I shove the rest of my bread into my mouth and chew angrily. He’s being ridiculous. I know he is.
He taps the table in front of me until I look up at him. “My gut is telling me we get out of here.” One of his hands is wrapped around the strap of his pack, ready to pull it up and on at my word. “Let’s just go. Now,” he says.
When I don’t answer, he stands and edges around to me. “We warned him. That’s what you wanted,” he whispers into my ear. “And he’ll warn others. So if he’s legit, when we go to the next place, they’ll be expecting us. We’ll know we can trust them. And him.” He tugs at my arm. I can’t argue that he has a point. “Allie, trust me,” he says, letting go of my arm long enough to get his pack’s straps over his shoulders.
As he’s doing that, I give in and take a few steps into the living room. The bedroom door is closed. We can be long gone before Jason even realizes we’re missing.
“We need to use his phone.” I’m stalling, looking around for anything suspicious, anything to justify us being so rude. He’ll understand, I tell myself and then wonder why it matters. What’s important is staying alive. Ploy’s spent a good chunk of the last year trusting his instincts.
I stare at the picture frames nailed to the cheap paneling, searching for anyone familiar. Sarah’s in quite a few. Other people strike a hazy chord in my memory. My stomach gives an uneasy twist and I wonder if I’ve caught Ploy’s paranoia.
Ploy comes in from the kitchen and hands me my backpack. “We go out the front. Backyard is too exposed.”
As he starts to speak, I whip around, staring at the framed shots as the cause for my unease finally hits me. “He’s not in any of the pictures.”
“Go,” Ploy says. “Now.”
The bedroom door opens. The man doesn’t look particularly surprised to see us ready to bolt. “I’ve got a friend on the way,” he says. “He’s going to help us sort this mess.”
From behind me, Ploy sounds grateful. “Thank you so much! Allie was nervous you wouldn’t be able to reach anyone. Her aunt said she’d had trouble getting people to answer.”
The man only smiles. “Well, people fall out of touch when they shouldn’t. Don’t they, Ploy?”
I follow Ploy’s lead. “I’m just so relieved we got to you in time.”
The man leans against the door frame. “Even if you were late, I wouldn’t have had to worry, right? A little magic trick on your part and I’m right as rain.”
My backpack bumps against Ploy. No resurrectionist would ever refer to what we do as magic. Never. Behind me, Ploy gives a contented sigh. “All this stress is freaking me out. I’m gonna smoke on your porch,” he says. The lie will get him outside. “Allie, wanna come or were you good in here?”
“Oh, I’ll come, I guess.” It doesn’t sound even close to casual.
The old man shoots Ploy a look, a hand behind his back. “She can stay in here. We’ll talk. Reminisce about her aunt for a piece.”
Ploy’s hand finds mine. “Actually, I’d feel better if she’s with me.” He laces our fingers together.
The old man goes still. “What’re you playing at, boy?”
He draws his hand from behind his back. In it is a small pistol. “On second thought,” he says to us. “We all wait inside. Have a seat on the couch. Jamison gonna be here in a few.” He gestures to the couch.
We both move quickly, dropping onto the threadbare cushions. Jamison? I think, repeat the name to myself so I won’t forget it. I have the presence of mind to take off my pack and set it on my lap as I cross my legs. It offers enough cover that I pull up my pant leg and go for the knife hidden there. My hand’s closing around the hilt when the man notices my movements. We lock eyes.
I lunge off the couch with a terrified scream, knife raised. My shoulder slams into him hard, spins the gun away from Ploy’s direction and I come down with the knife, aiming for the soft spots that will do the most damage—throat, stomach—the way I was trained. An ear shattering pop rings out, but the bullet goes wild.
Ploy’s up and across the room. He tangles with the man who is not Jason Jourdain, punches flying. Ploy takes a hit to the side of his face, knuckles hitting bone in a flat smack. And then Ploy grabs the gun and shoots once, twice. The old man slumps, motionless.
“Are you okay?” Ploy asks me over his shoulder.
“Yeah,” I manage, staring at the man. Blood pools on the floor beneath him. My heart thumps wildly, a sick feeling growing in my stomach. I stabbed him and Ploy shot him and now he’s lying there not moving. “I’m okay,” I say. “I think I tore a muscle.”
