Twenty-Two

TWENTY-TWO

I scramble up. My lungs scream from that blow, and my CF-trained brain interprets it as difficulty breathing, panics, and holds my muscles hostage. Stay still. Catch your breath. Nothing is ever as important as breathing. The other part screams that someone just hit me, and I sure as hell can't stand there catching my breath.

By the time I wheel, my attacker could have taken me down, and I'm very aware of that, my brain shrieking at me.

I need to be better than this. I can't let anything slow me down, freak me out. Once I start allowing that, I will never stop. I can't think of how long I have to live, can't listen to speculation about my life span, can't imagine what it would be like to die because I can no longer breathe, because my body has betrayed me, because it has been betraying me since I was born.

My body is not the enemy. It did not betray me. My body and I are enduring this disease together, and that body does so much for me. In that moment, I need to focus on what it can do.

What it can do is spin, fists ready, self-defense lessons flying back.

But there's no one to hit. Nothing to fight. It's so dark that someone could be right there, laughing at me—

No, I see dim shapes. Trees and bushes, enough to know nobody is there.

I stop breathing and listen. The forest has gone silent, and I can't hear anyone moving. No one is—

There! Off to my left. A twig crack, a rustle, someone on the move, but not near me. Heading back to the clearing.

I run to where I think the flashlight fell, but the thick undergrowth hides it. I smack around, hoping to touch down on plastic, but when I don't, all I can think about is that someone is walking toward the clearing where Heather waits.

The irrational part of me panics with thoughts of Heather, alone and frightened while there is someone in this forest, someone who hit me, and I need to get back to Heather before she's hurt.

The rational part insists that the sounds are Patrice heading back to the clearing after smacking me, and that my real concern should be that they'll argue and Heather will stomp off and drive home, leaving me behind.

Either way, I take two more seconds to find the flashlight, and when I don't, I head for the clearing, waving my arms in front of me so I don't smack into a tree.

"Samantha!"

I stop, stumbling over my feet. The voice came from my left, in the direction of those footsteps. It's not the male voice from last week. It sounds like Patrice, but it's so raw and hoarse I can barely make out words.

"I know you're out here!" she shouts. "Don't think I won't find you! I can smell you, bitch."

I stand there, frozen. Then I take a slow step backward. When I strike a tree trunk, I clap both hands over my mouth before I yelp.

"You are never getting out of here," she yells. "I will cut you open, and I will gut you."

Hands still over my mouth, I force my feet to move, slowly, not daring to crunch down on anything.

Get to Heather. Get her out of here. Call the police. Send them back for Patrice.

But what if this is all part of Patrice's prank?

I don't give a shit. I don't care if it's a prank and Patrice tells everyone I called the cops, and they all think I'm a very silly girl. Fuck them.

I keep moving, step by careful—

"N-no," Heather's voice sounds, sharp with alarm. "It's me. It's just me. I—"

She screams, and it is a sound I will never forget, an animal cry of terror and pain.

I break into a run. I'm charging toward the sound of Heather's voice, and she is screaming, and I am running blindly through the forest when I smack headlong into a tree so hard it knocks me back.

I stagger and keep upright, but I'm woozy, confused. Blood pours from my nose, into my open mouth, and I spit, doubling over. Blood spatters the bushes, and for a moment, I stare, transfixed.

Then I remember why I was running.

I stagger forward, my wispy thoughts refusing to stitch into coherence. When I catch movement, relief floods me.

"Heather," I breathe.

Only it's not Heather. It's just a shadow, darting through the trees. I start to follow it.

No, remember Heather. You heard her scream.

Only she's not screaming now.

When I pause, a whimper cuts through the quiet.

Heather.

I stumble toward her, and then my thoughts mend and my feet find their footing, and I break into a jog.

I follow the whimpers, and as I do, I'm not even sure I'm hearing a person, much less Heather. It's such a soft sound, like some woodland baby critter abandoned by its mother, trying hard to keep silent but unable to suppress those little sounds.

I keep going.

When I reach the clearing, I come out of the trees so fast, I nearly topple again. One minute my hands are moving from tree to tree, and then there's nothing.

I catch my balance and squint. It's so damn dark. There must be a moon somewhere, but it's covered along with the stars, and I can't see—

A soft sound, like the exhale of breath.

I blink hard, and then I see a figure in a pink hoodie on the ground.

"Heather," I whisper.

I run forward and drop beside her, only to realize I'm at her back. She's on her side, fetal position, arms and legs drawn in, and she's whimpering, ever so softly. Whimpering and shaking.

"Heather?" I touch her shoulder, and she jerks and lets out a mewling sound.

"It's me," I whisper. "Nic. You're okay. I'm here."

I'm crawling up near her head when she says something I don't catch.

