I’d heard stories about people under anesthesia who could feel everything happening to them, but their bodies were immobilized—was that happening to me? Was I in surgery? There were people around me, for sure; I heard their heavy breathing, and I could smell them. I could hear the swishing sound of jacketed arms, the crunching of debris under heavy footsteps, and a cell phone ringing.
A voice reverberated in my ears so loud it was like someone had pointed a megaphone toward my head. “Yeah, I’ve got her,” a gruff man’s voice said breathlessly, “but she’s out cold. We may have given her too much—she’s a fighter. Yeah, probably a half hour.”
I recognized the voice of the Ferryman, and it all came crashing back: the boat, waking to feel his hands on my neck, and clawing at him with all the energy I had—at least when they find my body, they’ll also find a good amount of the bastard’s DNA under my fingernails.
“Your turn to carry her,” said the Ferryman to another.
I felt my body floating toward a cleaner smell—toward someone who liked musky cologne and soap. “Damn, she shouldn’t still be unconscious,” said a male with an English accent.
The heat against my body disappeared. Suddenly, I was freezing, shivering so hard I could feel my teeth knocking together. I was cold right to the pit of my stomach, right to my spine. Not the kind of cold you get from being outside in the snow or getting out of the pool at night, but a snap-your-bones-in-half kind of cold.
“Those drugs should have worn off by now. Hey, open your eyes a bit, darling,” said the Englishman.
He slapped my cheek—it stung, but I couldn’t respond. I just kept getting colder and colder.
“Uh, Seth,” he said, voice full of concern. “We have to stop for a minute; something isn’t right with her.”
I could tell I was being put down because the liquid in my nose drained. Was I on the ground? My limbs started twitching, and my eyes opened briefly to see a glimpse of a young man staring back at me. A dark wool cap barely contained locks of strawberry-red hair, and his freckled cheeks were slightly sunburned. He shone a light into my eyes as he moved his hand to my neck. It was searing hot. What was he doing? Was he going to kill me? I could feel my heart beating faster and faster in my chest, and I knew I had begun to shake violently. Keep calm, keep calm, I kept telling myself, but I heard panic in the voices of my captors, too.
“She’s going into convulsions. Damn it, Seth, we can’t lose her!” said the Englishman.
“You’re the doctor! Do something!”
The Ferryman… his name is Seth. I repeated this in my head, held on to it, and focused on it by writing it in jagged letters on an imaginary chalkboard in my mind. The man in the boat with the unshaven face and dark cloak… his name is Seth… his name is Seth…
“Get the blanket out of the pack,” one of them said.
I could feel hands on my neck again. I was dying. I could tell. A strange calm started to creep over my mind, and the crazy pounding in my chest slowed. As the cold started to ebb, I thought of Davis standing on the other side of the river. Davis… I’m not there… I can’t wait for you… I’m sorry. And Stephan, I love you. And Oliver…
A blinding light pulsed through my eyelids in short bursts. I counted them—one, two, three—and then the fourth pushed against my pupils, burning like the hot sun… and there he was, standing in front of me and reaching for my hand—the beautiful stranger, the man with the incredible blue eyes with lights surrounding him like a halo. Don’t give up, he was saying, and I didn’t bother pushing him away this time. I even considered moving toward him…letting him hold my hand…
But then the bright light turned muddy grey. Someone’s mouth was on mine, pushing their breath into my lungs—warm… soft… and my chest rose up and down, the taste of peppermint gum on my tongue… and then the cold came back with a hard slap. My heart jumped in my chest, crashed around, and then slowed to an even beat. I opened my eyes and stared up at the Englishman’s immensely relieved face.
“You had us worried there for a minute. Damn it, girl; it’s not your time to die… yet,” he said, his cheeks red and eyes wide. I tried to recoil when his fingers pushed on my neck, feeling for my pulse, but my body defied me yet again. The moon had moved to the far corner of the sky behind him, so I stared at it to avoid eye contact. “Can you move?” he asked.