A slow heat spreads across the left side of my chest. When I touch the spot it radiates from, my fingers come away wet. I hold them in front of me.
The tips are crimson.
“God, that was close,” Ploy murmurs. “I think he’s dead. Allie, I think I killed him.” He bends down on one knee and checks the man for a pulse. “Oh God, this is so bad.” He’s running the fabric of his shirt over the gun. Getting rid of prints. His face is pale, terrified. He sets the gun down like it’s a diseased thing. “He was going to hurt you. I couldn’t...I....”
I want to tell him it’s okay, but the blood on my fingers proves it’s not. Shock, I think numbly. It must not hurt because I’m in shock. I catch half a breath before fire rolls through my chest. Okay, not shock after all. On instinct, I press a palm against the wound. I have to stop the bleeding. I have to stay calm and remember not to panic. It hurts so bad.
“Ploy?”
He swings around to look up at me. His face goes ashen when he sees my bloodied fingers. “Where?” he demands. “Where’d it hit you?”
I can’t get my balance. Ploy’s gripping me tight to his side. The hand he mashes against my ribs burns. I’m having trouble keeping my arm slung around his neck. He stumbles under my sudden weight and I realize I’ve fallen. “He’s coming. Jamison,” I cough, staggering to my feet. I wheeze in a deep gasp, but don’t feel like I’m getting any air. Collapsed lung, I think absently. “We’ve got to go.”
Stupid, I think. I should have let Ploy play the hero. I blink and must lose a few seconds because I’m staring down at dirty wooden floorboards, further below me than they should be. My arms hang, limp. They brush Ploy’s back as he carries me over his shoulder. I have to stay conscious. If I don’t, and I die, Ploy will leave me. He won’t know he can help me.
“Talk to me, Allie!”
I manage a moan.
“Hang on.” Frantic, stilted words. He’s afraid.
I’m scared too, terrified to blink again, in case my eyes won’t open. Tiles bounce and blur. The kitchen. Ploy flips me off him. I land hard on the floor, the bullet wound searing. The pain wakes me. “My messenger bag,” I say through gritted teeth as he adjusts me against the wall.
He brushes my hair back and I catch the first glimpse of his raw panic. “What do I do? Tell me what to do!”
I raise a leaden arm and grip the neck of his shirt. “You listen to me and you stay calm.” I dart my eyes down, grateful to find my messenger bag wrapped around me. Using the hold I have on him as leverage, I lean myself forward, off the wall. “Get my bag.”
He yanks it off me and starts to unzip it before I ask.
“Syringe.” My lungs rattle as I suck in air to form the words. “In the kit.” I cough hard. Wet, metallic tang fills my mouth, spills over my lips. I don’t have the strength to wipe it away. The bullet punctured a lung for sure. May have hit an artery. Heart. I don’t have much time.
While he’s digging through the bag, I drop my head to my shoulder, glance down at the wound. It’s too high up on my chest. I’ve got no chance. My blood will heal me, bring me back, but it’ll be too slow. I need foreign blood, something to jumpstart the process.
I need him.
He’d lost so much of his own blood when he was stabbed. My cells copied his until his volume was high enough for survival. He’s got a weird mix of the both of us running through his veins
. It might be different enough to help me.
Ploy’s opened the box and unwrapped the plastic. He looks up at me expectantly.
“I’m dying,” I start but he cuts me off.
“No.” His fingers grip my cheeks. “You stay with me, Allie. What do I put in the syringe? Your blood?”
“Rubber tie. Your upper arm.” A person can lose about half their blood volume before remaining conscious becomes impossible. How close am I? The puddle under me is spreading. Internally, things have got to be even worse. I feel like I’m drowning. There’s no time. If I pass out before I can give him instructions, he won’t know what to do. “Fill the syringe.”
“Allie…”
I give my head a slight shake. He has to listen. He has to hear me and follow the directions exactly. “Your blood. Here,” I say, cringing as I lift my arm to point. “Between the fourth and fifth rib. Into my heart.”
