CHAPTER TEN
JAMES
Some smells stay with you. Smoke. Gasoline. Burnt skin. But blood? You carry it long after it’s gone. Sharp. Metallic.
Hitting the cold water feels like a thousand tiny needles stabbing into my skin. I don’t even know how I fell. One moment I was on the bridge; the next something yanked me back hard—
The rope!
I twist to look back at the bridge, except it’s not a bridge anymore, just a swinging mess of ropes.
“Sarah? Michael?”
“James, over here!” Michael yells, his teeth chattering so hard I can hear it even over the roar of the water.
I whip my head toward his voice. He’s in the water, thrashing against the current, holding Sarah. She’s limp in his arms, and he’s barely keeping them above water.
I grab the rope at my waist and yank it to make sure it’s still secure. It’s taut—thank God. We’re still tied together, all three of us. That’s our only shot.
“Hold on, Michael!” I shout back. “I’m gonna swing to the bank.”
I push through the water. The river’s raging, relentless, and it’s draining every last bit of my strength as I try to reach the bank. I’m almost there when the current grabs hold and yanks us farther downstream.
I spot a low branch jutting over the water, half submerged but thick enough to hold us. Two strokes later, my fingers hit rough bark, and I latch on hard. The rope around my waist jerks, almost pulling me off. I grit my teeth, swing a leg up, and haul myself onto the branch.
My fingers are wrinkled as though I’ve been soaking for hours, and my hands are shaking so badly I can barely hold on. But none of that matters. Not now. I grab the rope at my waist and start pulling.
I can’t look away from Sarah. Michael’s got her locked against him, one arm wrapped around her torso and the other holding her chin up to keep her head out of the water. Her eyes are closed. I don’t even want to think about why.
I stretch my arm toward him as he inches closer. “I’ve got you.”
He reaches out, and I grab him by the elbow, pulling him in until he hooks an arm around the branch to keep from going under.
“Take her. Don’t worry about me,” he mutters between short, ragged breaths.
I don’t argue. I just nod and slide my arms under Sarah.
She’s dead weight, limp and heavy, her head lolling against my chest, but I hold tight and pull her up into my arms.
My legs nearly buckle as I carry her. Two stumbling steps later, we’re finally on solid ground. I lower her gently onto the muddy shore, but she doesn’t move.
I’m still staring at Sarah when Michael’s voice snaps me out of it. I turn and spot him clinging to the branch, half submerged.
“James, I can’t—”
“I’m coming, Michael!”
I scramble back to the branch and stretch out an arm, but his grip is gone. He’s got nothing left.
“Shit,” I mutter, leaning farther.
I wrap my arms around him, hold on tight, and use the last of my strength to pull him out. The current fights me, pissed I’m winning, but I don’t let go until we’re both on the shore.
We collapse in the mud, side by side, gasping like we’ve been drowning for hours.
“James, are you hurt?” Michael asks, eyes wide. “Why are you covered in blood?”
I blink at him, confused. “What?”
I look down where he’s pointing. It takes just a second to register that my white shirt—or at least it used to be white—is soaked with blood. Bright red. Splattered everywhere.
I press a hand to my chest, then my stomach, feeling for pain, anything. But there’s nothing. No pain. Not even a scratch.
Oh God. It’s not my blood.
My head snaps back to Sarah, lying there so still. I’m at her side in a flash, dropping to my knees in the mud. Her blonde hair is wet and messy, and there’s a streak of red running through it that twists my stomach.
Please, no.
I push her hair back, and I see it. The wound. Deep, jagged, and bleeding like crazy. She must’ve hit a rock underwater, and now I can’t stop picturing how much that had to hurt.
I tear a chunk of fabric from my shirt and press it against the gash on her head. The soft, flowery scent that’s so her is gone. All I can smell now is blood.
Michael leans over her, face pale, his hands shaking as he gently touches her arm like he’s afraid he’ll make it worse.
“Sarah?”
Nothing, just silence. And somehow, it’s louder than any scream I’ve ever heard.
“James, she’s not waking up!”
No! Don’t say that. Don’t even think it.
“Sarah, can you hear me?” My hands tremble as I grab hers. “Come on, baby. Come back to us.” Come back to me.
Her face stays still for one breath. Two. Three. Then, just as I’m about to lose it, her eyes flicker open, staring straight at me.
“Why are you two looking at me like that?” she asks, voice groggy but so unmistakably her. “Is my braid messed up?”
I blink twice. Then again. Did she just—?
She looks between me and Michael, confused, and maybe even a little annoyed.
Michael lets out a strangled laugh, half relief, half disbelief, and I just sit there, staring at her as if she’s a damn miracle. Because she is.
