Holden gives me a sad smile. I want to punch it off his lips.
“Welcome to the real world, Jo. Nothing is fair.”
He grabs a syringe off the cabinet and pulls on my IV. I instinctively scramble back to no avail.
“Sleep well, Jo. This will all be over soon.” He pauses. “For you, at least.”
He pushes down on the syringe, plunging the murky liquid into my line. I watch it slide into my veins.
It won’t be over, I want to scream.
It won’t be over. It wasn’t over for any of them. This is only the beginning of a slow, horrific march toward death. But the sedatives are swimming through my blood, and I can’t say anything at all. I fight the exhaustion until it drags my eyes shut and pulls me under.
Thirty-Seven
There is a path ofdirt cutting through the grass up the slop of the ditch, where the car’s tires skidded. The blood has started to dry on my arms and legs, adding stickiness to the pain swirling through my limbs.
The road. If I can make it to the road. A quiet road, unlikely to have too many cars on it, but someone has to drive by eventually. Someone has to find us. I heard my phone ring somewhere up the embankment. Maybe it has enough battery for one last call. Maybe if I can get to it, someone will save us.
Maybe, maybe.
The black spots in my vision are more like blobs slowly overtaking my field of view. My heartbeat is a low, steady pulse, like a slow drum in the back of a song. Slower than I think it should be.
I never really understood the concept of death by exposure. Inaction never seemed powerful enough to end a life. A wild animal attack, an untreated wound, bacteria-infested water, sure. But the elements themselves aren’t powerful enough to take a life.
But as time crawls by and the sun makes its descent, it takes the warmth with it.
I understand now. The overwhelming pain trades itself for numbness, which is scarier than the aching, pulsing, fiery burn of hurt.
The accident might not have killed me, but the cold will.
I roll onto my back, head flopping back against the snowy incline.
“Get up.”
I peer through slitted eyes. Standing above me is a girl, her hair a blond mess around her head, her skin pale and face gaunt.
I shake my head.
“You have to wake up, Jo.”
“I’m tired,” I say, the words thick in my mouth.
The girl kneels at my side. She doesn’t fit in this picture. In this memory. She’s too bright in the darkness.
“I know,” she says. Her hand ghosts across mine, but I feel no pressure. No brushing of skin. “But they’re dying.”
“So am I,” I murmur. At least aware enough to understand this fact.
And it is a fact. My phone is a few yards up the ditch, and try as I might, I can’t reach it.
“You have to wake up, Jo,” the girl says. Her light eyes hold mine hostage, prompting an understanding I’m too tired for. A reminder that I’ve been here before, that I’m not truly here now.
I’m so sick of fighting. Sick of pushing the stone up the hill to watch it fall back down, rolling over my toes as it goes.
Tears blur my already messy vision.
“They need you,” the girl says. “You’re all they have.”
