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The deer finished its exploration of the small clearing and trotted off to find a fresh area to graze.
A new hollowness opened up inside Cass’s chest at its departure, but she needed to get on with things and couldn’t just sit there, watching the deer hour after hour. Nightfall would be upon her before she knew it, and she couldn’t stand the thought of spending another night out here.
It was another warm day, and there was no sign of rain clouds in the sky. She wished the rain had come tonight, instead of that first night. She didn’t feel as though she’d really appreciated it back then, while right now she would have given anything for just a few raindrops to fall on her tongue.
Splinters and cuts and grazes covered the tips of her fingers, and she wished she had some kind of tool to help her pick away at the layer of bark. She used the chain where she could, holding it in both hands and bashing down on the larger pieces of bark to loosen them, but the chain links were too thick to get between the bark and the layer of smooth, new wood beneath. Her fingernails were chipped and broken, and some splinters had even lodged under the nailbed, making it even more uncomfortable for her. But all of her was uncomfortable right now, and one more pain wasn’t going to make much of a difference.
She was making good progress, though. Maybe it didn’t look like much from the outside, but she’d cleared another couple of inches of bark from around half of the tree. Would it be enough for her to pull the chain down farther, giving her some extra room to reach the body? She hadn’t wanted to try yet, not wanting to either get frustrated when it didn’t work, or give herself false hope, but she also didn’t want to spend another night out here.
Still facing the tree, she worked down the chain circling the trunk, pulling it over the dent she’d made. Her heart lifted. The chain definitely sat lower than it had before. That should give her more room to stretch her legs out toward the body and get a better grip on him with her feet. She really didn’t want to touch a body that had been dead for several days now, knowing it was going to be unpleasant, but it wasn’t going to be as unpleasant as dying of dehydration in the middle of nowhere while chained to a tree.
Twisting back around, she lowered herself to the ground. She was lucky—as lucky as one could be in her situation—that the Magician hadn’t chained her hands behind her back. She assumed he’d chained them over her head like he had because he would have wanted to turn her around or push her to the ground while he was doing whatever he’d planned to her, and hadn’t wanted to risk undoing the lock each time. Whatever his reasons, she was sure he hadn’t done it for her comfort.
Cass pulled on the chain again, making sure it was as low as it could go, and that it wasn’t caught on an overhanging piece of bark. Just as she’d done before, she wriggled down so her back was against the ground, and her arms were over her head. The strain on her shoulders didn’t feel as bad as before. Could it be possible that she really had made a difference? She wouldn’t know until she’d tried to grab the body with her feet. She needed to do more than just scrape his clothing with her toes this time.
“Come on, you can do it.” The voice came from the blonde cheerleader, the Magician’s second kill, Becky Dawson.
“I know you were a cheerleader, but I don’t need you cheering me on right now,” Cass muttered.
“Oh, stop being so negative.” The voice came from her right this time. From the position of the grave, Cass knew it belonged to the fifth murdered woman, Maria Moore. She was the woman who’d had the two children young in life. “There’s nothing wrong with a little positivity. You seem to be lacking that in your life.”
Cass gritted her teeth. “You don’t know anything about my life.”
“I think we probably do,” the student-lawyer, Susie Banks, chipped in, “but we won’t get into that just yet.”
“Hush,” Sonja Holland, number one, scolded them. “She needs to be able to concentrate.”
“Yes, I do,” Cass agreed. “So, if you could all shut the hell up, that would be great.”
Silence met her request, and she lifted her head, peering around. There was no sign of any of the murdered women. They must have heeded her wishes. No, they hadn’t done anything, because they were all in her head.
Refocusing her attention, she stretched out her legs. Her calves twitched, threatening to cramp, and then the soles of her feet joined in. It was the dehydration and lack of salt.
“What? Were the bugs not good enough for you?” she said under her breath.
She needed for her feet to work or she wouldn’t be picking any keys out of the Magician’s pocket anytime soon, not with her hands chained to a tree. There was no way she’d be able to pull the chain right down to the bottom of the trunk, so her hands would be on the same level as he was, even if she managed to drag the body right up to the base of the tree.
Wriggling and flexing her feet, trying to ward away the cramp, she tried again. Just like before, her toes touched the material of his jacket. A cloud of flies burst up from the body at the contact, but she discovered her automatic disgust at their presence was waning. Buzzing creatures had become a constant background noise to her now. She stretched farther, trying to get one foot underneath his arm and the other one on top, so she could get a better hold. Just gripping his jacket between her toes didn’t give her enough hold to drag him with.
She pulled at the top of his arm, her jaw locked so tight it ached. She let out a growl of aggravation. He still wasn’t budging.
“Motherfucker!”
She needed this to work.
Locking both feet around his arm, she pulled her legs back, but no matter how hard she pulled, he didn’t move an inch. So, this was what people meant when they talked about a dead weight. She felt like she was trying to move a slab of concrete with her feet. She had to keep trying. After everything she’d done to make this happen, the hours of picking away at the goddamned tree, of tearing nails and being stabbed by splinters, she was not going to let herself be beaten. She shifted position slightly, angling her hips so she was almost side-on, hoping that would give her an extra grip. But a cramp shot through her left calf, and she cried out in pain, curling her legs back up toward her body, rocking herself from side to side, as though it might bring her a little comfort.
“Fuck!” she shrieked.
