by Charli Webb
“Sky-lar.” Someone calls my name, dragging it out.
It’s hard to judge distances in the canyon, but it sounds as if they’re a long way away.
“Ann-uh.”
“Here.” I try to answer. But it comes out as a barely audible croak. Every breath I take hurts. I can’t suck in enough air to speak above a whisper. I’m so thirsty. How long have I been out here? The air is chilly, but the rocks are still warm.
They keep calling and I keep trying to answer. It sounds like they’re getting further away. Half a dozen beams of light flicker in and out of my line of vision. They’re so far above me. And they’re definitely moving in the wrong direction.
“Sky-lar.” That’s Rowdy’s voice.
“Over here.” No way did he hear that. I know it’s going to hurt, but I’m desperate. I pant three times then suck in a giant breath of air and scream.
“Skylar! Where are you?”
“Here.” I’m whispering again. I’m in so much pain. I don’t know if I can do it again.
“Sky! Keep talking so I can find you.”
I whimper. Knowing exactly how much it’s going to hurt makes it so much harder. I think of Rowdy out there, searching for me and fill my lungs again. This time I’m prepared and yell his name instead of just screaming like a wounded animal.
The lights are right above me. I must have passed out. They sweep over me then one by one converge on my face. I slam my eyes shut, but the beams are so bright it doesn’t help very much.
“Hang on, babe. I’m coming.” Rowdy calls out. “On belay?”
Someone answers, “Belay on.”
“I’m coming, Sky. Do not move.” One light continues to shine on my chest while half a dozen spotlight Rowdy’s boots.
Oh. He’s rappelling down to me. That can’t be good. Did I deck off a wall? I don’t have a helmet on and I never climb without one. I feel around my waist and thighs. No harness.
It only takes Rowdy a few minutes to reach me. I want to hug him so bad it hurts, but I can’t sit up.
“Don’t move.” He pauses. “I need a litter, collar and beanbag.”
It takes a second for me to realize he’s talking over his radio.
“I need you to stay still while I check you out.”
“You can’t check me out.” I gesture at the lights shining on my body. “People are watching.”
Rowdy gives me a fleeting, closed lip smile. “I’m going to shine a light in your eyes. Try not to squint.”
“What happened?”
“You fell.” Rowdy runs his fingers over my skull. He’s being extremely gentle, but it still hurts.
“Were we climbing?” We’d been planning to climb The Naked Edge together for awhile.
“No. What’s your name?”
“You don’t know my name?”
“Yes, babe, I know your name. I just need to know if you do.”
“Do I have a concussion?”
“That’s what I’m trying to find out.”
“My name is Skylar.”
“Good girl.” I can’t see him with that damn light in my eyes but I can hear the smile in his voice. I’m glad I made him happy.
“I know your name, too, Cowboy.”
“Try again.”
I was hoping for a laugh. I love it when he laughs. Maybe he doesn’t want me to use his nickname. “Rowdy Daletzki.”
“How old are you, Skylar?”
“Twenty.”
“What day is it?”
“Crap.” My voice trembles. “I can’t remember.”
“That’s okay. I don’t know what day it is half the time either. Do you remember what you had for breakfast?”
“Cheerios?” Boone and I only have one kind of cereal, so if I ate breakfast, that’s what it would be.
“You don’t remember going out for breakfast?”
“Oh, wait.” I do remember. “We were supposed to go to The Walnut Cafe, but Anna needed a ride to work.”
“That’s right.” Rowdy’s hands move lower. His headlamp follows, giving my throbbing eyes a break. He traces my collar bones then moves to my ribs.
I yelp, which only makes the pain worse.
“Sorry.” Rowdy holds his gloved hands above my stomach. “I need to palpate your abdomen.”
“Palpate’s such a weird word.”
“It’s a medical term that means—”
“Poke and prod everything that hurts.”
“Pretty much.” Rowdy smiles, but it’s fleeting. “Tell me if you feel any discomfort.”
“I hurt all over but my head and my ribs are killing me.”
He lifts the hem of my shirt and peeks under it. “I’m going to unbutton your shirt.”
“Why?”
“There’s a lot of dried blood. I need to know where it came from.”
His headlamp sweeps over my chest without pausing on my boobs. I’m impressed.
“You’re bruised, but I can’t find a single cut except for the one on the side of your head. And that flowed over your shoulder onto your back.” Rowdy sounds confused. “Where’d all that blood on your chest come from?”
A chill runs down my spine as it all comes rushing back to me. “Anna.”
“That’s Anna’s blood?”
I nod.
Rowdy presses his fingers against my cheeks. “Do. Not. Move. Your. Head.”
“Sorry.”
He picks his flashlight up off the ground and sweeps it around in a full circle, calling out Anna’s name. He speaks into his radio. “We need a team to search the surrounding area for the second victim. She’s injured and possibly disoriented.”
What she is, is crazy.
When Wade arrives a few seconds later, Rowdy clicks off the radio. He rubs a finger over the back of my hand. “Wade’s going to hold your head while I put a cervical collar on you.”
“Okay.”
He shifts his focus to Wade. “Keep pressure off the left parietal side of her head. There’re signs of blunt force trauma.”
