36. Thirty-Six
Thirty-Six
Toni
“GO!” Someone screamed into my ear, Cole, I think. At least, I thought it was his hand on my back, pushing me to my feet and shoving me forward.
“RUN, TONI!” He screamed again, and this time I did.
We all did. There was no way for us to stay close this deep in the forest. We had to duck and weave around trees and roots.
The only saving grace was that whoever shot Mitchell would only be able to follow one of us.
Unless they brought reinforcements. And with that horrifying thought I picked up my pace.
I ran and ran, as fast as I possibly could.
On my left, through the trees, I could just see Brennon, his nearly white-blond hair standing out against the green-brown backdrop of the woods, even in my periphery.
I didn’t stop, but I did slow down as we reached the edges of the staff parking lot. Partially to keep pace with Brennon, who was flagging, and partially because if anyone saw us, it couldn’t look like we were running for our fucking lives. Even though we were.
Ahead of me, the gaps between trees got wider, and with just a few more strides, I could see the cars lined up neatly in the staff parking lot. Out there, in the open, surrounded by the cars, we’d be safe. I felt it in my bones.
I cleared the forest first and stopped to catch my breath amongst the silver and black cars all around us.
Brennon caught up shortly after, laying himself across the hood of an extravagant powder blue Porsche.
His eyes were still wide, and he watched the tree line for any signs of an attacker.
He slipped from the hood of his car, landing on the gravel, and I landed my ass right beside him.
He quipped, “When Xav said we were going to chase you through the woods, this was not what I had in mind.”
Maybe it was the adrenaline or the fact that jokes are his coping mechanism that had us both giggling, but it was half-hearted at best. We were still too busy watching and waiting.
With every second that ticked by without a sign of Xav or Cole, my legs bounced faster and faster.
I was starting to shake. Hard. Even Brennon’s arms couldn’t stop it.
Panic threatened to overwhelm me, to drag me back into that black void where shadowy nightmares burned my flesh and whispered “Princess, princess, princess,” over and over again until I was nothing.
Not anything. Not a girl, not a person, not even real.
When that happened, Brennon and Xav, Cole, this life, my friends, those became the dream, and the only thing that was real was the pain, my father, and the pain.
Like a tether anchoring me to reality, Brennon’s hands pulled me into his lap, just like he’d done on the office deck last summer. I wasn’t quite as far gone as I was that night, and with every hushed promise he made in my ear, I found it easier to stay in the present.
“They’ll be here, baby. They are coming. Any second now. No one could catch Xav. He’s like a fucking cheetah. And God help whoever has the bad luck to get their hands on Cole.”
At the mention of Cole, the events of the last hour played in rewind.
Freeze-framing on just a few seconds like they were hours long.
Holding Mitchell while he bled out against my hands.
Then, not holding Mitchell. Having to look around Cole to see him.
Hearing the death shot fired and knowing it wouldn’t hit me.
I spun in Brennon’s lap, “Cole saved me. He pushed me out of the way of that last shot.”
“I know, little bird,” he nodded, his blue eyes watering, “He saved you.”
“It’s not enough for me to forgive him.”
“I know that, too,” he replied, and he held me tighter.
We both turned back to face the trees. They looked as still and as peaceful as when we’d walked in there.
How easily they’d returned to their resting, silent state.
In mere minutes, a whole human life had vanished amongst those tree trunks, and out here, the whole world just carried on like it was nothing.
Neither of us spoke. We barely breathed.
With every second the fire of hope Xav had lit and fanned all summer dimmed.
One flicker at a time. I wouldn’t be able to keep it burning without him.
I was lost to that thought, to everything around me, until a voice from behind sent both Brennon and I springing to our feet.
I gasped and he spun, his fists already raised.
“Woah, woah,” Cole raised his hands, “It’s just me.”
“How did you…?” Brennon pointed wildly from the forest to the camp road.
“I followed the shore. Ran straight past the boat dock, through the Village, and looped back. I figured the shooter couldn’t chase all of us.” He shrugged at our shocked faces before looking around.
“Where’s Xav?” He asked.
My voice crumbled, “We don’t know.”
“He hasn’t come out of the woods yet,” Brennon confirmed.
Cole looked to the trees beyond us, then down to his watch and back at Brennon and I, with his jaw newly set.
“If he’s not here in two minutes, you two head back to camp and I’ll double back to find him.”
“No!” I cried, kicking myself free from Brennon’s hold. He let me go the second he realized I wanted free so I could stab my finger into Cole’s chest. Much as he towered over me, he looked panicked as I jabbed at him, “No. We’re all going. We stick together.”
My voice wobbled, “What if… what if whoever, the shooter, whatever… what if they’re still out there?”
He grabbed my hand and shoved it back into my chest, “Exactly why I should go alone. I will find Xav. And if by some shitty turn of events, the shooters are still in there, wouldn’t you rather he got me than Xav.
I blanched, my mind fracturing in three separate cracks. Brennon leapt forward taking Cole’s shoulder, “How about we don’t let some psycho in the woods get any of us?”
Cole shook his head, brown eyes diving into Brennon’s as he tried to refuse, “But-”
“No. No buts, Cole,” Brennon softly knocked his knuckles into Cole’s, “We all fly together. Me and Birdie here, we have a deal, and I’m including you in it right now. No more lone wolf bullshit. Not while we’re dealing with this.”
Resigned, Cole nodded and took up a position on Brennon’s left. Then, the three of us returned to our watch. In my head, each second stung, piercing tiny holes in my heart every moment Xavier didn’t show. Meanwhile Brennon mumbled to himself, while Cole paced left to right.
It was less than a minute before he stamped forward, grumbling, “Fuck this. Let’s go”
Cole would never win any awards for his patience.
