“Leave him alone, A.” Although Greg had to admit, what was
going on with Jess was strange. Kincaid kept her apart from everyone
else, fed her strange potions, even slept in her room at the hospice.
The rumors were she was bat-shit crazy, spouting gibberish half the
time or completely in la-la land and totally zoned. Greg was so curious that when he’d delivered a prisoner to the hospice, he’d waited
until Kincaid was busy, then sidled to her room for a peek. Except for
a rumpled cot and night table filled with books, the room was nothing special. But then, of course, there was Jess.
She doesn’t even look real. Like plastic. Jess was like a body laid out for
a viewing, only propped on her left side with a pillow wedged against
her back to keep her from rolling and another tucked under her right
arm. Her mane of steel-gray hair was scraped back into a long, neat
braid from skin as white as the bandage over half her forehead. Her
face was off-kilter, the dome of her forehead sunken over her left
eyebrow from where the shotgun’s butt had cratered bone. But then he noticed Jess’s eyes roaming their sockets beneath her
closed lids. Dreaming? He hadn’t expected that. The effect was bizarre
and more than a little creepy because the rest of her was so disturbingly slack. Then, all of a sudden, her lips twitched as she pulled in a
gasping inhale and breathed, “Leavethemboytheyareblind . . .” The hair rose on the back of his neck. Boy? Was she talking about
him, to him? That’s nuts, that’s crazy. The words were only air. They
held no meaning. They were so incredibly spooky, he did a one-eighty
and beat feet and you could not pay him to go back.
Now, ignoring Aidan’s aggrieved sputter, Greg turned to Sam and
Lucian. “After Kincaid patches him up, I want you guys to put Dale in
a cell, all right? No more working him over right now. Just give him a
chance to think about things.”
“Sure, anything you say, boss,” Sam said, his tone dripping with
sarcasm.
“Yeah, boss. You want we should use the chains, hang him up by
his arms?” Lucian asked. “It’d make things go faster.”
Kincaid shook his head. “That poor man’s so worn out, there’s
no way he can support his weight. You let those boys string him up,
Greg, and I guarantee he’ll suffocate by morning.”
“Yeah?” Greg said. “Ask me if I care.”
Nothing and no one could have prepared Alex for this.
She lost it. “Help, help!” Spitting and blowing, she tried turning
her head but couldn’t move more than a few inches right or left. The
snow’s weight was terrible, wouldn’t let up, and then she was wailing
incoherently, a shriek that wanted to go on and on . . .
Stop stop stop! She muscled back her fear. Don’t move, stop screaming.
You’ll run out of air and only kill yourself faster.
But so what? She was alone. She couldn’t reach her whistle. No one
to hear it anyway. Her heart boomed; tears streamed over her cheeks.
I’m going to die in here. Pulling in air was getting very hard, like sucking up the last dregs of lemonade through a slowly collapsing straw.
Her lungs were starting to ache, and she was already gasping. Three
seconds later, she realized that her eyelids had shut without her realizing it.
No, no! She fluttered them open in another spasm of panic. Not
ready to die yet. Not . . . But her lids slipped again, and so did her mind.
Below, so far away, it was so dark . . .
. . . not . . . ready . . .
“You ready?” Boy. A voice. Not his. Whose? Chris didn’t know. His mind felt as if it were teetering on the brink, like the smallest tap or tiniest misstep would tip him hurtling over the edge and into oblivion and maybe, this time, for good.
“Pull,” the boy said. A second later, a blowtorch went off in his back and scorched its way from his pelvis through his chest. The pain was enormous, like an atom bomb. Before that moment, he hadn’t realized he’d even been gone, but now he slammed back, hard and fast and all at once on a heaving red tide of agony. “Aaahhh,” he moaned.
“Is that him?” The boy sounded astonished. “Yeah, wait!” A girl’s voice, young, and very close, almost at his ear. “Wait, stop! I think he’s awake! Hello? Are you there?”
There . . . yes . . . He lost the thread. Had he even spoken? Blacked out, maybe. He just couldn’t tell.
“Probably just reflex.” The boy, again. “Eli, let’s try—”
“Wait.” A second girl, older, her voice deeper, gently insistent. “Are his eyes open? Did they move?”
The boy: “What does that matter?”
“If he’s conscious . . . ,” the older girl began.
“No, his eyes are still closed.” The younger girl, again, and now he realized that she was very close. He could feel the warm whisper of her breath. “But when you guys moved the door, his face twitched. Maybe we’re hurting him more?”
Door . . . what . . . where . . . He couldn’t hold the thought. He faded in and out, his consciousness like the bob of a lost balloon high above the distant lights of a faraway carnival. He thought he might be on his stomach. What was the last thing he remembered?
“I don’t know if we got a choice. Unless you guys have a better idea of how to get him out from under there?” When there was no response, the older boy said, “Okay, then let’s do this. You ready in there?”
“Just a sec,” the little girl called. Her voice dropped. “You need to go, girl. Go on.”
He sensed movement; heard the shuffle of something over snow, a crinkle, and then a strange chuffing. Dog? A moment later, the weight on his back rocked. His middle cramped against another grab of pain, and he heard the uhhh drop from his mouth.
“Sorry,” the little girl whispered. “Sorry, sorry, but I have to do this, I’m so sorry . . .”
“You ready?” the boy called.
“Yeah. He moaned again.” The little girl sounded shaky.
“Don’t get freaked, honey,” the older girl said. “He’s probably out.”
No . . . here . . . I’m . . .
“I’m okay.” Pause. “Got my feet up.”
“All right, on three,” the boy said. “You push, I’ll pull.”
That snagged his attention in a way nothing else could. No, wait . . . hurt, don’t hurt me again. Marshaling his strength, Chris put everything he had into the simple act of opening his eyes. But there was a strange pressure around his forehead and over his eyes, and he just couldn’t.