“Get out of my way, you idiot!”
The unfamiliar voice comes from a distance, but it cat-ches my attention. Male. Frantic. In the trees, I see bright headlights burst on. A girl falls at my feet in a drunken stupor. I hardly notice as I step over her. My gut insists that something important is about to happen in those woods.
“She’s hurt,” a new voice says, the words bouncing through the night. This voice I recognize. “We need to get her to a hospital.”
Joshua. Again I begin to hurry, pushing aside branches. Morgan’s urgent whisper invades my head: Run, run. As I sprint toward the sound of Joshua’s voice, I spot an Emotion, no, an Element, cowering in some leaves. It’s a tiny being with a slight glow. As I pass it, the creature actually jumps on my shoulder and pulls at my hair, her squeaky voice a piercing warning in my ear.
“He’s here, he’s here!” she shrieks. “Disappear, before he gets you, gets you!” She vanishes.
The argument ahead continues to drift toward me, though I still can’t see the speakers through the trees and darkness.
“The cops are here, moron, and if you don’t move I swear to God I’ll run over both of you,” the first voice says.
“Real smart, Tyler, because once you murder two people the cops definitely won’t be after you then.”
I finally come into a clearing where some cars are parked, spotting Joshua right away in the beam of the bright headlights. He’s on the ground, cradling Susie Yank in his arms. There’s blood coming out of her ear. Tyler’s behind the wheel of a pickup, revving his engine, glaring with red-rimmed eyes at the two kids in the way of his escape.
Neither of the boys is aware of me yet, coming at them from the tree line. There’s the sound of footsteps behind me somewhere, but I barely comprehend this. All my focus is on the situation swiftly unraveling in the clearing. “Joshua?” I call out. “What happened?” A twig snaps under my foot as I get closer. Other people are rushing to their vehicles, not even noticing this show-down in their own desperate getaways.
Joshua keeps his eyes on Tyler. “Call 9-1-1,” he says. “Tyler shoved Susie in his big rush and she fell and hit her head on a rock or something. I don’t think I should move her.”
“Move her,” I say without hesitation. I see the frenzy in Tyler’s eyes and in the way he grips the steering wheel. I’m still yards away, but even running, I see that I won’t be fast enough. Tyler’s truck rears forward, the engine roaring, about to bear down on Joshua and Susie.
“No.”
There’s no analyzing, there’s no thought of consequences or benefits. All I can think is, Not another one. I surge, a blur in the clearing, scooping Joshua and Susie into my arms and wrenching them out of the way with a super-human strength and speed I shouldn’t have.
Whooping in triumph, Tyler drives away, not even looking back.
Joshua breathes heavily beneath me, and I grasp that I’m lying on top of him in a protective position, having disregarded Susie completely. She’s partially crushed beneath Joshua while the other half of her is flopped on the grass. There’s no way I should have been able to save them. What is happening to me?
My senses are coming back together now. “Good thing I reached you in time,” I say to Joshua, my voice even, casual. I stand up and brush my pants off. “Do you have a phone?” Silently he shakes his head, and he’s staring at me. Shock is making his pupils dilate; big, small, big, small. I continue, as if we’re discussing our English project. “I don’t have one either, so we’ll have to wait for the cops to come back here to get Susie help.” I scan the kids in the clearing who are still dashing past us. None of them seem to have witnessed what happened, or if they have, they’re too numbed by alcohol to realize anything. I walk away.
When I look back at Joshua, he’s still gaping at me with that frozen expression. My nothingness reaffirms itself. I sense it prodding and poking, digging and building, strengthening the weaknesses. Again I proceed like nothing is out of the ordinary. “I thought I might be too late.” I offer him a seemingly relieved smile.
Joshua has regained some of his senses, and he isn’t buying it—I can tell by the way his jaw clenches. But there’s no chance to confront me because we can both hear the deputies walking through the brush, shouting and swinging their flashlights. Joshua stands up and turns away. He lifts Susie and walks toward the cops, holding her against his chest. I stay where I am, looking after him.
He doesn’t glance back, but his shoulders are stiff and determined, and I know this isn’t over.
Seventeen
All the lights in the house are on when I get home.
The farm is very, very quiet. Even the cows in the barn are subdued. I hop down from my truck, listening to the familiar sound of gravel under my tennis shoes. The screen door groans on its hinges, a noise I’ve listened to all my life, every time I enter this house.
The brightness of the kitchen hits me. It’s not so friendly a place at one a.m. I stay in the entryway for just a moment, straining to hear anything, but it’s silent. Both of them heard my truck pull in; they heard the screen door. They know I’m in here. They’re waiting.
I step into their line of sight. Tim and Sarah look at me from where they stand behind the counter. Sarah is trying not to wring her hands nervously; she keeps pulling them apart and folding them again.
Tim, of course, is the first to speak. His forehead gleams. “Where have you been?” His voice is low and controlled, and the bruises Fear gave him have become simmering hues of blue and yellow. For the first time in a long time, he’s not drunk. Sobriety seems even worse.
I take off my shoes so I don’t dirty Sarah’s clean floor, moving slowly, as if he’s a predator and I’m prey. I look at that floor as I answer, “I went to Sophia Richardson’s birthday party.” I’d left after supper and made sure to do my chores, of course. Usually, after I shut myself up in my room, no one bothers me. But tonight, apparently …
“Your mother just told me the school called yesterday.”
Ah. I’d forgotten about skipping classes when Maggie died.
“They said you were absent all morning,” Tim adds tightly. When I don’t respond, he clenches his beefy fists. “Well?” When I still don’t respond, Tim steps away from the counter, closer to me.
Move, sense whispers.
Following some strange instinct, I hold my ground, lifting my chin in what could be perceived as defiance.
The faint scent of sweat and soil drifts to my nose. I look up at Tim. He seems taller than normal. He hasn’t shaved in a while; scruff dots his chin and jaw. “You’re going to tell me where you went,” he orders. Again he waits for me to speak. Sarah’s hands tremble as she reaches up to push her hair away from her face. She looks like she’s focusing hard on thinking nothing, feeling nothing, being nothing. She’s trying to be me.
And failing miserably.
“H-honey, don’t you think—” she starts.
“Shut up.” He’s so cold, so empty. I should be seeing Anger, yet there are no Emotions present. Are they still avoiding whatever Fear sensed at Sophia’s party?
At my continued silence, Tim leaves Sarah’s side to tower over me. “Elizabeth.” It’s a warning. There’s a vein jutting out of his forehead that always precedes pain. But for some reason, I keep ignoring those insisting urges to run, fight! and just stand there, silent. I don’t answer his questions, and oddly enough, I don’t plan to. That day in the hospital … the time I’d spent at Maggie’s side … the words exchanged … it seems pure, somehow. That day is ours. Mine and Maggie’s. No one else should touch it.