False Hope

by Meli Raine

  But it lubricates us, too.

  Thunder rolls in the distance, the air rich with misty raindrops that aren't quite committing to the storm just yet.

  But Ralph and Justin are committed.

  Ralph sucker punches my kidneys, going hard.

  “Knife!” Justin grunts as I stand, using my thighs as leverage. Lily scrambles up, cradling her left arm, pale as a ghost.

  Ralph sweeps her off her feet and makes an awkward jog for the cliff, limping slightly.

  “EYES!” I shout to her. She reaches up. Ralph pins her arms.

  She head butts him, slightly off center, the bridge of her nose hitting his right eye socket.

  And then I see white. Justin lands a right hook on my temple and I'm down, on my stomach, my ankles in his grip and my lips dragging on the dirt. Stones bounce against my teeth, my hip bones screaming as I twist, fingers turning bloody as I grab at anything, nothing, to prevent being thrown off that cliff.

  The force of being dragged hikes up my deflated water vest, revealing my gun belt. I fumble. The holster itself snaps, gun spinning off like a child's toy top, until I hear it skitter, then bang as it falls over the cliff’s edge and beta tests what's about to happen to me and Lily.

  No.

  NO!

  Justin has to let go of my feet to get the right torque to shove me over. Tightening my core, I use my weight to roll over and up, on my feet within seconds. Our eyes meet as he reconfigures his plan, but I'm a split second ahead of him, charging mid-section, remembering tackle days in high school football.

  I take him down, his nose making a satisfying crunch as we whack our heads on a flat rock embedded in the dirt.

  “Aaaaaiiiieeee!' Lily screams. I look to my left to find Ralph on her, pressing against her like he's raping her, using his feet to push both of them forward, her hair caught under her, pulling her chin up. Blood smears her forehead. I jump up before Justin can react, run over, and grab Ralph's hair, yanking him high.

  And then I get both hands on his jaw. Closing my eyes, I feel for it, training flowing into my wrists like blood.

  Snap.

  His legs twitch, arms flailing, the fresh scent of bowels and piss filling my nose as I drop him, moving just enough to make sure he doesn't fall on Lily, who is flat on her back, fully clothed, staring up at me like I'm the monster.

  And then I'm down, face in Ralph's dead hand, Justin pulling me by one leg as Lily screams, eyes fixed on Ralph.

  “Lily! RUN!” I scream.

  She's frozen.

  “RRRRUUUUUUUNNNNNNNN!” I shout again, knowing it's futile. Lily can’t run. Justin's got a death grip on me. The sudden snap and crackle of lightning behind me is followed by all the hair on my arms and legs standing on end, ozone permeating the air.

  By the time the rain begins, two of us will be dead.

  Question is: Which two?

  Chapter 27

  Cold heat, paradoxical and searing, rips across the length of my thigh.

  Justin's got a knife, one that slips out of his hand as I use my arms to lift my chest up hard and high, like an overdone push up, looking like a lethal breakdancer. I'm propelling my full body weight as high as I can to disorient and destabilize him.

  It works.

  Blood runs up to my hipbone as my heel catches his face, grazing enough to buy me time. He stumbles back, pinwheeling, until I turn around.

  His face. His face says he knows.

  Death finds a way to hat-tip itself. It always does.

  But evil can snatch victory from the jaws of defeat, too.

  My knee bends painfully as his hand catches my ankle, this time in desperation. My ass grinds into the ground as he slides over the edge of the cliff, road rash flaying me, my bleeding fingertips too weak to get purchase.

  “DUFF!” Lily screams as Justin goes over, his shout vibrating up between my legs, over my gut, into my throat.

  And then hands, one around my neck, one under my armpit.

  “Let go,” I try to say, but it's a gurgle. Lily's got me, barely, but she's choking me, the water vest under my neck, pressing on my carotid artery. I'll die this way. Between her attempt to keep me from plummeting, and Justin hanging on to me, I'm dead either way if this doesn't change–fast.

  And more than four hundred pounds of muscle can't be held up by a woman who weighs less than half of me.

