He reaches for me. His hands are on me.
I hear him make a heaving sound, and the room wheels around my fixed field of vision, and then all I see is the fabric of the shirt covering his back.
Dangling over one of his shoulders, I sway with every step he takes.
We pass a sudsy, soaking sink full of stainless-steel needles. And more sharp things, still unused and filled with venom. My hand nearly brushes the long, thick needle that injected adrenaline into my heart. I can’t move my hand enough to grasp it.
I’m trapped in my cocoon.
Dr Goodnight carries me outside into the warm, damp dark of the forest.
The ceiling fan goes woop-woop.
Gina is lying next to me in bed at the hospital. We’re both looking up at the fan, watching it spin.
‘That’s far,’ Gina says, judging the distance to the fan.
‘I know,’ I reply. ‘David was crazy tall, though.’
‘Yeah, but still,’ Gina replies doubtfully. ‘He must have really wanted to die. It wasn’t your fault, you know.’
‘Maybe not. But I still feel like it was.’ I turn my head to face her. ‘I’m sorry I got you killed, too,’ I say.
‘You didn’t get me killed,’ she replies, rolling her eyes. She turns her face to mine. ‘Whatever you used to be, you aren’t that any more.’
‘I’m still a killer,’ I say. ‘Which is too bad, because now I’m dead and I can’t kill any of the right people.’
Gina laughs. ‘You aren’t dead,’ she says. ‘Goodnight has never tried to kill a junkie like you before. You recognize that taste in your mouth, don’t you?’
‘Yeah,’ I say vaguely. ‘Phenobarbital. I was on it for weeks at the hospital after I killed Zlata. To keep me from screaming.’ I look around. ‘So that’s why I imagined us here. The taste reminded me.’
‘Yeah,’ Gina says, looking around. ‘Your body built up a tolerance. It would take more than what he gave you to kill you.’
She turns her head to face me again, but now she’s Rachel.
‘But you’ve got to wake up or Bo is going to die,’ Rachel says. ‘Wake up!’
I open my eyes and see Gina lying next to me.
Her face is streaked with blood and phlegm, and her eyes are filmed over with death. She rests on her side, her cuffed hand next to her face, like she’s sleeping. There’s dirt under her cheek. There’s dirt under my cheek, too, and all around us.
I flex my hand. It moves.
I listen. I can hear some motion above me, and the sound of someone grunting. Something heavy and warm lands on top me, nearly crushing me. I do not react when it rolls and flops across me.
Maria.
There’s a bullet hole in her forehead. I dare to move my eyes enough to see walls of dirt around us. We’re in a pit. And now I can smell them. The bodies rotting under me.
I hear footsteps moving away from the edge of our mass grave. I wait. The smell is unbearable. The spongy feeling of decay beneath me is unthinkable. But I wait.
When the footsteps have gone, I turn my head to make sure there’s no one standing up there. Then I start to push Maria off me.
My body doesn’t work very well. My vision keeps blurring, but that’s a blessing. I can’t really see what’s under me, covered by only a few inches of maggoty dirt.
My stomach heaves. I swallow the vomit down and stand. The ground beneath me rolls and shifts like logs on water. Legs, arms, torsos, turning under me. I steady myself against the wall of the pit. The edge is just at my head’s height.
Slowly, I raise my eyes over the edge and look. I see no one.
I have to stand on top of Maria to climb out. The effort makes my heart pound and my ears ring. I crawl away from our grave on my hands and knees. I’ll never make it to Bo’s in this condition. I need a jolt. I’ll have to crawl back to the barracks where Gina died to get it. So I crawl.
My back and my neck feel vulnerable. Any minute as I crawl, I could be found. I wait to feel the shot or the stab that will kill me as I put one hand forward, then a knee, then the other hand.
I force myself to go faster. By the time I’m inside the barracks, I’m sweating. The counter. I see the stainless-steel dish on top of it, and the syringe still inside it.
I haul myself up and grab the adrenaline shot. There’s about an inch of fluid left inside. I don’t know how much is too much, or how much is enough. I turn the syringe towards my breastbone and feel for the hole it made before.