If I could, I would rip your eyes out. I tried to yell, but nothing came out.
Seth leaned over and into my line of sight. His scrubby face was inches from mine, his breath foul and hot, and my ragged fingernail scratches scabbing over across his cheek. “Listen, we’re not going to hurt you, I promise. Please don’t be scared,” he said.
And then I was lifted and floating on imaginary waves in his arms while we moved deeper into the trees.
I woke to see sunlight struggling to shine through the canopy of trees. The morning dew was so thick it dropped off the leaves like rain. I licked some off my lips, finally able to move my tongue, and bit the inside of my cheek when the Englishman stumbled.
“Hey, Regan, you okay?” said Seth. “We better stop for a sec.”
Regan. Now I had a name for the clean-smelling man with the peppermint breath. He was carrying me now, and by the amount of sweat pouring down the sides of his red cheeks, had been for some time. I studied his face when he put me down. He was quite beautiful—he looked nothing like what I imagined a kidnapper would look like. He wiped the sweat off his brow, which left behind dirty streaks, and then hunched over on his knees as he struggled to catch his breath.
Seth dropped to the ground, too, and the packs he’d been carrying made a light thud as they fell. Gone was the long cloak, and now a brown ski jacket and jeans hung from his average frame. This new look certainly made him seem far less menacing, even though his haggard face was heavily lined, as if life had already worn him down. His brown hair was tinged with silver around the temples and a gold chain held a small cross tight to his throat. I didn’t think he looked like a kidnapper, either.
Twisting off the cap of a metal water bottle, he tipped it to his lips and thirstily gulped. “You need to drink, too,” he said, eyeing me.
I was thirsty, but I defiantly pursed my lips together; I didn’t want anything from him. What if he was trying to drug me again?
“Listen, girlie. You’re gonna drink it, or I’ll force it down your throat.” He lifted my head up and put the bottle to my mouth. I pretended not to want any, but once a few drops hit my tongue, I couldn’t help but guzzle back the cool water. “That’s good,” he said, “you keep behavin’ and things will be easier for all of us.”
He sat back and cracked his neck, his knuckles, then gave his back a good twist, which sounded like a dry twig snapping. “Ah crap,” he said suddenly, stopping and staring down toward my feet. “Girlie here is bleeding from somewhere, Regan. There’s blood on the blanket.”
I was swiftly unrolled from my warm cocoon. The cold air hit my damp clothes and instantly penetrated my skin. It felt like needles pricking my whole body. I tried to move to cover myself up, but my arms would barely lift an inch. It was like I was glued to the ground. Did they inject my veins with cement? What the hell was wrong with me?
“It’s her foot—the shoe is completely soaked,” said Seth.
I panicked—the tracking device was on that ankle and I couldn’t let them see it. I tried to pull my foot away, but it was like forcing cooked spaghetti to do jumping jacks. I felt the shoe loosen, and then pain surge up my leg as it was pulled it off. I tried not to cry.
“Ah damn,” Regan said, “this is bad. It’s gotta get cleaned up.”
“Please don’t touch me,” I managed to say in a pathetically weak voice.
Regan’s red hair fell around my face, his eyes cold and calculating. “Listen, it’s cut pretty badly and it bled a lot. It’s gotta get cleaned. Okay? I’d hate to have to remove your foot out here because of infection.”
Seth sighed heavily. “Really, Doctor Death? Am
putation? Do you have to be so dramatic? She’s scared enough already. Apparently, they didn’t teach you bedside manner in med school.”
Regan sighed and moved his face away from mine. “Didn’t need it,” he said proudly. “All my patients were already dead.”
“I’ll fix her up; I don’t trust you,” said Seth, giving my leg a pat with his repulsive hands. “The poor kid will end up with an appendectomy if I let you anywhere near her.”
His hot, dirty fingers started probing around my wounded foot, and I couldn’t hold back the tears stinging my eyes. Damn it, I didn’t want these bastards to see me cry, especially since the redhead was hovering over me again. I felt like a lab specimen beneath his intent stare.