No shit.
Wade’s face is upside-down over mine but his frown does not look like a smile. “I told you there’s a reason we wear helmets, even on the trails.”
“I was wearing a helmet. Anna took it off.”
“Can you tell us what happened?” Rowdy straps a foam collar around my neck. “Why was Anna bleeding? Did she fall when you did?”
They aren’t going to believe me. It sounds crazy, even to me. They’ll probably chalk it up to my head injury. “No, Anna didn’t fall.”
“Was she injured before or after she began assessing you?” Rowdy continues to examine, and cross-examine, me while Wade cleans and bandages the side of my head.
Anna’s only injury is a self-inflicted knife wound. “She wasn’t trying to help me.”
Rowdy moves a stethoscope over my bare chest. I’m surprised he hasn’t gone all caveman and covered me up so Wade can’t see my bra.
“Can you take a couple of deep breaths for me?”
“You’re kidding, right?”
“Just as much as you can handle.”
Without the motivation to call for help, I can’t convince my lungs to cooperate. All I manage are a few painful gasps.
Rowdy takes my blood pressure then calls in the report over the radio, including the good news that ‘the patient is stable,’ then focuses on my face. His movements are slower, more relaxed. “If Anna wasn’t trying to help you, why’d she remove your helmet?”
“I think I better start at the beginning.”
“Okay.” Rowdy pokes at my hip bones. “Does this hurt?”
“No. Anna and I got into an argument. She blamed me for stealing you from her.”
Rowdy sighs. “I don’t know what’s gotten into that girl. She’s been acting strange ever since you came back.”
“She’s always acted strange.” Wade pulls more medical stuff out of the pack. “You were just blind to it for some reason. But she’s definitely gotten worse.”
/>
“She’s my sister. I guess I just wanted to protect her.”
I’m not letting that slide anymore. “She made it very clear that you two are not related by blood.”
Rowdy moves his hands to my waistband. “I’m going to unzip your pants.”
“No!” I try to grab his wrists but the sudden movement sends a hot knife through my side.
Rowdy lifts his hands then leans over and whispers, “This is just part of the exam. I’d do the same thing to any other patient in your condition.”
“It’s not that.” My eyes sting as blood rushes to my face. “I think I wet my pants.”
Rowdy brushes the tears off my cheeks. “It happens. Especially when you’re knocked unconscious.”
“Hey, Skylar?” The beam from Wade’s headlamp is shining on what’s left of my iPhone. “Did Siri piss you off or something?”
“She tumbled forty feet down a talus field. I’d be surprised if her phone wasn’t broken.” Rowdy shines his light on my right hip. “Your pocket’s wrong side out. Do you remember pulling your phone out?”
“No.” I’m ninety-nine percent sure that Anna is responsible for destroying my phone. She must have taken it while I was unconscious.
“I’m surprised you don’t have pieces of it embedded in your hip.” Rowdy’s fingertips slide over my exposed skin.
Wade squats on the ground next to my shattered phone. “I’m no CSI expert, but it looks like someone intentionally smashed this phone.”
He picks up a fist sized rock, revealing more shards of glass and electronic bits beneath it.
Rowdy’s brow furrows, pulling his eyebrows together. He searches my face. “Did Anna hurt you?”
I don’t want to cry. If I do, it’ll make my ribs hurt even more. But the fact that Rowdy’s already suspicious of Anna before I even tell him what she did touches my heart. Crying hurts even worse than I thought it would. I try to nod, but the neck brace won’t let me.
“Shh…babe, don’t cry. Breathe with me.” He holds my hand and takes slow, shallow breaths.
“She pushed me off the trail.”
Rowdy clenches his jaw so hard it shifts the straps of his helmet.
“Um…guys?” Wade’s closer now. Both his headlamp and flashlight are focused on a rock about ten feet from my left shoulder. There’s a bloody handprint on it. “Look at this.”
“Don’t touch it!” Rowdy yells at him. “Don’t touch anything. This is a crime scene and that’s evidence.”
The mention of evidence ties my stomach in knots.
Rowdy reaches for the radio strapped to his shoulder. He’s going to report this.
“No! Anna has a knife with my fingerprints on it.”
His mouth drops open as his eyes widen. He takes his hand away from the radio without keying it then grabs a pair of shears and slices my left pant leg open from ankle to hip.
“Wait.” My pants are already ruined but I don’t want any more of my body exposed to Wade than it already is.
“Wade! Get over here.” Rowdy obviously doesn’t have the same concern. He’s working fast again. His movements are even more frantic than before. “We’re going to roll you on your side so we can get a look at your back then we’ll slip a vacu-splint under you.”
“Do you have to?” Just the thought of it tenses every muscle in my body.
Rowdy looks at Wade. “On the count of three. One, Two, Three.”
I cry out when they tilt me onto my side. It’s not the one with the broken ribs, but it still hurts like hell. I bite my lip to keep from screaming and taste blood.
“I’m sorry, babe. I know it hurts.”
Cold air washes over my back when one of them lifts my shirt, exposing my birthmark. Hot tears stream down my face. I don’t even care when they expose my butt. Gentle fingers slide over my skin, pressing gently as they go.
