When Eve first heard the moans, she thought they had to be coming from her own mouth, a response to her own pain. Once conscious again, she had heard herself scream, and she imagined that the groans were what followed, a consequence to feeling once more her injuries. However, as she turned her head and felt beside her again, touching the body near her that she had discovered earlier, she understood that the other person in the room where she had been abandoned was alive and making the noises.
She tried to roll over onto her right side, the side that had not felt the full impact of the car wreck and that was facing the other person. She tried lifting first her left shoulder and then her left hip, but the pain was unbearable. She tried again, gritting her teeth and closing her eyes and concentrating as hard as she could to turn her body and move through the agony.
Slowly, she pulled and turned until she was on her right side, and as she fell on her hip, she felt ahead of her with her right hand and realized she was indeed facing a leg, a man’s leg, she thought, shoeless but still wearing socks. She moved her fingers up the leg until she felt what seemed like a gown or a long skirt, the cloth she had yanked earlier, and Eve understood she was feeling the simple cotton tunic of a monk.
She pushed with her right leg, sliding herself up to the man’s face.
“Anthony,” she said, touching her friend’s neck, feeling for a pulse. “Anthony, it’s Eve,” she said again, no longer aware of her own pain. She felt along his face, his chin, his cheeks, his closed eyes.
Slowly, she pulled herself up so that she was sitting next to the young man. There was still little light in the room, so she was unable to see the face of her friend, but she leaned in close enough to feel him breathing even if he would not respond to her calls.
“Anthony.” She pulled his head and shoulders onto her lap, patted him on the cheek and across his forehead. “Anthony, you need to wake up.”
He moaned, winced, and moved a little, pulling himself away from her lap and back onto the floor.
Eve leaned over him and, with her good arm, tried to pull him up. “Anthony, we need to get out of here. You need to wake up.”
He responded only by pulling away and groaning again.
Eve stopped. She couldn’t tell what had happened to the monk. She couldn’t see any injuries on him, no blood around his body, no apparent wounds that she could feel, but it was so dark in the room she was not able to get a clear look at the man, not able to do a decent assessment of his injuries.
He was hurt or sick, that much she could tell, but whether he was not responding clearly and not able to stay awake because of a head injury or because he was hurt elsewhere on his body or if he had ingested something or been drugged, she couldn’t tell.
“Anthony,” she tried again, calling out his name and shaking him by the shoulders. “Anthony, you’ve got to wake up. You’ve been here long enough. Wake up! We have to get out of here.”
There was no reply and Eve’s concern was only growing.
“I . . . I’m sick,” he said softly.
Eve moved closer to him, leaning down to hear. “Anthony, what happened? How did you get here?”
“He . . . he . . .”
Eve couldn’t make out any words. He was mumbling.
“Was it John Barr?” she asked, remembering how she had followed the man out of Terrero.
“Did he poison you, Anthony?” Suddenly she thought that the man might have poisoned both the siblings and that not only had he T-boned her and brought her to this building somewhere near the road to Claunch, but that he must have brought Anthony here after killing Kelly and taking him away from the monastery. She remembered the blue cloak in his closet.
“Answer me, Anthony. Did John Barr poison you? Did he give you something?”
“Kelly . . .” He moaned the name of his sister, and Eve thought he was crying.
“I know, Anthony, I know. Kelly’s dead, but you and I aren’t. That’s why we have to get out of here.”
The monk moved a bit. His hands reached out. “Eve,” he said, sounding a bit more alert, a bit more like himself.
“Yes, Anthony, it’s me. It’s Eve.”
She felt him pull away from her. “Where are we?” he asked.
Eve held her left arm across her chest and sat up. “I don’t know,” she answered. “It’s some building or cabin, shed, I don’t know.”
“In Pecos?” he asked, looking around.
“No,” she replied. “John Barr brought you out here. We’re near Mountainair.”
“I . . . I feel so . . .” And he dropped back down again.
“Anthony, you have to wake up. We need to get out of here.” She shook him. “Anthony!” She pushed and pulled on his tunic, trying to get his attention, but he had become nonresponsive once again.
Eve knew she would have to get out to find medical attention for both of them, that Anthony wasn’t going to be able to help her. She also knew that if John Barr had brought them to that shed and left them there, he was more than likely coming back. What he intended to do at that point, she had no idea.
“Did he leave you anything?” she asked the monk, not really expecting an answer. “Is there any water? A phone?”
Eve slid her legs beneath her, rocked forward, and landed on her knees. She felt a sharp pain in her hip and stopped, taking a few breaths. She pushed up, getting her right foot, her ankle still tender and sore, squared beneath her, and by bracing herself with her right hand, she was able to rise to a standing position. Immediately she felt the room spin and she reached out with her right hand, touching the wall behind her. She steadied herself and waited. Getting accustomed once again to the dim light in the space, Eve took a good look around.
It was an old cabin, not unlike the one she had been in earlier, the one where John Barr lived out beyond the little village of Pecos. It was made from rough lumber, old, hand-hewn, and held together with some kind of sap or glue, which she could feel along the wall behind her. There was no window, only the tiny bit of light she had noticed before, a bit of sunlight coming from an opening above. With it, however, she could see there was a door at the other end.
Leaning against the wall and then stepping over Anthony, Eve slowly moved over to it. Her ankle hurt, probably sprained, she thought, and she limped to a position right in front of the door. She searched for a handle but felt none. She pushed, but it wouldn’t budge.
She pushed again. “Come on, come on.”
Nothing.
Eve closed her eyes and tried to think of how to exit, tried to imagine what would work, how she might open the door. “Sister Maria . . .,” she whispered and pushed again, harder this time. It did not open, but it did move slightly, giving Eve enough of a reason to push again.
With that final shove the door flew open. She dropped to the ground. Light flooded the room.