“Are you hurt or something?” he asked, scratching his head. “I mean, you don’t really look hurt …” he started, but then his gaze continued down to my feet. “Shit, do I need to call an ambulance?”
I wasn’t sure how to answer his question. I had been through a traumatic experience, sure, and maybe I was in shock … but I doubted there was much a hospital could do for cut up feet. And I certainly didn’t feel like having some doctor poke and prod at me all day. I just needed some Advil, a lot of bandages, a warm bath, and my own bed to crawl so I could try to forget everything.
Of course, if the entire town was looking for me, then it definitely wouldn’t be that easy.
The boy waved his hand in front of my face then grabbed his phone. “I’m calling somebody to help you, ‘kay?”
“No,” I said, shaking my head.
But it was too late. The kid already had emergency services on the phone, and within ninety seconds, the sirens blared toward us.
I wasn’t surprised to see a patrol car cresting the hill, blinking lights shining from the cab. And, when it screeched to a stop in front of me, leaving skid marks on the pavement, I wasn’t surprised to see Dalton jump out of it, either.
But the look on his face—the pain mixed with unimaginable relief and hesitant hopefulness—pinged at me. It was the sort of look you only get when someone you really cared about was in trouble.
“It’s her,” he said, slamming the door shut and sprinting toward me.
He scooped me up into his arms and squeezed me just enough to let me know I was really here … really alive. And, for whatever reason, I instantly hoped he would never let me go. That he would tuck me away somewhere safe, where it would just be him and me.
The way it should have been last night, if only I had done what I told him I was going to do.
“Thank God,” he muttered, his face pressed against the crook of my neck. “We thought you were …”
“I’m okay.” I breathed against his chest, nearly crumbling in into his embrace. “Just a little shaken up. And tired. But I’m definitely not … well, you know.”
He set me down and started to turn away, but not before wiping a tear from his cheek. Meanwhile, Lulu lugged herself out of the backseat of the cop car. My guilt over not being where I should have been doubled at the sight of her, then tripled at the sight of her overripe belly.
She was so pregnant. So. Damn. Pregnant. And here I was, blowing out the tire on her car and disappearing into the woods.
“It’s all right,” I said, tears burning behind my eyes. “I’m fine, really I am.”
I stepped toward her and hugged her the same way she had hugged me after Mom’s diagnosis.
Her whole body was trembling. “They found the car—”
“I’m sorry about the car,” I said.
“Shut up about the stupid car,” she said, wiping her eyes, smiling through her tears. “What happened? Where were you?”
My mind flickered back to last night, to running through the woods away from monsters and finding myself mysteriously moved inside a seemingly abandoned house. Then I thought about all the girls who had disappeared, all of the girls who looked just like me. And the note on the door of the house, warning me to keep my mouth shut.
My lips parted, though I was still unsure what to say. It wasn’t so much the note that gave me pause. After all, I was free of whoever wrote it. But, even if I told the truth, who would believe me?
Monsters running through the woods at night? Wolves that stood on their hind legs like men? It was one thing for people to make up stories about missing girls and wild animals, but it was another to say you knew those outlandish stories actually had merit.
None of it made any sense, and it would have likely either branded me a lunatic or an unreliable witness. Or, ya know, maybe they would eat the story right out of my hand—this was New Haven after all. But did I want to take the risk? Once I said it, there would be no taking it back.
So I did what any woman would do when faced with a similar situation: told as much of the truth as possible without making myself look bad.
“The tire blew out, and then I heard some weird noises …” I started, trying not to pause too much as I made up my story on the spot. “My phone didn’t have service, and I saw a … dog or something on the road. It started chasing me, and I headed out into the woods.” I swallowed hard. “I got lost out there. It took me this long to find my way back out.”
“Oh, my Lord. You poor thing,” Lulu said, taking my hand.
“You didn’t hear us?” Dalton asked, cocking his head to the side. “After we found the car, a few of us went out into the woods with hounds, looking for you. We weren’t quiet about it.”
“I … I must have been a long way out,” I answered. “Not that I was in the mood to come running toward the sound of dogs.”
“Understandable,” he muttered.