“No sign of stab wounds.” Rowdy sounds much calmer.
They count to three again then roll me onto the vacu-splint.
“The worst is over now.” Rowdy brushes the tears off my face, again. He obviously thinks I’m crying because of the pain, and that’s part of it, but it’s the humiliation of having my birthmark exposed that’s causing this episode of emotional overload.
“We’re going to pump the air out of the beanbag so it’ll conform to your body.”
It takes a few seconds for the pain to recede enough for me to speak. “Anna didn’t cut me. She wrapped my fingers around her knife then sliced her forehead with it.”
Wade and Rowdy both freeze. I count off the seconds in my head, waiting for someone to say something…anything.
“I don’t fucking believe this!” Rowdy’s voice echoes off the canyon.
I squeeze my eyes shut. Tears stream down the sides of my face, into my ears. I want to brush them away, but I’m completely immobilized by the vacu-splint.
“I’m going to kill that crazy bitch.”
My eyes fly open.
Rowdy’s trembling.
He’s mad at Anna. Not me. Relief floods my veins. I can handle anything as long as Rowdy believes me.
Wade says, “We need to get Skylar packaged in the litter and get her out of here. Then we need to call the police.”
Rowdy’s phone trills. It’s the ringtone he uses for all his close friends. He and Wade exchange a look. Rowdy pulls it out of his pocket and frowns. “It’s Anna. She’s Facetiming me.”
He presses his thumb over the camera lens on his phone then angles it so Wade and I can see the screen.
“Oh my god, Rowdy.” Anna’s face is covered in dried blood. She’s sobbing, but they’re no tears. “Skylar tried to kill me.”
“Where are you?” Rowdy’s voice is calm but his hands are shaking.
“Did you hear me? Your crazy slut tried to kill me!”
“Then why are you calling me? Why haven’t you called the police?”
“I… I…” Her eyes dart back and forth. “You’re the first person I thought of when I regained consciousness. I need help.”
Rowdy sighs. “How badly are you hurt?”
“She cut my face.” Anna lifts her hair off her forehead to show him the wound right below her hairline. She did a good job of making sure she can easily hide the scar.
“Is that your only injury?”
“Isn’t that enough?” Anna’s screaming now. “I was attacked. I barely escaped with my life.”
“Oh, really?” Rowdy’s voice is still calm, but his eyes have narrowed to slits. “I’ve got a patient in a beanbag with a concussion, broken ribs and no fucking weapon.”
“She’s alive?”
A chill runs down my spine. Anna didn’t want to knock me out. She was trying to kill me.
“You’re with her?” Her eyes widen. “Whatever she told you, it’s a lie.”
Rowdy’s face is a mask of rage. “There’s a team out risking their lives trying to find you. Now where the fuck are you?”
Anna screams again. “I have the knife she used to attack me.”
Rowdy removes his thumb from the lens. “And we have the rock you used to crack her skull with your bloody fingerprints all over it.”
“Fingerprints?” Anna laughs. It’s a shrill, frightening sound. “Or just finger-shaped smears from a gloved hand?”
“Fuck.” Rowdy’s shoulders slump. He takes two deep breaths then glares at his phone. “What do you hope to gain, Anna?”
“I won’t go to the cops if you promise to give me a chance.”
“A chance for what?” He sounds defeated. And that scares me more than Anna’s craziness.
“I want you to spend time with me.”
“Well, I don’t want to spend time with you. Not anymore. I warned you not to make me choose.”
“You have another choice to make, my love.”
“I’m not your love.”
“If you don’t do what I say, I’m going straight to the cops.”
“Why are you doing this?”
“You
let that stupid whore brainwash you. All I need is a little time to undo the damage.”
“How much time do you want?”
“As much as it takes.”
“You need to call in your location so Mike can direct the team to you.” Rowdy’s phone goes blank. He shoves it back in his pocket. His face is grim.
Wade arches his eyebrows. “Did you record that?”
Rowdy’s face falls. He sits down on the ground next to me and drops his head in his hands.
“I guess that means, no.”
He groans as if in extreme pain. “I didn’t even know I could do that.”
“I think we should call the police. Right now.” Wade stuffs the medical equipment back into his pack. “All three of us witnessed that conversation. It’s our word against hers.”
“She has hard evidence.” Rowdy pulls out his phone and starts snapping pictures. He moves out of my limited field of vision. I track his movements by the flash from his camera.
“What are you doing?”
“We need to gather our own evidence.” He comes back to the medical packs and takes out a new pair of gloves. “I hate to disturb the crime scene, but I’m afraid Anna will come back and destroy it.”
“That makes sense.”
Wade stays by side and tells me what’s going on while Rowdy gathers everything into a biohazard bag then stuffs it into his pack.
He nods at Wade. They lift me onto the litter without a countdown.
Wade crisscrosses velcro straps over my body, tying me into the litter. “Anna’s not critically wounded. The most they could charge Skylar with is assault.”
Rowdy tightens and adjusts the straps. “It would be assault with a deadly weapon. They could also charge her with attempted murder.”