Dead. The damn phone was dead.
Throwing the receiver down, my bloody fingerprints smeared across the beige plastic, I sat down heavily, pressing the heels of my palms to my eyes to staunch the flow of tears that began to spill down my cheeks. I could feel my adrenaline quickly ebbing away, leaking out of me with each fat tear that fell from my eyes. I had to move, I had to get out of here, but I was so tired. All I wanted to do was lie down and go to sleep.
You sleep, you die, I told myself, some small part of my brain still conscious enough to realize that staying here would mean the end.
With limbs as heavy as lead, I pushed myself up first to my hands and knees, and then to my feet. Swaying, I reached a hand out for the wall, and waited for the dizziness to abate, then moved towards the front door in a shuffling stagger.
I lurched down the walkway towards the street, trying to stay upright, but my shuffling feet caught on an uneven paver and I went down to the ground with a startled cry. A jolt of pain shot through my hands and knees as they struck the pavement, bringing my mind into focus for a moment. I was in an older neighborhood, many of the houses in various states of disrepair, some of them looking as though no one had lived there for a long time. I tried to cry out for help, but my voice came out a strangled wheeze, my throat raw from screaming and my tongue still thick and heavy from the drugs Johnson had used to dope me.
Climbing to my feet I turned around, frantically looking for someone to help or somewhere to hide. I knew he wouldn’t be out for long, and soon he’d be looking to finish what he started. Spinning around in the street, I saw approaching headlights bouncing across the slick asphalt a second before the car fishtailed and swung towards me. My brain screamed at me to run, but my body was slow to respond, and before I could react my legs were swept out from under me, throwing me back from the road.
I landed heavily on the curb, the frozen ground doing little to soften my fall. I felt the breath whoosh out of me as I rolled to a stop on my back, my arms and legs splayed like a discarded rag doll.
“Ouch,” I managed to croak, grateful that at least my lungs were working, even if everything else felt like it was broken.
Trying to roll over onto my side to push myself up, I instantly regretted the decision as my entire body cried out in pain. Collapsing back onto the grass, I stared up at the starless night sky, and marveled at the ugly shade of muddy pink in the clouds as they reflected the city lights.
Maybe I’ll just lie here for a minute.
I heard a car door open and someone cursing under their breath as footsteps sounded on the pavement, moving towards me. The light from the car’s headlights flickered as a figure moved in front of them and came to crouch beside me. My eyes were already slipping closed as the person knelt over me, their backlit face hidden in shadow. Hair tickled my face, smelling faintly of citrus and something half-rotted, and then I was gone again, sinking down into the welcoming arms of unconsciousness.
***
Light danced over my closed eyelids, appearing as starbursts of color against the black. I could feel the vibrations of the road beneath the car’s tires through the leather pressed against my cheek. The rich scent of leather was all around me, the fragrance of it spoiled by the sickly sweet aroma of imitation pine that made my nose itch.
My eyes were gummy and scratchy as I pried them open, my vision slowly coming into focus. I couldn’t see much from my vantage point in the backseat of the car, just the glowing lights of the center console illuminating the offending cardboard tree and shining on a fall of familiar blonde hair.
“Ah, fuck,” I slurred, the sound of my voice making Chrismer glance back at me over her shoulder for a second, the corner of her blood red mouth tilting up in a smirk.
Her eyes flared silver in the darkness, pinning me to the pale leather.
“Go back to sleep, Ms. Cray,” she said, the deep reverberations in her voice sending tremors up my spine. Although it was Chrismer’s lips that formed the words, the voice behind them came from someone else. Someone very old, and very powerful.
“No…” I tried to protest, struggling to hang on to consciousness for another moment, reluctant to slip back into the cold darkness, but my eyes were already sliding closed, my limbs going slack. “Bitch,” was all I was able to mutter before I fell back into sleep, though even in the darkness I could hear her laughing.
Chapter 18