Chapter Twenty-Five

TEN OF SWORDS

 

Oh my God, no…

A burst of adrenaline frees my legs and I race behind the rock tower, gasping with dread. Star is sprawled on the ground. Ian kneels, his ear on her chest. Terror floods my veins, turning my insides to ice.

“What happened?” The idiotic question bursts out of my mouth before I can stop it. “What should I do? Is she breathing?”

“Shallow, but yes. Her arm’s broken. Luckily she landed on the dirt, not the rocks, but she might have internal injuries.” He checks each of her eyes. “They’re dilated a little. Could be a concussion or just because of the fall.”

Star’s face is pale, and she looks so fragile. A bruise is already blooming on her forehead.

He feels both of her legs. “Her legs don’t seem to be broken, but getting her out of here is going to be tricky.”

“Should we be moving her? Wouldn’t it be better to go call?”

“We’re twenty minutes from a phone. It’ll take them another half hour at least to get all the way out here. If she has internal bleeding, we can’t wait that long. And by the look of that rain we’ve got to get out of here before the road washes out.”

A few fat drops splat onto the rocks, as if agreeing with him. Yep, yep, yep.

“How are we going to move her?”

“There’s a piece of plywood in the truck we can lay her on. And we need to keep her head from moving when we carry her up to the truck. Where’s that stick she had?”

Numb, I look around and spot the stick between two rocks. I hand it to Ian, who breaks it in half and lays the two pieces on either side of Star’s swollen arm. He pulls his belt out of the loops, then wraps it snugly around Star’s arm and the sticks.

“I’ll go get the plywood. Talk to her, see if you can wake her up, but don’t let her move.” He stands up.

“Ian!” My raw voice doesn’t sound like me. This is someone else whose world is tilted, where everything’s crooked. It’s not me, it’s not Star, this isn’t real. Someone else is kneeling by this barely breathing body, waiting for an ambulance we can’t even call yet.

“She’s going to be okay, isn’t she?”

“The sooner we get her out of here, the better. Talk to her. Don’t let her move. I’ll be right back.” He jogs to where we came down off the road, climbs quickly, then disappears from view.

“Star. Can you hear me?”

Shiloh stands a few feet away, whimpering.

“Come here, girl.” I pat the ground. “Look, Star, it’s Shiloh. She’s scared. Open your eyes.”

Shiloh licks a raindrop from Star’s face, but there’s no response. She sniffs the makeshift splint, then lies down next to Star’s unmoving body.

“It’s okay, Shiloh. Stay here.” I stand up, having no idea if I just lied to the wolf or if any of this is going to be okay, and start looking for something to keep Star’s head from moving.

Ian comes over the rise wearing a red windbreaker and carrying a piece of plywood that looks like a shelf. He has a blue tarp folded under his arm.

“Is she awake?”

“No.” My voice breaks. “But she’s still breathing. I have an idea how to keep her head still.”

I pick up the open valise with Jennie’s sweater still inside. If I unzip it all the way, like a clamshell, and tuck the sweater around her head, maybe the stiff sides of the valise will keep her head from turning.

Ian sets down the plank and unfolds the tarp, revealing a roll of duct tape. We lay the tarp down next to Star. About half of it’s spread across the rocks, the rocks that caught her arm, but missed the rest of her.

Another foot to the left, and… dread uncoils in my stomach, pushing its nauseating way up, but I don’t have time to think about something that didn’t happen. What’s happening is bad enough.

The single raindrops come in pairs and triplets now, making big wet splotches on the tarp.

I hold the tape ends, while Ian tears them off and lays several three-foot strips across the tarp, about two feet apart. We set the plank down carefully, so tape sticks out on either side. Ian folds the sides of the tarp toward the plank to protect the tape while we move her.

“Okay. We’re going to roll her away from the board, then push it up against her, so when she rolls back down she’s on it. Your valise is going to stabilize her head. Great idea, by the way. We have to do it fast, so move her on three.”

We kneel beside her, with Ian taking Star’s shoulders and head while I manage her hips and legs. It’s like moving in a foggy dream. His voice sounds far away, and when I move it’s like the last night with Jennie—my hands clumsy, my legs barely moving, as if under icy water, because this can’t be happening.

One, two, three.

Star’s on her side. We shove the plank over as tight as we can get it, and ease her down again. A groan escapes her lips. Relief rushes through me, and the ice water falls away.

Ian’s voice is clear, and I can feel my arms and legs again. Which is a good thing, because the wind is picking up and stinging spits of rain are falling faster.

He places the open, sweater-stuffed case around both sides of her head and presses the first of the duct tape pieces together. Across her forehead, then her chest and hips.

He slips the rolled-up windbreaker under her knees to keep her hips flat before securing the last piece of tape above her ankles. I’m watching in awe. I mean, I know it’s his job, but this makeshift stretcher looks like it may actually work.

Not until we lift the corners of the tarp and start making our way to the truck do I wonder why he hasn’t tried to heal her, the way he did with Cam. He did say he couldn’t do big things, so I guess he can’t fix her broken arm, but that ugly swollen bruise on her forehead, when she wakes up for real, it’s going to hurt like hell.

Star doesn’t weigh much but walking in step to the embankment clutching the wet tarp I feel every single one of her 115 pounds. She groans again when we set her down for a breather before taking her up the hill.

“Star, you weigh a ton. No more pizza for you, girl,” I pant. “Ian, how do you do this every day?”