I close my eyes and stab myself in the heart. I push the plunger down before it hurts.
My insides grow wings and try to fly out of my mouth. I stick out a hand to catch myself as the world tips and tilts. The sweat covering me freezes, and I shiver violently. I get my legs under me. They shake, but they hold me up.
I drop the used syringe into the bleach-filled soaking sink. I grab a rag and wipe away my handprints that trail up and across the counter. I look behind me at the gurney I was strapped to. The sheets have already been stripped and put in a bucket filled with more bleach.
He likes things clean. And he’s thorough. That’s good for me.
I need a weapon. My teeth chatter as I look around. My brain unclogs and thoughts shoot through it. Knife. Ankle.
I reach down and, miraculously, it’s still there. He either didn’t notice it while he was strapping me down or he knew I’d never be able to reach it and didn’t bother to take the time to unbuckle it. It’s a good knife. I hold it in my hand and leave the barracks.
My body feels hollow, it’s so light. I move quickly but silently to a dwelling I know is somewhere on the outskirts of this camp. I need to go to Bo. I know that. But first, this. The thing I was made for.
Weeks in the woods have taught me how to move without sound. But it’s more than just practice. It comes naturally to me. Bo called me a hunter. Close. But not entirely right. I walk in Michael’s footsteps to cover my tracks. I leave no trace.
Michael doesn’t hear me enter his tent. He doesn’t see me as I cross his spartan room to where he’s standing, beside another bucket of bleach, holding his dirty shirt. I wait until he drops the shirt with my DNA on it into the bucket and turns around.
There must be ghosts in his eyes. I know what that’s like. He probably thinks I’m one of them, because even though he’s facing me now, he hesitates for a moment. All he does is squint and look at me as if he knew me long ago but can’t remember from where.
That split second of hesitation is all I need. I stab him in the neck. I touch him with nothing but the blade.
He seems to wake up. Clutching the wound with one hand, he lunges for me, spraying blood through his fingers. I step back, evading him. If this turns into a brawl, I’ve lost. I have no illusions about that. I plant a foot and brace myself. I know from butchering the deer how tough it is to get even the sharpest knife into a body. I push off my back foot to stab him in the chest.
He doesn’t know which wound to grab. Confused from the rapid blood loss, he goes back to the bucket and reaches for his dirty shirt. He drops it and makes a move towards a chair that’s supporting a pair of night-vision goggles and a large rifle with a red-feathered dart in it – the same night goggles and dart gun he used to take me down earlier, no doubt.
I stab him again before he can get to the chair, and he stiffens like a real boy turned back into wood.
And it’s done. I should be horrified by what I just did. Soul-sick with the thought of killing a human being. I’ve killed a man with my own hands, and all I feel is relief. The monster is dead. I tiptoe away from the dark, syrupy blood fanning out before me.
I know what I am now. No more lying to myself. No more tearing myself in two so I can hide one half of me from the other. I am a predator. But just because I have this sick gift doesn’t mean that I have to misuse it the way Michael did. The way Rob does. I can do better. I can be better. Bo will show me how.
Bo and Rob. They’re both waiting for me.
I exit
the tent and take the briefest of moments to orient myself. I’ve never tried to navigate through the woods in the dark. I almost take the night-vision goggles but think better of it. I’ve killed a man. I can take nothing and leave nothing, or it may become evidence against me. I can’t get lost. I can’t stumble and break a leg.
I can’t fail.
4 AUGUST. DEAD OF NIGHT
I run when there’s enough moonlight piercing the canopy to see, and I walk fast with my arms out when there isn’t.
I’m not sure how much time has passed. I don’t know when Rob set out, or what condition he was in when he left. I don’t even know if Michael was telling me the truth. Rob could be dead. He could have bled out after I cut him. But I doubt it.
Adrenaline doesn’t last forever. As the shivers turn into the shakes, my legs get heavier and clumsier. Bitter-smelling sweat soaks through my clothes, mats my hair, and smears tracks through the combination of pit filth and sprayed blood caking my skin. My heartbeat is erratic, and my breath is wheezy. Branches whip me. I fall. I get up. I keep going.
