Chapter 3 #3
“Better friends,” I say again, “would’ve prevented this.
Like, what the hell, Sadie-Rae?” I’m desperate enough to talk to myself, which isn’t really a new hobby, but evidence enough of my frustration.
My legs burn as I push myself up an incline in the road that juts sharply upward in the otherwise pretty flat landscape, and it isn’t until I’m near the crest that I realize I can look back and see our car’s headlights from here.
Except…there are two pairs of headlights, I realize, as I stop to pant, my hands on my hips while I wheeze through my exhaustion.
I’m obviously not made for hiking, which I sort of knew already, but it’s a completely different thing to be smacked in the face with that evidence that comes in the form of my struggling lungs and the way I’m unable to stand up straight due to how winded I am.
Maybe someone stopped with jumper cables. My heart lifts with relief at the thought, especially when I see figures moving in front of the headlights, going back and forth between vehicles.
We’re saved. More importantly, I’m saved. Though for a moment I waver, wondering if I should keep going and wait for my companions to catch up to me on the road, instead of going back to the car from here.
But another glance at my phone, still giving me absolutely zero service even on top of the rise in the road, settles that. I won’t make it to Wolf Lake; there’s no way. It’s better for me to just go back to the car, see what’s going on, and help…with all the car knowledge I don’t have.
Taking a shortcut feels like the worst idea ever, but I’m tired enough that I only squeak and yelp when I slide down the embankment, having underestimated just how steep the side of the road is.
My phone hits a rock, and I hear the unfortunate crack of the screen against the hard ground as I fight not to lose my footing completely as I scramble and my stomach lurches.
I fail.
In the end, I reach the bottom of the rise on my ass, my palms cut open and stinging from trying to catch myself. A quick glance confirms the screen of my phone is cracked, looking like a spiderweb of tiny, skin-catching marks.
“Fuck!” I scream, my voice echoing off the rocks.
“Fucking Fuck!” I get to my feet, brushing off my stinging knees that I’ll definitely be digging small rocks out of later.
“God fucking damn it!” Frustration burns at my eyes, sending hot tears down my cheeks as I start walking.
“I hate it here!” I yell to the night sky, finally losing the grip on my seething, simmering rage that’s been building for hours, if not days.
“Fuck, I hate it!” I kick a rock that then manages to trip me a few steps later, and I almost hit the ground again in a poetic show of irony.
“I hate Tyler and I hate Scotty. I don’t hate Ariana.” My heart races in my chest as I walk, slowly getting closer to the headlights that shine like a lighthouse beacon. “But fuck, I miss my friends. My real friends! Fuck!”
It’s easy to say that, though I know without voicing it that going back to my ‘real friends’ isn’t an option anymore.
Not after college.
Not after the misunderstandings.
Not after Sebastian.
But it doesn’t mean I can’t miss them.
It takes a shorter time than I expected to make it back to the car, though when I squint into the headlights, I’m surprised to not see any movement like I did before. “Ariana?” I call, my voice swallowed up by the darkness as I wait for a reply.
But it doesn’t come.
“Ariana!” I call again, louder this time. The other pair of headlights is still here, stopped on the road, and with the vehicles being over forty feet away from me, I can’t make out anything other than the sound of a diesel engine. “Tyler? Scotty?”
My voice rises with each name, only to have my words go unanswered. Uncertainty rises in my chest, though I keep walking, still trudging toward the car.
I know I saw people moving around from the rise.
My stinging palms and knees push me forward, and my knowledge of there being a first aid kit in the trunk, though if it’s stocked is still yet to be determined.
“Ariana?” I call again, seconds before I can sidestep the hood of Tyler’s old sedan to see the open passenger door where Scotty was sitting not twenty minutes ago.
But he’s not there.
The interior light is on, and the entire car looks the same as it did when I left on my hike. Even Scotty’s blue vomit is still on the road, though it’s smeared and spattered like someone repeatedly stepped in it, causing me to have to edge around the mess to avoid getting it on my sneakers.
“Guys?” My heartbeat makes itself known in my chest, and the pain in my hands and knees becomes secondary to my rising anxiety. Finally, I make it around the sedan, finding nothing, before I turn my gaze on the other car parked a few yards behind ours, the one I first saw from the rise.
It’s a truck, I note, getting closer.
It’s the truck.
My steps come to a halt, and my stomach drops to the asphalt beneath me.
The blacked-out windows are rolled halfway down, and both front doors stand ajar with the cabin light dim and unhelpful.
But I remember the shape of it, the windows, and the way the passenger mirror was just a little bit off-kilter and dinged up, like the driver hadn’t gotten around to fixing it after an accident.
But they left, my brain says stupidly, even as my feet take me closer on stiff legs.
And I hadn’t seen them circle back around, though that’s not really proof of anything at all.
“Hello?” I call, in a much softer, less confident voice.
No one answers, and from what I can see, there’s no one in the cabin.
I walk closer to peer inside, just to make sure, but as I thought, it’s empty of anyone, even the man in the back seat. My mind tries to work through explanations and possibilities, even as I continue to walk around the truck, like the paint job will give me answers.
But the moment I get to the back of the truck, where the tailgate is down and the contents are on display thanks to the way the headlights of Tyler’s car are slightly turned this way, my heart goes into my throat and I’m sure I stop breathing.
Ariana is in the truck. Pressed against the side of the bed with blood on her face and her eyes closed. Then I see Tyler is crumpled behind her, almost like they’re snuggled together for warmth, while Scotty is almost spread-eagle on the other side of the truck bed.
“Oh, fuck,” I whisper, and the scuff of boots on pavement has me whirling around before I know what I’m doing.
The man from the back seat stands there, sucking on his vape. As I stare at him in shock and fear, he grins and blows a plume of mango-scented smoke in my face. “We thought you might not come back,” he chuckles in a low, rough voice.
“Would’ve been better for you if you hadn’t, pretty little meat.”
My mouth opens, some sort of question or demand on my lips. But the blow that hits me in the back of the head has my knees crumpling and my eyes falling shut. My consciousness fades as another of the men jumps out of the back of the truck with a laugh and says something that I can’t quite hear.