“Usually there’s four of us.” He’s glowing with sweat and rain, and looks amazing. This is a crisis, and I should only be thinking about Star right now, but if she’d only open her eyes she’d have to agree. “And we have handles instead of wet sheets of plastic.”

Getting her up the embankment is tricky, but we manage. The walk to the truck on the flat ridge road is easy in comparison. When we slide her carefully into the bed, her eyes flutter but don’t open. Shiloh jumps in, but Ian leads her off the tailgate and puts her in the cab.

“We don’t want her to get jostled or bumped. If Shiloh loses her footing, she could fall on Star.”

“Well, I won’t. I’m lying down with her, I’ll keep her still. Maybe she’ll wake up.”

“That’s a good idea. If she starts talking, tell her where she is so she doesn’t freak out.” He digs out a thin, clear rain poncho from the truck’s toolbox, shakes it open and hands it to me.

“We did pretty good, didn’t we?” I try to keep my voice level, but it comes out like a plea and my hands are shaking as I spread it over Star’s and my legs.

Please, tell me she’s going to make it. Terror is rattling around in my head, threatening to explode just like a dozen times with Jennie. Scattering her ashes didn’t scatter those memories.

Ian takes both of my hands. “Shh. Yes, we did,” he says, eyes locked on mine. “Take a breath with me.”

I inhale as he does, and the warmth from his hands spreads into my veins, fanning out at my shoulders, taking the rainy chill away. We take another breath together and for a moment a thin prism of energy, like a strand of rainbow, outlines his body and surrounds our joined hands. I can breathe normally again, and the crushing anxiety drops from a shout to a whisper.

“Ian, “I whisper, “Can you do that for her? The bruise on her head?”

He shakes his head. “Not until she’s awake. Right now she needs a doctor, and we need to get the hell out of here.” Thunder rattles through the clouds, jumpstarting us back into action.

He closes the tailgate. “Pound on the truck if she has a seizure, or quits breathing. Otherwise, we aren’t stopping.”

A seizure? I lie on my side, pulling the poncho up over our faces and curling my arm around the open valise that cradles her head. Ian backs up to turn the truck around and I snuggle in close. Star’s eyes struggle to open, and my heart leaps.

“Star, can you hear me? You’ve been hurt. We’re taking you for help. Don’t move, okay?”

“Shit,” Star whispers. “ʼkay.”

Thunder sends a menacing shiver through the truck, and the rain taps out its urgent message on the poncho. Hurry, hurry, hurry.

A soft corner of Jennie’s sweater has worked its way out, so I tuck it back in, smelling the faint scent of her sandalwood, and my fingers feel something hard and round. Probably another one of Jennie’s Lifesavers. I dig around until I feel the edge of the pocket, and wiggle my fingers in until I touch it.

It’s the silver heart. Jennie’s necklace!

It’s tangled in its broken chain, so small that I didn’t notice when I wore her sweater that rainy day at Palmer and McMahon. It’s been with me all along. Relief makes me smile as I tease it out with my fingers until it’s firmly in my palm.

The needle sparks immediately from my hand to my head with electricity that shoves the truck bed, the rain and Star’s face into darkness.

A spearpoint of light rips into my retina as if I’m staring straight into the sun.

A hand drags me by the hair and I’m stumbling—something’s wrong, I’m dizzy and I can’t focus, can’t get through the brightness. Where am I, what am I seeing? I can’t stand up straight or wrench my hair out of this iron grip.

Something slips from my grasp and the sound of glass breaking slashes into the light. The edge of a small, overturned table drags across my vision, and the smell of bourbon assaults my nose. A fist slams into my cheek, a voice shouts, and for a moment I see bare feet—are they mine?

They half walk, half drag across the brown carpet, meeting an edge of cold tile. Bright light again, but pink-tinged, sound and light echoing in a small space. My eyes struggle to focus, but I can’t see who has me by the hair.

I kick behind me, hitting a shin, and jab my elbow into whoever’s got me. Oof! Again. The claw digging into my scalp slips for a fraction of a second. I twist as hard as I can, but the hand grips my hair again.

Bending low, I charge into someone’s chest, shoving them into a wall and landing a hard punch to the gut. They let go and I scrabble to get away, but it’s like running under water, and the hands claw at my neck, grab my sweater and yank me backward.

I lose my footing on the slick tile, and my hands fly out in front of me trying to grab something, anything. The room swims in and out of focus and my arms appear, swathed in orchid-purple, reaching out in slow motion as they sling me down.

A flash of long hair, a sickening crack to my skull, and I’m on the floor between a bathtub and a toilet, blinded by the bathroom light fixture above, as dizzying pain pulses through my head and neck.

“Where is it, bitch? If you tell me, maybe I’ll call an ambulance before it’s too late.” The voice is female, raspy and furious, but the toilet’s in the way. I can’t see her. “Where’s Mary-Alice’s ledger?”

She’s going to kill me, I’m going to die. The thought’s in my head, but it’s thick, blurry, and somehow not mine. Someone else’s memory flickers and her missing friend’s voice whispers, No matter what happens, don’t give it to anyone. Promise me!

Fear rockets through this body, and we battle the lethal warmth flooding our heart and lungs, while shadows circle the edge of our shared vision like the wings of dark, spinning vultures, waiting to carry us away.

My mouth opens and my mother’s defeated voice whispers, “The cards. It’s in the cards. Please—”

We struggle to sit up, but her strength spirals away and the black wings close in, forever.