I wasn’t afraid when I faced Michael Claybolt. If he died or if I died, at least the world would be less one miscreation. Now I’m terrified, because the world can’t afford to lose someone like Bo.
My vision is blurring, and I don’t know if I’m still going the right way. I slow down and pivot. I think I see the place I hid after overhearing Sol accuse Bo of murder.
Poor Sol. She was just copying Raven, but she’s only seven. Following Bo, and then seeing him and me having sex must have scared her to death.
Rob. He’s waiting for me. He wants me to find him.
I see firelight flickering ahead, and I stagger towards it.
I force my fumbling body to move silently. I have to crouch down and crawl the rest of the way up the rise that surrounds Bo’s camp. I lie on my belly as I look over the rise and down into the bowl of Bo’s camp.
The fire pit in the centre is blazing high with what looks like books and furniture. They must have run out of firewood, and Rob wanted to keep the blaze big so I could see it. Most of the family is huddled together, clinging to each other. I can hear some quiet sobbing.
Set apart from the rest, I see Bo on his knees with his hands clasped behind his head. Rob paces in front of him, holding some kind of rifle across his chest, military style. There’s a big bandage on his throat from where I cut him, and another in the crook of his arm. He was either given an IV or maybe some blood while I was unconscious. Michael fixed him up and sent him out after me on a wild goose chase so he could kill me without Rob there to complicate things.
Whatever it was, Rob doesn’t look like he’s injured. He looks energized, while I can barely stand.
He also looks impatient. Across the bowl a twig snaps, and Rob whirls towards it. Everyone freezes.
‘Mag-da,’ Rob calls in a sing-song voice. ‘Come out, come out.’ He waits a few more seconds and then whistles sharply. When there’s still no reply, he shouts, ‘Mag-da! Le-na! Magdalena!’
‘It’s not her!’ Bo snaps. ‘I told you. She’s gone. She doesn’t want to see me any more.’
Even though he’s scared and angry and probably hates me right now for dragging his family into this, I can hear how much saying that hurts him.
‘That’s because she thought you killed her friend,’ Rob says, like he’s repeating himself. ‘And then she thought you weren’t real.’ Rob takes a moment to laugh. ‘But now she knows the truth, and she’ll come to you.’ He raises his voice again and shouts to the rim of the bowl. ‘Because she knows I’ll kill you if she doesn’t!’
I can barely hold up my head. I let it drop on to the ground while I think. But with my eyes closed, I feel like I’ve got bed spins, so I pick up my head and open my eyes. If I don’t go down, he’ll start killing them. If I do go down, he’ll start killing them. That’s why he’s here. To kill them in front of me. He needs me to know what he’s done. He needs the attention.
I’ve got a knife and the high ground. I don’t think I can throw anything far enough to hit Rob accurately at this distance. Besides, I don’t know how to throw a knife.
I back down the rise knowing that one snap will give me away. Rob doesn’t have to shoot to kill. He can always just start maiming them to get me to come out. But as long as he’s not entirely sure I’m out here, he’ll hold off on that.
I skirt the camp, picturing the buildings in my head. Which one of them would have the family rifle in it? Or a bow and some arrows? More importantly, how can I get to any of those buildings without being seen? They all surround the fire pit.
Except for the shed with the clean room in it. That’s outside the bowl. The stump outside had an axe in it the last time, but what am I going to do with an axe? The only thing it’s good for is to pull focus. Axes are pretty flashy. They make people forget about things like concealed ankle blades.
I heft the axe over my shoulder as I walk unsteadily towards the bowl – not to look tough, but because I don’t have the strength to carry it any other way. No point in trying to conceal my footsteps now.
Someone is going to get shot.
It’s the only way to create an opening. Rob wants to kill me, but he wants to do it last, so he won’t aim for my head. Hopefully the rest of the family can rush him and overpower him before he has a chance to aim true at them in the flickering firelight.
This is a terrible plan.
‘There she is!’ Rob says triumphantly. ‘I told you she’d come.’
