The Unbecoming of Mara Dyer - Hodkin Michelle. Страница 50

He wasn’t.

He was breathing, and normally. Flooded with relief, I shook him. His head lolled to one side.

“Joseph,” I said. “Joseph, wake up!”

I threw a light blanket off of him and saw that his feet were bound and his arms were tied in front of him. My head swam but I slapped my eyes into focus. I scanned the room, looking for something to cut the plastic twist ties on Joseph’s wrists and ankles. I didn’t see anything.

“Noah,” I called out. “Tell me you brought a pocket knife?”

He didn’t answer, but I heard the clatter of metal as it hit the tilted glass window. And bounced back outside. I heard Noah utter a string of expletives before the knife clattered against the window again. This time, it fell to the ground inside the building. I picked it up, unfolded it, and started sawing.

My fingers were raw by the time I cut through the ties on Joseph’s hands, and they were numb when I finished working on his feet. I finally had the chance to look him over. He was still in his school clothes; khaki pants and a striped polo shirt. They were clean. He didn’t look hurt.

“Mara!” I heard Noah’s voice calling me on the other side of the wall. “Mara, hurry.”

I tried to lift Joseph up but pain knifed through my shoulder. A strangled sob escaped my throat.

“What happened?” Noah asked. His voice was frantic.

“I hurt my shoulder when I fell. Joseph won’t wake up and I can’t lift him through the window.”

“What about the door? Can you unlock it from the inside?”

And I’m an idiot. I hurried to the front of the concrete room. I turned the lock, opened the door. Noah stood on the other side of it, scaring the hell out of me.

“Guess that’s a yes,” Noah said.

My heart pounded as Noah walked over to Joseph and held him up under his shoulder. My brother was completely limp.

“What’s wrong with him?”

“He’s unconscious, but there’s no sign of bruises or anything. He seems fine.”

“How are we going to—”

Noah withdrew his flashlight from his back pocket and tossed it at me. Then, he hoisted Joseph over his shoulders, grasping behind his knee with one hand and his wrist with the other. He walked to the door like it was nothing and opened it. “Good thing he’s a skinny bastard.”

I let out a nervous laugh as we walked through, just before the beam of car headlights washed over the three of us.

Noah’s eyes met mine. “Run.”

46

WE EXPLODED INTO FLIGHT, OUR FEET beating down the muck beneath us. The grass whipped my arms, and the air stung my nostrils. We reached the creek and I turned on the flashlight, skimming the surface of the water. It was clear, but I knew that didn’t mean much.

“I’ll go first,” I said to the water. Almost daring the alligators to come back.

I sank down into the creek. Noah slid Joseph off of his shoulders and followed, careful to keep my brother’s head above the surface. He tugged Joseph’s body under his arm as he swam.

Somewhere in the middle, I felt something brush my leg. Something large. I bit back a scream and kept moving. Nothing followed us.

Noah lifted my brother up for me to grab and I managed to hold him, barely, as my shoulder howled in agony. Noah pulled himself up the bank, took Joseph from me, lifted him again, and we ran.

When we reached Noah’s car, he unloaded Joseph into the backseat first, then climbed in. I almost collapsed inside, suddenly shivering from the wet clothes pasted to my skin. Noah turned on the heat full blast, stomped on the gas pedal and drove like a lunatic until we were safely on I-75.

The sky was still dark. The steady thrum of the pavement underneath the tires threatened to lull me to sleep, despite the excruciating pain in my shoulder. It hung wrong no matter how I settled into the seat. When Noah placed his arm around me, curling his fingers around my neck, I cried out. Noah’s eyes went wide with concern.

“My shoulder,” I said, wincing. I looked behind me in the backseat. Joseph still hadn’t stirred.

Noah drove with his knees as his hands skimmed my collarbone, then my shoulder. He explored it with his dirt-caked fingers, and I bit my tongue to keep from screaming.

“It’s dislocated,” he said quietly.

“How do you know?”

“It’s hanging wrong. Can’t you feel it?”

I would have shrugged, but, yeah.

“You’re going to have to go to the hospital,” Noah said.

I closed my eyes. Faceless people appeared in the darkness, crowding my bed, pushing me down. Needles and tubes tugged at my skin. I shook my head fiercely. “No. No hospitals.”

“It has to be placed back into the socket.” Noah worked his fingers into my muscles and I choked back a sob. He drew back his hand. “I didn’t mean to hurt you.”

“I know,” I said through the tears. “It’s not that. I hate hospitals.” I started to tremble, remembering the smell. The needles. And then I let out a nervous laugh because I’d almost been eaten by giant reptiles but somehow, needles were scarier.

Noah ran a hand over his jaw. “I can put it back in,” he said in a hollow voice.

I turned in my seat and then choked back the ensuing pain. “Really? Noah, seriously?”

His face darkened, but he nodded.

“That would be—please do it?”

“It’s going to hurt. Like, you have no idea how badly it’s going to hurt.”

“I don’t care,” I said, breathless. “It would hurt just as much in a hospital.”

“Not necessarily. They could give you something,” Noah said. “For the pain.”

“I can’t go to the hospital. I can’t. Please do it, Noah? Please?”

Noah’s eyes flicked to the clock on the dashboard, and then he checked the rearview mirror. He sighed and turned off the highway. When we pulled into a dark, empty parking lot, I checked the backseat. Joseph was still out.

“Come on,” Noah said, as he got out of the car. I followed, and he locked it behind us. We walked a short distance before Noah stopped under a tangle of trees behind a strip mall.

He closed his eyes, and I noticed that his hands were balled into fists. The muscles in his forearms flexed. He shot me a dark look.

“Come here,” he said.

I walked over to him.

“Closer.”

I took another step, but I’d be lying if I said I wasn’t afraid. My heart pounded in my chest.

Noah sighed and crossed the remaining distance between us, then stood, his chest against my back. I felt the length of his body pressed tightly behind mine and I shivered. From standing outside in my wet clothes or the feel of him behind me, I didn’t know.

He circled one arm around my chest, aligned with my collarbone, and snaked the other beneath my arm so that his hands were almost touching.

“Hold very still,” he whispered. I nodded, silent.

“Right then. One.” He spoke softly into my ear, tickling me. I could feel my heart beating against his forearm.

“Two.”

“Wait!” I said, panicking. “What if I scream?”

“Don’t.”

And then my left side ignited in pain. White-hot sparks exploded behind my eyes and I felt my knees buckle, but never felt the ground beneath me. I saw nothing but blackness, deep and impenetrable, as I floated away.

I woke up when I felt the car turn wide on the pavement. I looked up just as we passed under the sign for our exit.

“What happened?” I mumbled. My wet hair had stiffened in the artificial air, caked with filth. It crunched behind my head.

“I put your shoulder back in,” Noah said, staring at the brightening road ahead of us. “And you fainted.”

I rubbed my eyes. The pain in my shoulder had simmered to a dull, throbbing ache. I glanced at the clock. Almost six in the morning. If this was real, my parents would be awake soon.

Joseph already was.

“Joseph!” I said.

He smiled at me. “Hey, Mara.”

“Are you okay?”

“Yeah. Just tired a little.”

“What happened?”