Chapter Seventeen #2
It was then that I swear I heard my mother’s voice in my head, repeating a mantra I remembered all through my childhood, when we were in shelters, when the shelters were full and we were on the streets.
“We are made of strong stuff,” she’d say, over and over and over. “We can make it through this.”
We had been.
I still was.
So I pulled myself up off the ground and started running in the direction of the path again.
My body was shaking hard as I forced myself to keep going, knowing that the movement might be the only thing to keep me alive as the cold set in deeper and deeper until it felt like it was in my very marrow.
I was probably only on the path for a moment when I heard the crunch of footsteps in the snow.
Moving fast.
Running.
Right at me.
A scream caught in my throat as arms grabbed me.
“Babe,” Venezio said as he whipped me around and yanked me hard against his chest. “It’s okay. You’re okay. I got you.”
All the strength left my body, sending me sliding toward the ground. But Venezio was faster, his arms going tightly around me, pulling me up to my feet once again.
“You’re fucking frozen,” he murmured, lips on my temple.
He held me up with one arm, then the other, as he slipped out of his jacket, then wrapped it tightly around me.
He trapped his body heat between us, but the heat suddenly felt like knives to my frigid skin, making me cry out and try to wrench away.
“No. You have to warm up,” Venezio said, pulling the jacket more tightly around me.
“He’s here. In the park.”
“Fuck,” Venezio said, his hands chafing up and down my arms. “When’s the last time you saw him?”
“I don’t know. After I called you. But it’s been a while.”
“Do you know which way he went?”
I pulled back enough to try to look. But I didn’t even see the arch anymore. The snow had obscured any possible familiar landmarks. I was completely turned around.
A strange whimper escaped me.
“It’s okay. Don’t worry about it.”
“I need to get—” he started.
When a shot rang out.
A yelp clawed its way out of my throat as Venezio whipped around, his hand going toward his waistband.
“Run, Steph,” he demanded.
“No. I don’t know—”
“Run. Stay on the path. I’ll find you. Go.”
Another shot rang out, thunking into a tree trunk just off the path.
But then Venezio was lifting his arm and squeezing off a shot back.
The man ducked behind a tree.
I had no choice.
I turned and ran.
As I made my way around a bend, I heard a yowl of pain, making my heart seize.
Was that Venezio?
Was he hit?
Dying?
Dead?
Was I all alone again?
I chanced a look back but saw nothing, no one.
When I turned back in the direction I was going, I realized I’d drifted toward the edge of the path. Before I could react, the edge of one of the heavy metal benches caught me at the shin going full tilt.
The momentum sent me flying down to the ground as the pain exploded down my leg.
I just barely managed to throw my hands out to catch my fall, the snow making me skid for a foot, the hard walkway beneath scraping at my palms as I went.
Sucking in a steadying breath, I pressed back to sit on my heels, my gaze looking at the blood-stained snow uncomprehendingly for a moment.
I couldn’t feel my hands.
They were too cold.
But after a moment, I realized that the blood was from my palms from the fall.
On that thought, I cupped them, finding the snow steadily melting, diluting the red blood to a brighter shade.
“Steph!” a voice called, seeming like it was coming from far away. Everything did. Almost like I was in the middle of a very long tunnel. “Steph!” the voice called.
Then hands were grabbing me up under the arms and pulling me to my feet.
Venezio’s hand went for mine, realizing just a second before it was too late that I was bleeding.
“Fuck. Okay.” He took my wrist instead. “I’m sorry, babe, but we gotta run again.”
“I can’t.”
“You can. You’re stronger than you think.”
Then he was pulling me. And I was somehow falling into step beside him.
“Just ten more minutes,” Venezio assured me.
Ten minutes.
It might as well have been a lifetime.
Everything was numb.
My mind refused to focus on anything except how cold I was.
Just when I was sure I couldn’t take another step, we burst out of the park and onto the sidewalk.
“Here. Stand,” Venezio demanded, reaching for my hips and forcing me forward to stand over one of the ventilation grates.
Hot air blew up at me, the sensation like a million shards of glass splitting my skin.
If it weren’t for Venezio physically holding me in place, I would have moved away from the uncomfortable sensation.
Venezio’s hand flew up into the air.
A taxi slid up beside us.
Then Venezio was pushing me into the backseat, reaching for his wallet, and passing the driver a hundred. “Crank the heat up,” he demanded before mumbling off an address, then leaning down to start chafing the skin of my legs.
“‘Sss tired,” I slurred, my heartbeat hammering despite sitting still.
“No,” Venezio said, chafing my arms hard. “Stay with me, Steph. “You close your eyes, you might not wake up.”
That kind of sounded good.