“She certainly isn’t what I expected,” he said, his English accent thick.
“What do you mean, ‘She’s not what you expected?’ Is it because she’s pretty? Or is it because you have finally realized that we kidnapped an actual human being?”
Seth was rustling around, and I heard something unzip. What was he doing? I was almost blind with panic as I lay completely prone and at the mercy of these two strange men in the middle of nowhere. My mind raced with the possibilities of what was going to happen next when Regan positioned a cell phone over my face. Was he recording this? The sick bastard.
His fingertips brushed my forehead and then ran down the bridge of my nose, the intensity on his face still terrifying me to the core. He found the scar on my neck, and I had no choice but to lay there while he boldly traced its jagged edges.
“What’s this scar from?” he asked.
“An asshole like you,” I spat out, hoping my voice sounded fiercer than I felt.
He yanked his hand away and everything about his demeanor changed. Gone was the clinical coldness. Suddenly, his behavior matched his boyish, almost angelic, appearance. “I’m not like that… really. I’m not going to hurt you,” he said softly.
Then a sharp explosion shot up my leg toward my spine. Little black dots blurred my vision, and I couldn’t help but scream. I fought to stay conscious.
“Seth! What the hell are you doing?” Regan yelled, still holding the cell phone camera over my face as he kept recording.
Another blast of pain ripped through my foot, and this time, my screams came out only as a gurgle in my throat. More little black dots threatened to take over my sight entirely.
“I’m getting out whatever was left in there—a piece of wood or something… I can’t believe whoever stitched her up didn’t notice. Idiots. It’s worked its way in deep. Broken in pieces. I gotta get it out,” Seth replied.
“Well, wait until the freezing sets in! It doesn’t work instantly, you know. You’re hurting her. We just finished promising her we wouldn’t do that.”
“Oh, so now you care about someone other than yourself?” Seth snorted and patted me on the leg again, this time his hand hitting the anklet. Though dizzy, I could sense his intrigue at his discovery. His fingers slid around on my skin, and he lifted my pant leg. Spinning the metal band around, he inspected it thoroughly. “Strange jewelry,” he mumbled to himself, and then he abruptly went back to digging around in my foot.
I begged him to stop and leave me alone while Regan wondered out loud about why the freezing wasn’t working and kept injecting more of it. The pain was unbearable as it surged up my leg and through every nerve in my body. I tried to ignore it by thinking of anything else, but after what seemed like forever, I couldn’t contain the blood-curdling scream that escaped from me, starting from the deepest pit of my stomach. It was then that they stopped. They forced water and some strange pills down my throat. And then they got back at it.
I had to disconnect my consciousness from my body. I stared up, fixating on the trees, searching for any sort of distraction, but they barely swayed, and the blue sky remained endless. I turned my head to the side instead and stared at the thick bush, the green dangling leaves, and the stick-straight poplars. I let my mind move past them and into the thick darkness of the forest to where the outline of a man began to take shape. A dark figure grew larger the harder I stared. Soon, someone was parting the bushes and marching quickly toward us. I clamped my eyes shut in sheer terror.
“What the hell is going on?” the party crasher yelled, and his voice blended with a stirring breeze that came out of nowhere and brushed my hair away from my face. It sounded familiar.
“Luke!” Seth said angrily, “don’t bloody sneak up on us like that!”
“What are you doing to her?” the man asked.
I felt like I knew that voice. I squeezed my eyed shut even tighter.
“She was hurt pretty badly. We had to stop and patch her up—she was bleeding all over the place and we couldn’t risk infection,” said Regan.
“Yeah, all fixed, though. Just sewing up the wound now,” added Seth, and he drove a needle into my flesh.
I uncontrollably moaned in pain.
“Just stop what you’re doing for a second!” yelled the newcomer, and the entire forest became dead silent.
I could feel his presence over me and prayed for the tears to stay away. I tried to get my mind to drift again—to think of swimming, or sitting in front of the fireplace with Oliver—but now the man from the garden was talking to me, and it was just so real.