This wasn’t fair! This wasn’t fucking fair. She tried so hard, had fought to stay alive. She’d eaten beetles, for fuck’s sake. She deserved this. The universe owed her.
She screamed her rage and frustration at the unfairness of the world, screamed for all the pain she’d gone through, not only over the past few days, but over the whole of her life. In her anger, she kicked out at the solid lump of a body.
“Fuck! You fucking piece of shit! Fuck, fuck!” she screamed, though she knew it would do her no good, lashing out with her still chained feet, pummeling the body with her heels.
The body shifted under her abuse, and too late, she realized she’d only succeeded in pushing it farther away. But then the head rolled to the side, so it was facing her now, instead of being face down on the ground, and something caught the bright sunlight, glinting into her eyes.
Cass caught her breath and stopped kicking.
The knife!
Half the blade was buried in his throat, but the other half had already slid out, and now the handle pointed in her direction.
She tried hard not to look at the dead man’s face. She’d been excused from that little pleasantry of dealing with his wide, staring eyes, which were now glassed over and covered in a strange white film. His skin was a mottled white as well, but changed to a dark purple black closer to the ground. The reason for the change in color came to her. With his heart no longer beating, the blood had all settled to the lowest point in his body.
“I guess that means you actually had a heart, then, you son of a bitch,” she hissed.
Her gaze fixed on the handle of the knife protruding from his neck. Already, the flies were back, alighting on the exposed wound and landing on his milky irises. If she was able to get hold of the knife, could she use it to drag him closer to her? She was almost there. She literally just needed a matter of inches and she’d be able to wrap her feet around the handle. She still wasn’t completely confident that she’d be able to reach into his jacket pocket and pull out a key with her toes, but if the last couple of days had shown her anything, it was that she could do more with her feet than she’d given herself credit for—after all, she managed to pick up both an earthworm and a tiny sliver of mint.
She was going to try.
The handle of the knife stuck out farther than the rest of him, now that she’d kicked him onto his side in her fury. She hoped she hadn’t pushed him too far away when she’d lost her temper. That had been stupid of her, but at the same time, it had revealed something she hadn’t considered. How had she forgotten about the knife?
Suddenly, her focus had changed. If she got hold of the knife between her feet and pulled, what would happen? It would be one of two things. The knife would either be lodged firmly in his throat and she’d end up dragging him toward her, which was what she’d wanted to do anyway. Or the knife would slide out of his throat, and she could pull her legs back and carefully lift her feet up to meet her hands, and then she’d have a knife. Either way, it would be a win.
Perhaps the universe was smiling down on her after all.
Cass didn’t want to screw this up. She took a moment to pull herself back up the tree. She rolled her shoulders to loosen them and clenched and unclenched her fists. Then she stretched out her legs again, wriggled her toes, and took a couple of deep breaths. If she cramped up again while she was trying to pull out the knife, she might drop it or accidentally push the body farther away again.
The stink of the dead man had grown stronger since she’d kicked out at him, too. The air was filled with a pungent stench, and she twisted her face away, trying to gulp down a spot of fresh air. She hoped it was simply because of the movement releasing some gases, and that it would fade away quickly.
Feeling as composed as she could be, considering her current situation, and doing her best to ignore all the aches and pains in her body, she edged back down the tree trunk, leaving her arms above her. She shifted her bottom to the right, closer to the killer’s throat, and then stretched out her legs again.
Cass scrunched up her face, her nose wrinkled. She really didn’t want to be touching a dead body, and wanted to pull something out of his dead body even less. Her bare toes touched the knife handle and the flies took off into the air. Suddenly spooked, she jerked her legs back again. She felt like a child who was letting their leg hang off the side of a bed, ready for a monster to grab.
He’s dead. He can’t hurt you. He’s just flesh and bone, nothing more.
With gritted teeth, she stretched her legs out once more. She fought against the demons trying to place images in her head that would frighten her, but her resolve to get her hands on that damned knife was greater than anything she could fear right now. She had already gone through too much to be frightened off by ghosts.
She gripped the knife handle between both feet, took another breath, and pulled.
The knife resisted, the blood having coagulated and dried, the body now rigid with rigor mortis. If she remembered correctly, rigor mortis only lasted a few days after death, and he was surely in the final throes of the affliction. But there was also no muscle tension, and there weren’t many muscles in the throat to start with, and she repositioned her feet to give herself a better hold and pulled again. With her jaw clenched, and fighting the revulsion created by what she was doing, she pressed her feet together and bent her knees, pulling back harder.
The body released its hold on the knife, giving way with a wet slurp that turned her stomach. She fell back, almost dropping the blade. But, somehow, she managed to keep her hold on the handle, and she carefully drew her feet nearer to her body. With her hands still chained above her head, she lifted her feet higher, doing a strange kind of uncoordinated half back roll, so her feet met her hands. She grappled with her fingers, reaching for the handle. If she dropped it now, the blade would land on her, and she didn’t want to be stabbed herself, if she could avoid it, especially not with a knife covered in the days-old blood of a corpse.
Her fingers wrapped around the handle, and she held on.
Exhaling a sigh of relief, she lowered her feet back down, and then just lay on the ground, breathing hard, her pulse galloping. She hadn’t achieved what she’d planned, but she’d at least achieved something.
She had a knife.
Now she needed to figure out what the hell she was going to do with it.