“But I’m not—”
“You can do this, Ploy.” The closest I can get to reaching for him is uncurling my fingers. Still, his hand finds mine, our fingers slick. “Don’t leave me behind.”
He’s shaking his head when my eyes close.
“Don’t leave me,” I say. Death feels like floating. Then nothing.
Chapter 13
PLOY
She’s breathing. Even over the sound of my own ragged breaths, I can hear the gurgling rattle that started a few minutes ago. Her head bobbles and I curl my arm tighter. My legs burn. My arms don’t; they’ve been numb for the past ten minutes, every muscle pulled. Allie’s deadweight. Her arm flops lifelessly to the side, but I know it’s not lifeless. Not anymore.
She lied to me. About everything.
The betrayal eats at me as I stumble through the woods. I’d asked her if I could bring people back, too, if I could even heal them and she’d given me a definitive no. What else is she lying about? I wonder. I hadn’t thought about it much when I’d scooped her up and taken off from the cabin. At the cabin, I’d had other questions.
Suddenly, she makes a weak gagging noise and I slow.
“Allie?”
She winces at her name but doesn’t answer. My foot catches on a root. I stumble, almost drop her. I have to stop. Lowering her to the ground, I aim for a soft spot on the forest floor. After this, I’ll be happy if I never see woods again.
“Allie? Blink. Say something.” I run my fingers down her cheek. “Please.”
A second later, her eyelids crack apart. “Ouch,” she whispers and a half laugh of relief slips from me before I can stop it. The left side of my face aches dully. “How long?” she asks.
“You’ve been...” Dead doesn’t seem like the right word, though that’s what happened. She’d died there in the kitchen. I’d laid her down on the dirty linoleum and I’d seen her chest rise and fall and stop. I’d watched her eyes roll back in her head and I’d done what she’d said with my blood and the syringe. “You were gone about fifteen minutes. I waited five but I knew if we were trapped there…” I glance around. “I carried you here. We’re in the woods. Again.” My lightest graze against the bullet hole on her ribs brings a pitiful whine from her. “Sorry,” I whisper. “I’m trying to be gentle. It started bleeding again.”
She gives a weak nod. “Can’t bleed without a heartbeat. Stitching it will help. Do you think you can do that?”
A short, near hysterical laugh bursts from me. “I just shoved a needle into your heart. I’m pretty sure I can jab one through some skin.”
“You brought my bag, right?”
I nod, slipping my pack off my shoulders. Sweat darkens my shirt where the straps dug in, droops across the neckline. “I had to put it in mine.”
“How did you carry me and your pack?”
“I have no idea.” Adrenaline maybe. Knowing Jamison was on his way. Knowing maybe he was right and this whole thing with Allie was a waste of time. Apparently she only gives up her secrets when it’s her life on the line. It’d taken me months to learn this much about what she, and now I guess I, can do. He would have gotten the same amount in an afternoon. I smash down the vicious thoughts. She did trust me, I remind myself.
Not until she had a bullet through her lung, a smaller voice argues.
Jamison, however, hadn’t trusted me at all. Who was the guy at the cabin? Could he have killed Allie’s aunt? If he did, does Jamison know why, what happened? He must. He was in the house, lit the fire. The confusion, more than anything, had made me scoop Allie into my arms and make a run for it.
Once I’ve got the needle and thread, I pause, not quite sure what to do. “Shouldn’t we like, sterilize it? Do you have alcohol pads or something?”
She drapes her hand across mine. From her pallor, the staggered breaths, she’s too weak to do any more. “You can’t mess this up.”
I shoot her an incredulous look. Her lips part. A wavering wail of hurt breaks from her. Something inside me goes tight.
I dig into the front pouch of my own pack and fish for the prescription bottle she’d given me at her aunt’s. “Painkillers?”
She takes the plastic pill bottle from me but after two attempts at loosening the cap she hands it over and collapses against the forest floor. “Stupid childproof bottles,” she rasps.
With a twist of the wrist and a little pressure, I unscrew the lid and tumble two pills into my palm. “We don’t have any water.”