I stop and lean toward her as I listen.

"Don't understand," she whispers. "I don't understand. I…"

She trails off in a long, slow exhalation. And then she stops shaking.

I scramble around to the front of her. I can just make out her face, pulled down toward her chest. Both arms are drawn in protectively, her knees up.

"Heather?" I whisper.

No answer. She's passed out. Did she get hit in the head? I don't see any other sign of injury, but it's so damn dark I can barely make out anything.

Then the smell hits.

I know that smell, even if I'm too flustered to identify it immediately. It reminds me of babysitting the neighbors' baby at our old house and—

The smell of soiled diapers. Of piss and shit.

And something else. Something less familiar. Coppery and—

Blood.

I smell piss and shit and blood.

I grab one of Heather's hands and pull it away from her chest, and it's red. Soaked so red that my brain refuses to believe it's blood. It's a prank, someone squeezing out a whole bottle of ketchup.

Then I see what she's been covering, and I fall back, retching. I squeeze my eyes shut, but that only sears the image against my eyelids.

Blood and muscle and… and more.

Intestines. I'd seen her intestines.

I will cut you open, and I will gut you.

No. I'm hallucinating. The mushrooms—

I didn't take the mushrooms.

Heather must have given them to me, and I didn't notice.

But the mushrooms weren't actual drugs.

They must have been. Goddamn it, this is not real. It cannot be real. Heather is lying here, holding in her own—

I retch and fall onto all fours, puking everything I have into the grass.

I hit my head, right? On that tree? Or when someone struck me from behind. They must have hit me in the head, too, and I forgot it because I'm unconscious. Unconscious and having a nightmare.

A twig cracks.

My head shoots up.

Patrice.

Where the fuck is Patrice?

I crawl back to Heather and put my hands to her neck, checking for a pulse.

Seriously? You think she's still alive?

But she had been, when I arrived.

I remember her last words. I don't understand.

Oh, God, Heather, neither do I, and I really hope I'm dreaming or hallucinating or something.

A whisper, and it's only the wind, but it makes my head jerk up, my heart pounding, reminding me that whoever did this to Heather is still out there.

Whoever did this?

Patrice did this. You heard her screaming that she was going to find and gut Heather.

I push to my feet and wobble before I grit my teeth. I need to get it together.

No, I need to get it together and get the hell out of here. If this is real— you know it's real —then I need to get out of here before Heather's killer— you know it's Patrice —finds me.

Again, movement catches my eye. I spin. Was that a shadow?

Run, Nic. Run now.

I stifle the urge. Run, and I will smash into another tree. Run, and I won't hear anyone coming after me.

I pause to orient myself. We came into the woods from that direction. The school is over there.

I take a second to listen, but everything has gone silent again. I start walking, quiet and careful until I reach the path. Then I pick up speed, my ears trained for the slightest sound.

I want to run. God, I want to run like I have never run in my life.

Walk. Breathe. Listen.

I keep going, blood pounding in my ears.

Blood on my hands. Heather's blood on—

Stop that.

I will cut you open, and I will gut you.

That's what Patrice did. Exactly what she did. Cut Heather open and gutted her.

I don't understand.

Tears prick my eyes, which fill until I can't see and I have to blink to clear them. Blood and tears and snot run down my face.

None of that. Break down later. I need all my senses and all my sense to get out of this forest.

Just keep—

I stumble over something on the path. I've been so hyperaware of what's ahead—as much as I can see it in this goddamn darkness—that I haven't looked down, and I've tripped over a root or a branch or…

An arm. I've tripped over an outstretched arm. An arm with a worn friendship bracelet around the wrist.

Patrice's arm. The bracelet Heather gave her years ago.

That's when I see blood. It covers the hand, and I follow it up her arm to see her lying on her stomach, limbs splayed.

"Patrice?"

What the fuck are you doing? Run!

I step over her hand and then turn around to walk backward, continuing along the path as I keep my gaze on her. There's more blood spattering the undergrowth and on her light shirt and a cut on her collar, dripping blood.

She's hurt.

She didn't kill Heather. She's another victim of whoever did.

Patrice groans, and I move forward. I'm about to drop to my knees beside her when I see her other hand, the right one stretched out with something lying right beside it.

A knife lying right beside it. A hunting knife with its blade coated in blood.

"Nic?" Patrice mumbles.

Her head rises. "Nic? Is that you?"

I don't answer. I just take a slow step back.

"Please," she whispers. "I'm hurt. Help me."

Trap!

My brain screams the word so loud I expect her to hear it.

"Nic? Please?"

Her gaze locks with mine as her fingers inch toward the knife handle.

"Nic? Help me."

Her fingertips graze the knife. I wheel and run.