  Kicking, I use my free leg to flail. Justin's fingers find my waistband and dig in. Bastard's turning me into a climbing wall at a city gym, fingers turning into crampons, my flesh just a surface he can use in pursuit of his goal.

  To live.

  My hands are free, but oxygen's sparse. I punch, hard, short jabs designed to make him twitch. Leverage is my friend here.

  Until Lily moves.

  Letting go of my neck, she puts all her strength into the arm that's under my pit, fingernails puncturing my skin. I inhale, until Justin headbutts me.

  And then he recoils, sudden and powerfully, pulling me into thin air for a second as he pulls back, his grip lessening. A big, sharp rock the size of my fist falls between our bodies.

  Again, it happens.

  This time, a heavy rock bounces off his head and onto my chest, the impact making my lungs seize up. His eyes meet mine, face in a snarl, but the jagged line over his brow is unmistakable. Gritty and streaked with dirt, the line fills in with blood.

  “LILY!” I scream as he turns to deadweight, dragging me down. Hands behind me, I find a thin root from some kind of bush. It's all I've got. Giving up my punching hand, I thread my way as deep as possible into the loose soil, praying.

  Prayer is highly underrated as a tool in hand-to-hand combat.

  His foot pulls up, ass punching out as he climbs me, my hipbone the equivalent of a rock ledge. My stomach twists and the air bleeds out of me in a hiss that feels like I'm being exorcised.

  Another rock. Lily's elbow is at an odd angle to my right, the side she's holding up. My shoulder blades scream, threatening to separate, my head still above grade. I'm bent and bending further, about to snap.

  I don't care.

  As long as we don't drag Lily down with us, I'll have fulfilled my mission. She'll survive.

  Even if I don't.

  Pain turns into a buzzing nothingness in moments like this. Instinct is all that matters. My hold on the root is weakening, Justin crushing my liver with his hiking boot, my free arm punching his kidneys as hard as I can. His belly presses into my face, smothering me.

  Can't breathe.

  Can't yell.

  Can't do anything but hold on.

  He goes slack, the sudden dead weight making me lose my grip as his jacked-up leg loosens, going straight, taking the skin on my hips with him. Sliding down a foot or so, his face meets mine.

  His knife sticks out of the top of his head, the handle crooked. Lily speared him like a cocktail olive on a toothpick.

  The buzzing in my ears stops.

  And then I hear Lily's screams.

  “HELP!” she's screaming. I want to tell her to stop, to shut up, to RUN, to live, but I can't.

  I can't, because Justin tips back, his fingers still deep in my waistband, his body falling away from mine like peeling contact paper off its backing, our bodies meeting like a Y.

  Except his hand is so deep in my damned pants, he's about to take me down.

  Gurgling and twitching, he's flopping away. Lily's second hand goes under my other arm, securing me as I grab the knife handle and yank, hard. I toss the knife backwards, where I hear it skitter away from Lily. We might need it, in case more are coming for us.

  My spare hand slides between Justin's belly and mine and wrenches his hand out, the crack of his bones not sickening.

  It's blissful.

  It's the sound of freedom.

  I hike up my knees and shove, hard, until he's BASE jumping, upside down, back to the wind.

  Except this isn't a pleasure sport.

  My kick is too hard, though, bringing Lily
forward, her center of gravity off balance.

  “DUFF!” she screams.

  “Stop moving.”

  “I can't! My heels, they're sliding.”

  “Lily, let go of my right side.”

  “WHAT? No! You'll fall! You’ll fall like, like him–”

  “Trust me. Let go. Only one side. Don't grab my neck.”

  “But–”

  “NOW!”

  She obeys, but doubles down on her hold on my left.

  Pivoting off the thin root's marginal help, I get my heels into the hillside and push up an inch or two, just enough to use my core. Something in my spine pops, my shoulder screaming, the back of my head feeling like a rolling pin is being pressed into it.

  Her hands get under the vest and pull hard.

  And I'm up.

  Mission accomplished. Lily's alive.

  I'm just a bonus.