“Good, she’s awake,” Michael says. He moves closer, holding up two fingers in front of her face. “Sarah, can you see this? How many fingers am I holding up?”
Her eyes lock onto him, and I swear there’s a little spark of mischief in there.
Slowly, she lifts her middle finger on her right hand, then the one on her left. “Steady… as a rock.”
He folds his arms across his chest. “Oh, she’s fine,” he grumbles, trying to sound annoyed, but I can already see the smile forming.
She glances at the river, a little smile playing on her lips. “That was totally a Musketeer-level adventure, don’t you boys think? ‘The Three Musketeers and the River.’ Sounds like a bestseller. Just… tweak the ending. Maybe I fight a dragon or something cooler than, y’know… falling.”
Yep, she’s gonna be just fine.
“How long was I out?” she asks.
Not long. Less than a minute. But to me it was… “Too long, baby, too long,” I admit. Seeing her unconscious almost knocked me out.
She narrows her eyes at me suspiciously. “And why are you covered in blood? What’d you do now?”
I brush her cheek, my hand still shaking a little. “You should see the other guy.”
Her eyebrows shoot up, and she looks at me like I’ve sprouted a second head.
“James Hill, did you just make a joke?” She lets out a soft laugh. “This is officially the best day of my life.”
“You scare the shit out of me,” I say, dead serious.
“Yeah, I know. I have a habit of doing that without even trying. It’s a gift.”
Her hand drifts up toward the wound on her forehead, but the moment her fingers brush the torn fabric I pressed there, she flinches, sucking in a sharp hiss of pain.
Damn it. If I could take that pain from her, I would in a heartbeat.
“What happened?” she asks.
“You hit a rock.”
She smiles faintly. “Or the rock hit me.”
I crack a smile, but it doesn’t last. It fades when I see blood seeping through the makeshift bandage. The shirt’s soaked now, red dripping down her face.
“She’s still bleeding a lot, Michael. Where’s the first aid kit?”
Michael shakes his head. “It’s gone, James. I lost it with my backpack somewhere down that damned river. And without it…” His voice trails off, and his worried eyes meet mine. “You better be right about that town nearby. She needs medicine, and fast.”
I don’t waste time. I yank open Sarah’s backpack and pull out a blanket, draping it over her shoulders.
“We’ve gotta keep you warm until we get there, all right?”
“I’m fine,” she insists, pushing herself up on both elbows, ready to walk it off. But I’m faster, stopping her with a hand on her shoulder.
“You hit your head hard enough to cut it open, Sarah. Let’s not add anything else to the list until we get to the town, okay?”
I give her a knowing look, the kind that says, Please don’t argue with me this time. She groans but doesn’t fight me, and that’s how I know she’s not as fine as she’s pretending to be.
My hands instinctively go to my pockets, searching. All I find is my dad’s old pocket watch. “Shit!”
Michael frowns. “What’s wrong?”
“I lost your dad’s compass in the river. I’m sorry, Michael.”
We both know it was the fastest way to find the town.
He looks at my empty hand, then the one holding my dad’s watch. There’s no anger in his face, no disappointment, just a calm, almost serene little smile. “It’s okay.”
I blink, not sure I heard him right. “But it was the last thing you had from him.”
Michael adjusts the bandage on Sarah’s head, his smile growing just a bit. “No, it’s not.”
I don’t get it. What does he mean by that?
“Besides, we’ve still got your dad’s pocket watch,” he adds. “I’d call that a win.”
I look down at the watch in my hand, turning it over like it’s suddenly supposed to reveal something more. “This watch isn’t gonna help us at all.”
Michael shrugs. “You never know.”
◆◆◆
We walk for half an hour before the trees finally thin out. My boots hit the cracked concrete of an old road, and up ahead, a small town comes into view.
My eyes drift to the houses lining the street and I freeze when they land on a door with a faded message scrawled in blue graffiti: “This was home,” which means it’s not anymore.
I look down at Sarah in my arms, forcing the thought away. She’s still pale, still bleeding, but trying her best to look okay.
She catches my gaze and gives me that familiar stubborn look. “I can walk, you know.”
I smile. “Oh, I know, but we’re in a town, and if I let you walk, you’ll probably run straight for the nearest shop.”
She giggles.
“You know me too well. That deserves a kiss.” She leans up and plants soft kisses along my chin, and warmth spreads through me.
I glance across the street. An old wooden sign above the door hangs by a thread, swaying in the breeze. It says Johnson’s Pharmacy, though the sun’s bleached the letters so much they’re barely readable.
Two of the windows are shattered, jagged glass framing the remains of a long-abandoned barricade. Someone, a lifetime ago, had tried to protect whatever was inside. I guess it didn’t work.