“Please, open your eyes,” he said.
Voice like butter. No. It couldn’t be him. I was losing my mind. Maybe I had died.
“Please…” he begged, and his breath warmed the air around my face.
I figured I could look. I was dead anyway, so what did it matter? I opened my eyes, and sure enough, it was him—plain as day. I would never forget those blue eyes I’d fallen for on my eighteenth birthday. But my mind was playing tricks. Obviously, I had gone completely mad.
The stranger from the garden fell to his knees with a look of complete horror on his face. I stared as hard as I could, trying to match everything about him to my memories from eighty-two nights ago, hoping for a flaw… but it was becoming difficult to focus again. Obviously, whatever drugs I’d been given were really messing with my mind.
“You’re sure you got the right girl?” the stranger asked.
A flower for your thoughts… I know exactly what I’m fighting for…
“What?—yeah Luke, of course!” said Regan defensively. “What’s going on? You’re freaking us out. You look like you’ve seen a ghost.”
“Why can’t she move?” Luke asked, ignoring Regan’s mounting anxiety.
“Bad combination of sedatives, but at least she is alert now. She died for almost a full minute, but we got her back.”
Luke leapt to his feet and shoved Regan angrily backward. Now I could see more than just his face. A wool cap covered gold-tinged hair that was pulled into a ponytail, a heavy flannel blue shirt and black jeans fit his body perfectly, and hiking boots—the same ones he’d worn that night—had a shoelace ready to come undone.
“What the hell’s gotten into you?” Regan yelled, putting up his hands defensively as Luke’s cheeks became red with anger.
There was arguing—words were relentlessly tossed between angry men while my world spun and not much of anything made sense. Where was I? Who was with me? How did I get here? The jacket I had been wearing during the race was so thin and damp it did nothing to retain the last of my body heat from being sucked out by the cold ground. I was freezing from the top of my head to my toes, and I tried to say something to that effect, but my mouth filled with water and I thought I might be sick. Then I started to shake uncontrollably again.
The voices quieted, and then they began speaking in collected, efficient tones. My wet jacket was pried off, and I lay helpless in nothing but a tank top and yoga pants. This was a female’s worst nightmare. I begged them not to hurt me.
“We are just going to get you warmed up. Nobody will hurt you, I promise,” said the stranger. Said Luke. He kneeled in front me and gently pulled me up into a sitting position, his arms securing me in place again
st his chest. I had no choice but to lean forward, barely even able to hold up my own head.
“I am so cold,” I muttered through chattering teeth.
“I’m gonna fix that,” he said.
He eased my arms into his flannel shirt, and his heart pounded against my cheek. It was melodic, like the most perfect piece of music ever written—my own personal serenade. I drifted… ka boom, ka boom… singing, dreaming… I had to be…
“Luke,” Regan said in a very careful tone, “we need to get moving.”
The arms around me tightened.
“Yeah, we need to get to camp,” Seth gently urged.
The serenade stopped, and Luke effortlessly lifted me into his arms. I fought to stay awake so I could stare at him and verify the color of his eyes, the sandy-brown hair, the sharp jawline… And yes, every feature was the same as I remembered. There was no way I was imagining this.
“I’m so sorry,” he said, blue eyes vibrant in the morning light and filled with sadness as we moved deeper into the thick pines. “I didn’t know… I really had no idea who you were. I won’t let any harm come to you. I promise.” Remorse dripped from his voice. “My name is Luke, and I’m pretty sure I know who you are, but please, say it. Please, tell me your name.”
I debated not answering him. I mean, why would I give this criminal the time of day? But, then again, it was him. And he was Luke. And this… was crazy.
“My name is Kaya, Kaya Lowen. And—I knew you weren’t a gardener.”
He let out a small laugh. Heat burst from my chest to my fingertips so fast I thought the flannel shirt had caught fire.
“Kaya. Kaya Lowen,” he said to himself. “I finally have the name of the girl who has haunted me for the last 1,968 hours…”
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