Chapter 6
Byrdie
Iwill die out here.
My body doesn’t want to recognize what my mind knows, so I keep walking.
Planting one foot in front of the other, with my eyes fixed on a horizon that never comes any closer, I just keep going.
I don’t even know where I’m walking anymore. Part of me stopped caring miles ago. The only thing I’m certain of is that if I stop, I won’t start again. And so I walk.
My feet have stopped burning. It’s the top of my head that’s on fire now.
Minutes ago, I ordered myself to stop thinking about Mom. It only hurt, and when the tears started, nothing came.
Now I think about water. About ice cream. About going on a stroll through the freezer department in a grocery store. Of how cool the air is that blasts you in the face when you pull the chiller door open.
Until I take a step forward and there’s nothing there.
It’s so sudden, so unexpected, I forget to scream, or maybe I don’t have time; I’m falling that fast. Grunting, I roll down an incline I never saw coming.
With a groan, I finally stop, lying on my back. My head is ringing, and I have no strength to pick myself up when I hear it.
What is that?
Something is dragging itself along the ground.
I angle my aching head to the right.
A snake.
I stare at it, disbelieving.
Maybe I hit my head too hard and I’m seeing things. I didn’t think there were snakes in the New Mexico desert until now.
Now I wish I’d spent more time looking where I was going and less time feeling sorry for myself.
The snake isn’t moving. The moment I stopped moving, it did as well. Its black body glistens under the harsh sun. A long, forked tongue tastes the air.
Unblinking black eyes fix on me.
“Get up,” I whisper, the sound of my pounding heart filling my head.
This is real, and this is actually happening, so get the hell up, Byrdie. Now.
I put my palms down on the hard red ground and push up.
Hiss.
I freeze.
The snake's tongue tastes a little more of the air, and its body starts to sway.
I try to recall every nature show I ever watched and have no clue if this is a sign it’s about to attack.
Then it does something even more terrifying.
It slides toward me.
I shove myself up. Fast. The ankle I turned when I fell screams at me. I ignore the sharp shooting pain that radiates up my leg and back away from the snake, never taking my eyes off it and not daring to even blink.
Only when it slows do I risk looking away, half-running and half-hobbling as fast as I can. Sweat slicks down my forehead, and my ankle hurts so much I’m practically crying.
When I peer over my shoulder to check where it is, there’s no sign of it, and I hope that means it’s stopped following me.
Just let yourself die.
There’s something to be said about someone leaving you in a place so perfect to die that you wonder why you don’t just do it. But no matter how many times I tell myself to sit down and save myself from an ankle that hurts and a blisteringly hot sun that makes each step hard work, I can’t do it.
No one will miss me.
No one will care.
No one will even come and look for me.
Makhi fired me for something I didn't do, and he slammed the door in my face. Jeremiah’s acolytes stuffed me in the trunk of their car and drove six hours to take me back to Jeremiah at the compound.
Even if Vonn, who cared enough to lend me his dog tags, wanted to come after me, he couldn’t.
He doesn’t know where I went, and he could never find me. No one could. At least, not in time.
I should just sit down on the ground and let myself die.
But something inside me won’t let me do it.
There has to be more to life than a mom who never gave me much of a chance to live a life I wanted, moving from school to school, and never belonging.
“Oof.”
I don’t realize I’m falling until my face hits the ground. It doesn’t hurt as much as it should. Everything fights me when I try to get up. My arms won’t work. My legs throb, and my skin burns. When I lick my cracked lips, even my tongue feels dry.
Fighting with myself, I roll onto my side, enough that I can breathe. I stare out across the desert, and I know this is it.
I’ve walked… I don’t know how long I’ve walked.
I can’t go any further. It wasn’t enough. I wasn’t enough.
Something brushes my collarbone, and I reach out to grab it. Vonn’s dog tags. He fought in wars and came out of them alive. I grip them, taking some of his strength for myself.
My mind, stupidly, irrationally, drags me back to the roof on the night where Makhi is smoking something that smells too potent to be a cigarette. The sky is black, and when he passes it to me, I take it even though I’ve never smoked a day in my life.
I try to think of Vonn.
Vonn, who saved me. Who made me feel safe for the first time in so long. I want him to be the last person I think of when I die. Not the man who called me a thief and slammed a door in my face.
But I’m not in control of my mind anymore.
I’m just here for the ride. In my mind, as I die, I’m sitting on the edge of the roof of a mansion filled with secrets, and I take the cigarette from Makhi.
I smoke it, and when I blow a smoke ring, he pushes me off the roof.
The ground reaches toward me. I put my hands out, as if skin and bone will save me.
And I die.
I must be dying because why else would I be sitting in a smoke ring, floating past Makhi, who kicks his legs as he sits back on the edge of the roof, smoking a cigarette that is not a cigarette. His eyes are unfocused, and for one split second, they focus on me.
I look him in the eye, furious that this is my last memory.
Him.
“You killed me,” I scream in his face.
But he takes another drag from his cigarette, and when he blows, he blows me away.
He doesn’t care.
He never cared, and maybe that’s okay. No one else did either.