She gives the slightest shake of her head. “It’s fine,” she says. “They’ll work faster this way.” I pinch the pills in my fingertips and drop them between her lips. Instead of dry swallowing, she crunches, stifling a gag into her elbow. She blinks, slow, and her eyes shift to the trees, the brush. “We’re safe here? For a while? I’m going to lose consciousness.” Already, her eyes are unfocused, her words slurring.
Distance-wise, probably. Jamison would have known we were on foot. From Allie’s aunt’s to the cabin, it would have been fairly obvious where we were going.
I’ve been blindly stumbling through the woods for almost a mile, no path, no steady direction. I don’t know if they’ll come after us. There could be others I don’t know about besides Jamison. People I don’t trust. I’m not quite sure whether to add Jamison to that list or not. I don’t know if the stranger at the cabin was after the missing Jason Jourdain or waiting for Allie and me. Either way, someone else was brought in on the secret that I thought only Jamison and I knew. Someone dangerous.
I killed him. The realization sinks in slow. I killed a man to keep her safe.
She’s staring up at me, her eyes focused again, trust in them that only makes me feel worse. “We’re safe,” I say, because I know it’s what she needs to hear to settle. She might be alive, but she’s not looking good. There’s so much blood on her shirt I can’t tell what’s old and new. A wet spot on the left side tells me it’s seeping. The needle and thread in my hand feel heavy. “How do I—”
She lifts her shirt far enough to give me access. “Quickly. We do this quickly,” she says and scoots to lie across my lap. I tense, the weight and warmth of her throwing me off. I wasn’t ready for that. Jesus, not now, I think. I’ve got a needle in my hand about to sew shut a gunshot wound to her chest and all I can think about is kissing her, fingers stuttering across her skin to the parts of her I haven’t touched yet. I keep my eyes on the wound, the trickle of blood. “Ready?” she asks awkwardly, one arm above her head, fingers curled against the moss.
“Um, yeah,” I say and pinch her skin together. She whimpers when the needle breaks through with a pop. “Sorry,” I murmur, tying a knot. I fish a small pair of scissors from the bag and cut the thread, start over. The needle stabs in, through, out. She pounds her fist against my calf and I freeze.
“No,” she hisses through clenched teeth. “Keep going. Fast as you can.”
My fingers fight another knot and I pick up the needle again. “You okay?” I ask. She forces a tight grin, nods furiously. “One more stitch.” I stab, tug, tie, clip. “We’re done.”
; She slowly blows a breath she’d been holding. “I just need a minute,” she says. Her eyes slide closed.
“Allie,” I start. I don’t know how to say it, only that it has to be said. “Why did you lie to me? I asked if I could resurrect people, or even heal them, and you said no.”
“You didn’t resurrect me. It was...a jumpstart.” Her words are clipped with pain. She trails off, though she’s not sleeping. “Knowing me got you killed. In a month you won’t even heal anymore. The less you know the safer you’ll be,” she murmurs. The tension lines between her eyebrows deepen and then fade. “They’re after us. We need to move. Hide.”
Pain sours her expression. I don’t know what to do to make it better. My fingers thread gently through her hair. After a few passes she heaves a contented sigh. “That feels good,” she whispers.
She opens her eyes and her gaze locks onto my lips. All I have to do is rock forward, but something makes me hesitate. She isn’t focused on me.
“I don’t think I should have taken them. Pills. Should have...” The words stutter into silence. She mumbles something I miss. “Was he dead? The man, did we…?” she starts and then fades off again.
I trace a line from the crown of her forehead down to her ear then up again, waiting for the rest of a question that doesn’t come. “Sleep. I’ll keep you safe,” I say.
Did we kill him? That’s what she was going to ask. But there is no we. I was the one who shot the gun. Twice.
I watch her to be sure her chest rises and falls. She’s only sleeping. I give the pills a few more minutes to kick in and then, as gently as I can, I slide from underneath her and replace my lap with her bag of clothes. She doesn’t stir. I stand and go for my pack.
Digging to the bottom, I slip my hand inside the cooking pot and grab the pair of balled up socks. I pull them apart. A dented, scratched flip phone tumbles into the leaves. I snap it up, hide it in my pocket, sure Allie’s taken this second to rouse, but she hasn’t moved. My heart hammers. I have to call Jamison. I don’t know when the next opportunity will come.
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