48. Forty-Eight
Madeline screams behind me. Every step I take away, she grows more and more desperate. I’m holding Tucker, fighting off the memories of carrying Madeline’s lifeless body into the house. Shoving away the images of her covered in blood, her muscles shredded to ribbons.
My blood pressure spikes when I hear frantic thudding.
“Fuck you!” she shouts. “Please! Please let me go!”
I keep moving. Ray’s already ripped the tarp off the van, he already has it running.
“Don’t leave me!”
I angle myself to lay Tucker in the back, gently lowering him as slowly as I can. I make the mistake of looking back, and I can see her pounding her fists against Dane’s chest, only stopping to thrash away from him. She’s caught in his arms, fighting with everything she has to come with us.
The crusted film of blood covering her face is streaked with tears, and she thrashes violently as I slide the door closed.
My chest feels like it’s going to explode. Everything in me is rioting to take her with us, to soothe her and let her stay by Tucker’s side. But she needs to stay, she can’t come.
Not right now.
We can explain away a lot when we get to the hospital, but not a trembling woman battered and covered in blood.
I force my eyes ahead of me, force them to the van as I jog over around to the driver’s side and throw myself through the open door. It should take an hour, but I’m not wasting a single second.
I check the mirror, hoping against all hope that she’ll have given up. That Madeline will be going inside with Dane. That they’ll meet us soon. Instead, she finally wrenches free of his grip, dropping to the ground and scrambling away from him. Tripping as she runs after the van. Running after us, running after Tucker.
I don’t slow down. I don’t stop. I won’t risk the precious seconds we might need. I won’t risk Tucker.
My whole body is tight, my breathing erratic, but I fight everything rioting inside of me, and force my eyes to the darkened road ahead of me. Trying to ignore the soft crying, the whispered promises Ray makes behind me.
It’s a miracle. A goddamn miracle we made it this far. I’m pulling in huge breaths as soon as the hospital comes into view, the lit cross on the side of the building acting like a fucking guiding star.
“Thank you,” I whisper into the silence as I pull into the emergency entrance.
Ray’s sliding the door open before I’ve even fully stopped, shouting information to a security guard outside. Demanding immediate help and a gurney.
It’s a one-in-a-million chance Tucker is showing any signs of life at all and my knees feel weak when they slide him out of the van. The adrenaline is leaking away, my body is getting less and less steady by the second.
The last forty minutes have been hell, every passing mile made the reality sink in deeper. This could have been it. We could have lost him.
But, against all odds, here we are, watching nurses rush Tucker inside and through a set of double doors.
I turn to Ray, and I wish I knew how to help him.
What do I say?
When he looks at me his eyes are red rimmed and the terror has left him. He sniffs and clears his throat before running his hands through his hair. He turns away when his face starts to contort, another round of tears building.
“You need to move this.”
A gruff man in uniform slaps the hood of the van and jerks a thumb towards the other side of the building, towards the parking lot I blew past.
“Right,” I murmur, glancing towards Ray. He’s moved a few steps away, leaning against the stucco wall and forcing deep breaths through his nose.
Is he thinking about the CPR?
The man slaps the hood one more time, distracting me from the memory of Ray breaking Tucker’s ribs and beating the life back into his friend.
I leave him, stepping around the van and settling back into the driver’s seat. My ears roar against the silence the entire time I look for a spot to park and for the entire walk back to the emergency room, and all I can think about is Madeline.
Is she okay?
Does she hate me for leaving her behind?
I flop myself down in a seat, leaving one empty between me and Ray. The two of us stare ahead, just breathing. Waiting.
Hours could have passed in this uncomfortable chair, but my mind is too preoccupied to focus on the way that my back tightens and aches.
When Madeline walks through the door all the air leaves my body in a woosh as if I had been holding my breath the entire time I’d been here.
Her head is down and she’s walking a step behind Dane, almost hiding herself behind him. They’re both holding a backpack, stuffed so the zippers strain at the seams, and both of them look as tired as I feel. A heaviness clings around each of their movements.
Dane heads straight over to me and Ray, and Madeline follows along with shuffling steps. I stand, ready to pull her close, to hold her against me. My body needs her presence as much as my mind does.
She sees my shoes first, then draws her eyes to my face, slowly dragging them up my body. My heart stops in my chest when I see her face. It’s swollen and covered in red splotches, large patches of her skin sure to turn into bruises.
She flinches slightly when I wrap my arms around her and my nose tickles.
Don’t cry.
When she relaxes against me, I can smell the sweetness of the soap on her skin, feel the dampness of her hair against my shirt and everything feels right. There’s no hint of the feral blood-drenched woman I left at the bunker.
Anger crashes into me and I squeeze her tighter, fighting the urge to scream. Reigning myself in from the desire to go back to the bunker and rip apart that man with my bare hands.
We should have protected her. We should have anticipated this.
Madeline pulls away and silently takes the empty seat I left next to Ray. Her body collapses into the plastic and she crumbles against him. I can feel the stress radiating off her when I sit down and wind my arm behind her back, unwilling to be so far, even from inches away. She drops her head forward and I feel the slight tremors and her little hiccupping gasps. My heart is shattering in my chest.
We should have been there. I should have been there.
Hours pass in that waiting room, and we’re just as useless as every other person here. Just sitting here, hoping each time the door opens it will be for us, and it will be good news.
By hour three, Ray’s stopped lurching forward every time the door opens, no longer expecting the news to be for him. He doesn’t even look up when the door opens again.
“For Mark?” a gentle voice calls from the doorway.
None of us move, the name not spurring us into action until the realization dawns on us all at once. We checked him in under the assumed identity we’d built for him months ago.
Ray shoots to his feet quickly enough he nearly trips, while we stand and watch. Too scared to hear. Too scared to approach.
The nurse seems exhausted, but she looks at him sympathetically, clutching a chart close to her chest, as if anyone would care to look at it. Not when she has the answers that matter.
We just need to know if he’s going to make it.
Both of Ray’s hands pull through his hair as he bends forward, and my stomach drops. Madeline grips my hand tightly, coming to the same conclusion, and I have no idea what happens from here.
Where this all goes.
How it ends.
Ray’s shoulders shake as he turns to us, his bloodshot eyes rimmed with tears, and he’s smiling. A huge, goofy smile overcome with relief.
The air floods back into the room, bringing me the sense of being grounded, of being a whole person in the world.
He’s okay.
The family we’ve built isn’t falling apart.
My relief pales in comparison to Madeline’s, the moment realization crosses her face, she crumbles further into me. Every muscle held taut with dread and tension releasing at once.
“I didn’t kill him.”
The words are soft, spoken only to herself, meant for no one to hear.
I don’t press the matter, don’t ask her to elaborate whatever guilt-ridden journey she’s been silently and solitarily going through. Even as the shuddering, trembling mess at my side, she feels so right, so comfortable against me.
There’s nowhere and no one I would rather be with in this moment.