Those words puncture the numbness. Long gone. Getting away with this.
I look at Cassie, but she stares at the pavement. “They’re letting him go?”
Juliana rolls her eyes. It lacks her usual verve. “I mean, that’s not what they said, but obviously the guy got a head start. I didn’t get the impression that there was gonna be a manhunt, did you?”
“You’re telling me this is it, then.” Anger kicks up with each word. That someone won’t be held responsible for this–it’s unthinkable. Apparently it’s all right for blood to seep into the concrete without repercussions, without ensuring that it never happens again.
“Yes, Savs, she is,” Cass says. “We’ll get my car and go to the hospital, okay?”
I can’t sit in a hospital waiting room. I can’t linger, floating down, resigning myself to whatever happens next.
I rise to my feet. There’s no ache in them from the meet. “Not yet.”
Cassie looks at me sharply. I grab her elbow more roughly than I need to. “Let’s go.”
She yanks it back. She’s never failed to read me, and this is no exception. “You think that guy’s hanging around waiting for us to say hi?”
“He’s getting farther away the longer we sit here.”
“Are you serious?” Juliana nearly shouts. “He’s dangerous.”
“What’s going to stop this asshole from hurting us?” Cassie adds.
The fact that she’s making sense hardly registers. For once she’s the logical one and I’m the one trying to make the bad idea sound feasible–and we’re running out of time.
Physically, I can’t do anything else for Marcos. But I can make this right, and I’m not going to let them stop me. “You can stay here, or you can come with me.”
We stare at each other. As kids, Cass was the staring contest queen, outlasting me when my eyes watered or she made a silly face to make me laugh. My legs are tingling, ready to run, but I can’t do this alone. I need fearless Cass at my side.
She blinks first. Long and slow, like she’ll open her eyes and I’ll have changed my mind. When she sees me still staring at her, the worry in her eyes hardens.
I take that as a yes.
After a moment, her footsteps echo behind mine.
“Where the hell are you going?” Juliana calls after us. “Cassie!”
You’re an idiot, I think as we cross Main Street, cars honking.
That guy is going to hurt you, I think as we follow drops of blood leading into the dirt motocross trail in the woods by the high school.
My legs never tire and Cassie doesn’t flag beside me. Leaves crunch under our feet, branches fly up, a deer scuttles out of the way. We follow the dirt motocross trail.
Hurry up, hurry up.
“There’s no way we’re going to find him,” Cassie says, panting. “Just let me take you to the hospital.”
I’m not stopping. If I do, that means it’s okay that this happened. I’ve done enough sitting back in the last few months.
The trail winds over roots–I trip and Cassie catches me, keeping me from hitting the ground– and the longer we run, the more I start to wonder if she’s right. If this is stupid and useless, if I’m better off staring at the ceiling in the waiting room–
At the exact same time, we halt.
There he is. With his back to us, hands on his knees, gasping so loudly he must not have heard the branches snap under our feet.
Cassie’s hand clamps my shoulder. “I’m not doing this,” she hisses.
“C’mon.”
“I’m not.”
“You can’t leave me out here alone.” Now that we’re here, I have no idea what the hell I’m going to say or do, but I know that I’m not turning back.
“This wasn’t my idea.”
I search Cassie’s face for a breaking point. She’s the girl with an opinion about what to do, the girl who’s the first to make the dare and the first to take the dangerous leap. I look for sympathy, however reluctant. “I’d do it for you, Cass,” I hiss.
I see fear.
Cassie is never afraid.
I can’t turn back now. The decision has been made.
I walk forward on shaking legs, my heart sprinting past my feet. Cassie tries to snatch me back. I keep moving. “Excuse me.”
Blue eyes. He straightens, confused.
“What the hell happened back there?” I say.
He looks up to the trees and stumbles back a step. The fading afternoon sun through the trees hits a shock of red hair. “I don’t know what you’re talking about.” He’s monotone, trying to be uninterested, but his eyes dart almost as quickly as my heart.
“Let’s go, Savannah.” Cassie’s voice quakes.
“What’d he do to you?” I say. “Did he look at you the wrong way? I bet he’s cleaned your table at Pav’s. Wiped your spit and threw out your crap. Did you leave him a tip?”
“What, is he your boyfriend or something? Sent you to fight for him?” There’s a laugh, and then another guy, grass stains across his jeans, steps onto the path. Cassie grabs my wrist. We both know without speaking that this one is no amateur. His arms are thick as tree trunks.
The words keep spilling out. “He’s unconscious,” I say, and with heart pounding, “and he’s not breathing.”
That catches both of them.
“Maybe he needs a little mouth–to-mouth,” the first guy says, laughing, but the other guy doesn’t crack a smile.
“You think it’s hilarious that you almost killed someone?”
“Savannah, shut up,” Cassie mutters. “He’s not dead.”
“What’s Goldilocks saying?” says the one with the blue eyes.
“Cut the bullshit,” the other says. “There are some things you don’t understand, little girl.”
In the next instant, my toes scrape the dirt and an arm as firm as a deadbolt wraps around my stomach. The second guy’s arms, powerful as falling boulders, nearly knock the wind out of me.
I kick his shins. My fists lash out for his face, but he dodges. He laughs. The laugh of older brothers who hold the basketball above your head, higher and higher, the more you swipe at it. They never drop it; they never let go.
“Thing is,” his voice says from somewhere behind me, “it’d be better if you didn’t see us. Am I right?”