  Chapter 28

  Two hundred pounds of dead meat is still one tenth of a ton.

  I grab Ralph under the arms and make a split-second decision as the thunder gets closer, roiling rain clouds suddenly turning into my savior. Dragging his crooked body takes all the leg strength I've got, glutes working overtime.

  “What are you doing?” Lily calls out.

  I stop short of the edge of the ledge, change position, and get down in a lunge, heels of my palms on Ralph's thigh and ribs. Blood that poured freely minutes ago starts to congeal, the skin of his face taking on a sickly yellowish pallor.

  “WHAT ARE YOU DOING?” Lily screams as gravity kicks in, the tipping point taking hold, Ralph's body sliding along the dry ground. Moving slowly, I work to make sure I don't get pulled down with him.

  “Shhhh.”

  “You're throwing him off the cliff?”

  “That's what–” grunt “–they were going to do to you. To me.” Ralph's not bleeding anymore. Corpses don't have a pulse, so they don't pump blood, but they do leave a mess.

  The sound of his body tumbling down the ravine is like putting three grapefruit in a dryer on high.

  The crunch of bone against rock makes me turn away swiftly. No one needs to watch that.

  Not even the guy who'll have to give a detailed report to Drew Foster.

  “Did you just–” Lily's voice descends into mewling sounds, choked outrage turning her nonverbal.

  A raindrop on the back of my neck makes me skitter, falling on my ass. Adrenaline makes our bodies react in weird, impulsive ways. Fear spikes my heart rate. I start to hyperventilate.

  Training brings me back under control in seconds.

  “B-b-but they're already dead!” Shaking hard, Lily's teeth chatter. Oh, no.

  Shock could render her completely immobile. We need to be swift and flexible now if we're going to get away from this before the authorities figure it out.

  I need Drew and Silas to help hide this mess.

  “We need to make them disappear. Remove the evidence,” I tell her as Mother Nature cooperates. Nothing like a rainstorm to aid and abet.

  “You can't just make a person disappear!”

  “They did it to my brother,” I spit out before I realize what I'm saying.

  Remember? Adrenaline makes our bodies do weird shit.

  Our mouths, too.

  “Your brother? Someone killed your brother?”

  “No. Not dead.”

  “Sean, you're jabbering nonsense! We need to call the police!”

  “NO!” I bellow, losing control. My shout echoes, hard, fierce, firm.

  She recoils.

  “You–you killed them! WE killed them. BOTH OF THEM!” she screams, scrubbing her face with her hands, smearing blood everywhere. It's in her hair, on her eyelids, all along the edges of her lips, which she licks.

  And then she starts to gag.

  “Lily, I–”

  “NO!” she screams, spitting, stepping backwards. Backing away from me, she looks wild, like a teen girl in a horror movie, the butt of a cruel joke. “My God, Sean,” she says in a hiss-shriek that is worse than any shout. “You killed him with your bare hands. You snapped his neck like a… you know...” She frowns, freaked out. “Turkey. Neck. Bone.”

  “Wishbone,” I fill in, dread seeping into my bones. She’s forgetting words. The stress could set off a vascular event.

  “You–you–”

  Plus, she’s using my real name.

  “Lily, come closer to me.” If she panics, she'll walk herself right off the ledge.

  “And I–I shoved a knife into a man's head! I–the pain, oh, the pain in my arm as the bone, his skull, I–”

  “Lily, come here.”

  “Why?” I can taste her hysteria. “Why?”

  “Because I want you to be safe.”

  “We just killed two men! You broke that guy's neck like you were opening a water bottle. Just a twist! How can you be safe?”

  “I killed them to save you. To save me.”

  “You killed them for me.”

  “Yes.”

  “And now they're dead.”

  “Yes.”

  “They're dead because of me.”

  “No. They're dead because they tried to kill us.”

  “Both of us?”

  “Yes.”

  “Why would someone want to kill you, Sean?”

  “Plenty of reasons.”

  “Why me?” she begs. Her voice is so sorrowful, it makes my mind go blank. I can't afford to let that happen.

