my skin crawl. I’m a good person, damn it. “You know nothing about me,” I growl. “I was a good kid—Am a good kid. I’m a project manager at my job, and I own my home.”
“And you kill people. But yeah, tell me more about the house.”
“I don’t kill people!” I’m nearly shouting now. “If I wanted to kill you, don’t you think I’d have done it by now? Maybe when you threw a rock at my head?”
She watches me with a fiery gaze, so much damn heat in her eyes that I can’t look away. I growl, “I wasn’t supposed to be here. Neither were you. How many times do I have to tell you I’m trying to get us out?”
“Why am I here, Fourteen?” Holli shouts. She’s shorter than me, but she’s somehow still looking down on me.
“I don’t know,” I shoot back. The lie squeezes my chest as it comes out, but I can’t stop it. “I thought I won a free vacation. Some things were odd, but I didn’t question them. Clearly, that’s not what this is. As for you, I have no idea how you got here.”
There’s a standoff where we both stare at each other. I gaze into her blue eyes, willing her to believe me. Pouring all my believability into my stare. I’m not here to hurt you. Because that part’s true.
Finally, she starts shivering again.
“If you don’t get me off this goddamn island right the fuck now, I’ll fucking finish the job I started with the rock.”