“I’m not sure if he’s still bleeding,” she said without breaking eye contact and surprised to hear her voice remarkably calm and steady. “He’s definitely in shock.”
“Can we move him like this or can we snip him loose?”
Maggie wanted to say, Aren’t you supposed to know? I only know what to do with dead people.
Instead she took a deep breath and tried to access her internal databank. She had been stabbed several years ago, in a dark, wet tunnel, miles away from help. Another memory, carefully tucked away in yet another compartment of her mind. What she did remember was that she had lost a lot of blood, and she wouldn’t have, had the killer left the knife inside her, instead of yanking it back out.
“I think we might start the bleeding again if we pull the barbs out. And I’m not sure he’ll be able to stand the pain.”
“Holy crap,” Donny muttered again.
Maggie continued to watch the boy’s eyes, trying to determine if he understood what they were saying. If he did, he gave no indication. His eyes never left Maggie’s. She didn’t think she had seen him blink since that first time when she stumbled over him.
“Can you understand me?” she asked the boy, slowing down the question and emphasizing each word. “Blink twice for yes.”
Nothing. Just the same glassy, wide-eyed stare.
Then his eyelids closed and popped back open. Closed again and the effort alone looked so painful they stayed closed longer before popping open again.
Maggie’s heart thumped hard, relief mixed with a new anxiety. He was conscious and he was in pain.
“I’m Maggie,” she said finally. “I’m going to help you.”
“Dawdawdaw …” He babbled, only this time the frustration seemed to drain him. The muscles in his face and neck were tight, his jaw clenched.
Maggie noticed that nothing else moved. His fingers didn’t flex. His legs—though twisted into a knot beneath him—did not budge. No part of him attempted to fight or stretch or even press against the barbed-wire restraints.
She scanned one more time, looking for anything that resembled electric wire and checking for burn marks. None, that she could see. Yet the smell of singed hair and burned flesh and the apparent paralysis all seemed to support her suspicions. The boy wasn’t only in shock. He had also suffered an electrical shock.
CHAPTER 7
“I’m not going to hurt you,” Maggie told the boy.
His eyes darted back and forth like a wild animal captured.
“Try not to move,” she said when she saw the barbed wire wrapped around his body. But he hadn’t even attempted to move and she wondered if he couldn’t, either from fear or pain. Like the girls, he was definitely in shock.
She swept her light as discreetly as possible, scanning the length of his body. She had to force herself not to wince when she saw the sharp barbs stuck tight into his arms, his chest … dear God, even his neck. It looked as if someone had rolled the wire around his body, cinching it tight, piercing him deep with every barb. Was it possible he had run into a fence and accidentally wrapped it around himself?
“Ibba … I … so hot,” he stuttered.
Maggie crawled over and sat back on her haunches. For the first time she saw blood. So much blood. She felt it now, slick on her hands and her jeans where she had fallen.
In her ten years as an FBI agent, Maggie had seen cruel and brutal wounds, bloody dismembered bodies, organs left in containers, and only once had she gotten physically ill. But she felt nauseated now. It wasn’t the sight of blood still pouring from a live body but rather her inability to stop it.
She thought she had compartmentalized the memories, but suddenly the images flooded her brain of a long-ago killer making her watch. It wasn’t the splatters of blood or the victims’ screams that haunted her nightmares as much as the sense of complete and utter helplessness. And that’s exactly what she was feeling now.
She considered calling Donny but she was afraid to even raise her voice. She was hesitant to move, because she didn’t want to startle the boy any more than he already was.
Dark pools of blood covered the leaves and pine needles beneath him. His shirt was wet and rusty with it, and yet the overwhelming smell Maggie noticed was not of blood but of singed hair and burned flesh.
She examined the wire again. She couldn’t see a single strand that didn’t have barbs. It wasn’t the plain electric wires that Donny had pointed out to her earlier.
She leaned in close enough to see that the neck wound had congealed blood around the razor-sharp barbs buried in the flesh. That was good. It wasn’t gushing blood, which most likely meant it had not hit the jugular. But his neck muscles bulged against the restraint and a blue vein pulsed against bright red skin.
“Holy crap!” Donny whispered from behind her and Maggie felt a sigh of relief.