I walk into the bowl on shaky legs. I’m putting all I have into not stumbling, but everyone can see what condition I’m in. I pass the family huddle and glance down to see if they’re all there. Hoping one got away. Maybe Moth is running to get help. But no, they’re all there, even little Moth. She’s wet herself.
As I pass, I see Raven is in the centre of the huddle. Aspen and Karl are blocking her. They’re keeping her from Rob’s sight on purpose. She pulls the collar of her button-down flannel shirt aside for a moment. Something’s under there. I have to turn my head back to Rob before I can see it clearly so I don’t give whatever she’s concealing away. Please let it be a firearm.
‘Stop right there,’ Rob tells me. I’m halfway between where he stands with Bo kneeling at his feet and the family huddle. Rob is looking me over, revelling in this moment. ‘Magda, you look like utter shit. Did your friend bleed out on you before you got her to the hospital?’
I glance down. I don’t have to fake my indifference. ‘No, actually, most of this is your father’s blood.’
He chuffs disbelievingly. ‘No it isn’t. You got away. He didn’t catch you.’
I shake my head. ‘He lied to you, Rob. He caught me. Then he sent you out here to get rid of you while he killed me – or tried to kill me – but I stabbed him four times . . . no, three times? I don’t know. A bunch of times. He’s dead.’
I swing the axe down to lean on it. This is no act. I can barely stay upright. Rob tilts the muzzle of the gun my way for a brief second while the axe is in transition, but it’s not a serious move in my direction. He’s either too stunned by what I said about killing his father, or he thinks I’m too weak to attack him with an axe. Which I am. The world tips. I lean forward and take deep breaths, trying not to throw up or faint.
‘Magda?’ Bo says, worried.
‘Stay there,’ I tell him.
Rob re-aims his gun at Bo. ‘I don’t believe you,’ he decides.
I right myself and pop my ears to stop the ringing before I look at him. ‘I don’t really care, Rob. I’ve never really cared what you thought. You’re just background noise to me.’
Come on. Shoot me, you prima donna with your bespoke bags and your Patek Phillipe watch and your classic cars and your showy murders. There’s nothing you hate more than being overlooked, and I’ve been overlooking you from day one.
He points the gun at me, but Bo makes a move to defend me, and Rob remembers why he’s here. He’s here to make me suffer.
The gun is back on Bo. And Rob is laughing.
‘Almost,’ he says. He’s nodding at me, acknowledging that I nearly got him off his purpose. ‘Drop the axe,’ he orders.
I do it.
‘Kick it away from you.’
I do my best, but I really can’t kick it far.
‘And choose which one of them you want me to kill first.’
Thank you.
I hear Maeve begging me quietly, ‘Please, Lena. Pick me or Ray. It’s OK, honey – you don’t have to choose. I’ll go first.’
That’s a mother. She’s even trying to mother me.
I block out Maeve’s voice and speak over her. ‘I’ve never liked Raven,’ I announce.
‘What?’ Bo nearly shrieks. ‘Lena, don’t play along with him.’
I shrug. ‘Would you rather I pick Moth?’ Bo looks like he’s going to be sick. ‘He said pick someone. I pick Raven.’
Bo hates me. In this moment, he hates me.
‘Raven. You’re first,’ Rob calls out.
Raven stands up haltingly. She’s hunching her shoulders, probably to hide whatever it is she has under the long, untucked shirt she’s wearing. I turn and face her, raising my eyebrows as if to ask, Are you ready?
She doesn’t look ready. Her face is a blank page. She has no idea what I want from her, and there’s no way for me to prepare her. Whatever weapon she’s got under there, I hope she knows how to use it. Her knees barely bend as she stiffly walks forward. She’s so brave.
‘Stop right there,’ Rob tells her. ‘Magda. Back up. You’re too close to her.’
I move away from Raven, but not that far. Let him think I want to be in the splash zone. My body is still facing her, but I turn my head around to look at Rob. I catch sight of Bo glaring at me. He loathes me for this, but that’s OK. I just wish he were paying better attention to the important things. Like the rifle.
I look at Rob. ‘Do it,’ I tell him.
What She Found in the Woods Page 25