I used to be the same, I couldn’t help but think as I watched him lead the way forward.
Always rushing, running, sprinting headfirst into whatever I wanted.
Usually with three boys at my back. Until those boys vanished, and life started kicking me back every fucking chance it got.
Eventually, it happened so much that I stopped pushing for anything I really wanted.
But futility and patience were not the same, although my mom always praised me for what she mistakenly saw as tenacity. It was just giving up in disguise.
Until Xav. Until now. For him, I would claw back every bit of fight, and impatience, and wild rage I buried in those intervening years.
And so, there I was, hot on Cole’s heels as we stormed back into the forest. Cole’s sheer size and Brennon’s height made it difficult to move with any stealth.
So, I treated it as a good sign when gunshots didn’t ring past us the second we stepped amongst the trees.
We backtracked as best we could. In the moist earth, mine and Brennon’s footsteps were still visible in lots of places as were the branches we’d torn down, roots we’d squashed in our frantic race to escape.
Thanks only to Xav’s markings did we manage to find our way back to the small clearing.
Despite many summers in these woods, we weren’t some sort of crazy survival nuts or wilderness trackers.
At first, I didn’t even recognize it. Probably because there was no Xav. And definitely because there was no dead body, either.
The expanse of dirt where I’d left Mitchell was empty. No pools of blood or scraps of clothing. Barely any disrupted ground where he’d fallen at the hit from the first bullet.
“What the fuck?” Brennon uttered under his breath.
Cole prowled around the clearing, eyes probing everywhere, until he stopped and pressed his palm into one of the trees.
There was a clear tent of shattered tree bark, and a hole, the only sign that anything had even happened.
He dug his fingers into the tree and pulled them out, empty.
“They took the fucking bullets.”
“What kind of psycho comes back for the fucking bullets?” Brennon asked.
Cole slammed his hand into the tree, “One who doesn’t want to get caught.”
“Or Xav,” I breathed, spinning to them both before repeating more loudly, “This must have been Xav. I mean, who else? He’s always got a plan right? Maybe he doubled back and got rid of the body and the bullets and…”
I sounded desperate, even to myself, but it was the only outcome worth contemplating. Any other possibilities, like that the shooter had taken Mitchell’s corpse, opened up too many other alternatives. Bad alternatives. Especially since we had no idea who it even was.
Neither of the boys said anything in response to my questions at first. Then, Cole, grim-faced, said, “I think we need to get back.”
“What about Xav?” Brennon’s voice cracked.
“We hope Toni’s right.”
“And if I’m not?” I asked looking up at Cole.
“Then, we find him.” Cole reached out his hand and pulled me upright.
I very nearly bounced into his chest but stepped back before our bodies really touched.
Still, he held my wrist, only long enough to pass my arm over to Brennon, like I was more of a doll than a girl.
He placed my hand into Brennon’s, my rockstar taking advantage by squeezing my hand tight in his.
Around the three of us, the air crackled, shoulder to shoulder in our weird little triangle.
Cole watched our joined hands for a beat, then closed his eyes and sucked down a breath as he stepped back.
“Let’s go. It’s nearly dinner time. He could be in the dining hall, in his usual hiding spot just waiting for the three of us to turn up.
” He tried to offer us some levity, some false hope.
But when we got to the dining hall, in the middle of meal and there no sign of my Xavier anywhere, the world crumbled beneath my feet.
Afterward, Brennon and I stayed in the dining hall.
We stayed right through the evening. Michele and Bella brought my awards supplies to us there and Brennon helped me cut and paint little cardboard waves, while Michele dealt with the glitter.
We stayed after my awards were finished, and the girls left with worried faces and whispers between them.
We stayed until there was no one left in the hall but us, well past staff curfew, well past midnight.
We stayed until Cole slipped back through the doors with an empty platter and twelve dirty bowls in his hands.
He froze in the doorway at the sight of Brennon and I still there.
“No sign?” His voice echoing through the empty hall.
“None.” Brennon confirmed, as I turned my face into his chest. The tears I’d been fighting back all day came pouring out.
“Where is he?” I sniffled, “Why did he leave me?”
“Oh, Birdie. No, no, no,” Brennon cried, wrapping his long arm around me.
“Birdie, do you know what he said to me at the end of last summer? Do you know he basically swore to me he would never abandon you again? If he’s not here, it’s because something’s wrong.”
That only made me cry harder, sobs wracking my body so hard that I shook.
If I hadn’t been seated already, my legs would have caved.
Brennon’s eyes, too, were flooded with tears just waiting to fall.
But it was Cole’s reaction that caught me off guard.
He dropped the dishes he carried on the nearest table and stormed toward us at the back of the dining hall.
“You listen to me. Both of you,” Cole’s shadow looming over us. It should have been threatening, it really should have. But Cole was like a brick wall between Brennon and I and the world.
“Tomorrow, we’ll find him, and this, today, it will be nothing but a blip in your love story. A moment in time, that in five years, you’ll look back at and laugh. It’s just a blip, you hear me. A blip. So go get some sleep.”
He escorted us to the back door and locked them behind us.
Brennon and I walked arm in arm all the way to Foxglove, each of us silently praying we’d find Xavi waiting for us on my bed.
We didn’t. He wasn’t. And while I hoped tomorrow would bring him back to us, that night my nightmares won.
In the dark, I was back in my childhood bedroom, back in my closet, back hiding under a mountain of clothes and stuffed animals.
Certain that every kiss, every sweet, soft touch, every ounce of pleasure wrung from my body at my beautiful boy’s hands, those were the blip.
Any second now, the monster was coming to rip the door from its hinges, to find me, and remind me that any joy I felt in Brennon’s arms, at Agonde, with my friends.
That was all a blip, too. It never happened.