“It’s going to be okay,” I promise.
Her eyes open as we reach Conrad’s car, and she jolts, screaming. She flails, trying to escape our grasp.
“It’s me. It’s me. It’s me,” I rush out, one hand up to defend myself from her swings.
It takes a second for her eyes to find focus on me. “Corinne?”
Lewis pulls the car door open, using his foot to push it back farther, and we slide her inside. I sit down next to her and shut the door. She wipes the rain from her face, eyes searching and scanning in a panic.
“What are you…” She jerks her head this way and that. “Where are we?”
I turn toward the window as Lewis opens the door on the other side, sliding onto the seat. Conrad and his friend are next. Once we’re all safely inside the car, all eyes are trained on Greta.
“We’re in the woods outside of Foxglove. We…we found you out there.”
Her eyes find mine without urgency, still dazed and afraid. When they land on me again, a sort of calmness washes over her expression. “What’s happening?”
“You’re okay,” I tell her, desperately hoping it’s true. “Do you remember what happened?”
She squeezes one eye shut, looking around, but doesn’t answer. “Do you remember coming here? We spoke on the phone. You were supposed to be looking for Taylor. I don’t understand why you’re here. Or how.”
She opens her mouth slowly, eyes lost and dizzy. “I…I don’t remember. I was at the cabin. At Foxglove visiting you…”
She’s lost an entire day’s worth of memories. “She needs to go to the hospital,” I say, not breaking eye contact with her. “We need to go. Now.”
“No. No. I’m okay,” she argues. Because of course she does. She wouldn’t be Greta if she wasn’t stubborn and pigheaded,even when she can’t remember where she is or why. “Really, I’m okay. I just…I need to sit down.”
“You are sitting down. You’ve been sitting down,” Lewis argues with her. “What are you doing here, anyway?”
She gives him a stern look, and I’m grateful, at least, that she still has her fire. “What the hell are you talking about? Foxglove? I’ve been here.”
“No. You left yesterday.” I touch her cheek. “It’s okay. It’s okay.”
She looks at me with confusion swimming in her eyes. “What are you talking about?”
“You left Foxglove to go back to work, remember? We’ve spoken. You did showings, and you were supposed to be looking for Taylor. You said you stopped by my mom’s house.”
She looks between us. “That’s impossible. I don’t remember anything past leaving the cabin. I was…” She pauses. “I’m sorry. I don’t really remember that. The last thing I remember is hugging you in the yard. And then…I was driving and someone was…” She pauses again, thinking. I can practically see her scraping the cobwebs from the hazy memory. “Someone was standing in the road. They flagged me down.”
“Who?” I lean into her, like she is a soft song I’m trying to hear better. “Who was it?”
She pauses, rubbing her neck. “I… I don’t remember. I’m sorry. I… Maybe I’m imagining all of it. It feels hazy.”
“Your phone.” I want to prove my story to her. I need her to remember. “I’ll show you.” I reach for her pockets. “It wasn’t in the car, so it has to be…” But as I check her damp jeans, I realize it isn’t there either. “What the…”
That’s when I remember someone else answered her phone before. When I called, there was only breathing, but someonedidpick up.
“Someone stole it.” Her words are almost a question as she looks at me with an expression of perfectly mixed fear and confusion. She lifts her hand to her neck again, massaging it. I brush her hair back, examining her neck in the light from the dashboard in the front of the car.
I slap Lewis’s arm, and he and Greta both startle. “Look at this.”
He leans over as Greta turns her neck for him to see. “What’s wrong?” she asks, eyeing us both.
“A bruise.” Lewis touches his finger to the bruise there on her pale flesh.
“It’s sore,” she agrees, rubbing it again.
“It’s not a bruise.” I pull my phone out and turn on the flashlight. Greta squeezes one eye shut, blinded. Lewis leans toward me again, looking. “It’s a needle mark. Someone injected her with something.”