  “Lily. We have to get this place cleaned up.”

  “Clean?” Holding up her hands, she stares at them. Rusty blood covers her fingernails. When our eyes meet again, the whites of her eyeballs fairly glow.

  “Yes, clean.”

  “But they're dead.”

  “Yes.”

  “You killed them.”

  Oh, shit.

  The circularity of her words is a result of shock. Shaking, she runs her bloodied hands up and down her arms. Gooseflesh ripples across her exposed skin. As she breathes in jerky, gasping breaths, I assess the situation. There isn't too much blood. Most of it's from Ralph's broken nose and Justin's head wound. Lily has surface scrapes from fighting with Ralph and Justin, but nothing more. Her legs look fine. Eyes, too.

  She's capable of walking.

  Can she run? No. I know she can’t. Not yet.

  But first, I need to make sure she gets away from that ledge.

  “Lily,” I say in a soothing voice, my calm tone rising above the rush of my own pulse in my ears. “Please come closer to me.”

  “No.” As she looks down over the cliff at Justin and Ralph's bodies, a low moan starts in the back of her throat.

  “Lily. Please,” I say, going as emotional as I can. I need to enact a rescue plan. Lily falling off the ledge is not part of my plan.

  “No.”

  “Then sit down.”

  “What?”

  “SIT!” I say through gritted teeth, my tongue lifted in my mouth, the word guttural and strong.

  She stays standing. “No. If I sit, you could hurt me.”

  “I'm not going to hurt you.”

  She looks down again at the dead bodies.

  “Lily, if I wanted to hurt you, I'd have done it a long time ago.”

  “They–he–he picked me up. He was choking me. His arm cut off my air and my skin pounded so hard, it felt like I was going to burst and he–”

  Wild eyes meet mine. They're ringed with red dots, broken blood vessels from being strangled. The spots look like freckles that cheated death.

  “Lily.” I wave my fingers towards me, like guiding someone through parallel parking, except the stakes are so much higher here. “Come away from the ledge.” Calculations kick in as I take in her location, her weight, momentum if I have to run and grab her, and whether I can move fast enough to overcome her panic and not roll us both off that ledge.

  “You–you killed them.” She takes a step back.

  “I did.” I step forward.

  “Why?”
Step.

  “Because you are too important to let them kill you.” Step.

  “I don't–I can't–I just wanted a hike!” Step.

  She's about four steps away from falling off.

  Three.

  “Lily!”

  Two.

  I have no choice.

  I charge.

  Chapter 29

  I drop to the ground and scoop my legs behind her, one going high enough to make sure I don't accidentally kick her off the damned ledge myself. Laws of physics work with me, for once, and she comes crashing forward, crying out as she falls on my torso.

  I roll on top of her, pinning her in place.

  “Don't move. You almost fell.”

  “Don't hurt me!”

  “I'm trying to save you, Lily.”

  “Get off me!”

  “No.”

  Rain pounds on my back as she goes still under me, body tense.

  “I'm not trying to hurt you, Lily. I'm trying to save you.”

  “You did. You saved me.” A thousand-mile stare meets my gaze when we look at each other.

  Shock.

  I move off her, slowly, keeping my knees on either side. Water smashes against my back in icy spikes as the wind whips the storm closer to us, the air cooling second by second.

  “You saved me, too.”

  At my words, her face screws up in pain, the horror of what's just happened pouring out of her expression. People don't let you see the reality of what goes on inside.

  I'm witnessing it now.

  Trauma does that.

  “Lily,” I say, bending over, stroking her wet cheek with the back of my bloodied hand. “We have to go. Now.”

  “I don't think I can walk.”

  “I'll help you. We need to get in cell range. Need to call Silas and Drew now. We don't know who else is coming.”

  “Who else? I'm pretty sure they closed the–” Angry eyes meet mine. “Dirt. Wide. Walk on it.”

  “Trail.”

  “Yes! They closed the trail.”

  “There may be more than Ralph and Justin coming.”

  Her mouth drops open in an O of horror. I offer my hand, pink water dripping onto her stomach in a stream.