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Jamie looked disgusted, and he looked me in the eye. “That fucker never raped me, Caden. He wanted to, and he did try, but he didn’t expect me to put up the fight I did. Like I said, he kept underestimating me. I did fight back, like he said, but I fought back harder than he obviously made it sound. I’d only recently woken up the first time he tried it. He gave up pretty easily that time and locked me in the bedroom. He got my shoes and pants off but almost puked when he saw my leg. I think that’s how I managed to win that one. He came back later, though. My elbow, back, and fracture were bleeding all over the place and my fucking bone was sticking out of my leg and that sick asshole still thought it was a good idea to fuck me. He covered up my leg, so he didn’t have to look at it. I know he thought it would be easy since I was injured, but I’m scrappier than I look.”
I had to laugh again, and relief didn’t begin to describe the emotion I was feeling right then. Even knowing he was alive, the thought of him being raped by his stalker, after being kidnapped, injured and helpless had been crippling to me knowing everything he’d overcome as a kid.
“He ranted and raved as he struggled with me, finally punched me in the jaw because I wouldn’t let him touch me without fighting him, and I wouldn’t let him get my boxers off. He ended up coming back with packages of snacks, apologizing for hitting me. I ate them, because I knew I needed energy, and I didn’t have much. I tried to get off the bed, but he went on and on about bears. Like, a full-on lecture. He tried to grope me again, but I think I almost broke his wrist that time and he left again. The next time he tried it, I had my head on straight. All the struggling was getting him away from me but getting me nowhere but worn out. I let him touch me that time, and he was so distracted by it that I was able to punch him right in the nuts. While he was doubled over, I kicked him in the head with my good foot hard enough to knock him down, and I ran out the bedroom door he'd left open. Well, realistically I guess I hopped and dragged one leg, but I was faster than he expected. I was out the door before he could even get his bearings, because I know how to fucking fight, and he wasn’t prepared for it at all. See, constantly underestimating.”
Jamie shook his head, and I gripped his hand as he went on, “I literally hid behind a tree when he came outside, because even with the adrenaline I knew I wasn’t going to make it far. I hopped around the tree as he circled around looking for me. The fucking moron never saw me. He stayed here for days searching for me, getting more and more upset, angrier and angrier. I could tell he was panicking. I hid under the porch one day and went in to grab some beef jerky and water while he was out looking. I saw him every time, but he didn’t see me. He was always carrying a damn stick, and it finally registered how fluttery and nervous he was when he was outside. He was even more pissed that I was making him leave the cabin, I think.”
Amber slid down to the ground beside me then, still crying. He looked up at her and held out his hand that wasn’t in mine, taking hers and giving it a reassuring squeeze. Caitlin stepped forward and opened a bottle of water, holding it out to him. Glancing over to where he’d been standing beside the tree, I saw three empty water bottles that he’d obviously been heading to refill. If he was drinking the water straight out of that stream, I was sure he had some kind of bacterial infection besides the one in his leg. But he’d had to survive somehow. We’d take care of things one step at a time.
Jamie took the water from her gratefully and took small sips of it before continuing, “Then I came upon the dead animal. I’m not sure what it was. Maybe a wild boar, or some kind of deer. It didn’t really matter, because something had been eating it, and it hadn’t been there for very long. As soon as I saw the bones that were large enough to conceivably pass as human, I had a plan. I remembered why he was so flighty out here. He was petrified that a bear was going to eat him. Scared almost to the point of madness. So, I grabbed some of the bones. I took two femurs, a big piece of the rib cage broken in a way you couldn’t be sure what it belonged to and cracked a big chunk off the skull. I made sure some of the bones still had tendons and muscles on them. They were still pretty bloody. When it was dark, I hopped over to the path he always took. I ripped my shirt off of me, then ripped it again for good measure. I pulled the scab off my elbow and let it drip all over the shirt. I scattered everything near the path, with the pieces of my shirt close to the rib bones.”
I interrupted him. “I told you guys Jamie was smart,” I said, as though that had been the part they’d been doubting the entire time. It drew a little smile from him, though, and I got my wish. I saw his smile again.
“He found the bones the next day. Dude, he flipped the fuck out. He was yanking at his hair and screaming, saying things I couldn’t even understand but I did hear the, ‘I warned you.’ That’s how I knew the dumb bastard actually fell for it and thought a bear had got me. He stayed for another day, freaking out and getting his shit together. He took the bones somewhere else in the woods, then he left. I heard his car, there’s a trail back there somewhere,” he pointed away from the hill, opposite the way we’d come. “But I never managed to even attempt finding it. I went back into the cabin the second day he didn’t come back. There was still food and water in there, and I tried to clean my leg with a bottle of water. I pushed my bone back approximately where it should be. I think I screamed louder than he did.”
I cringed at the thought of it. He went on, “But I could tell it was getting infected. It hurts like a bitch, and then I started getting fevers. The elbow and road rash hurt, too, but they’re nothing compared to my leg.” He looked up at me with a furious look on his face, like he was just remembering where most of his injuries had come from. “He hit my bike! That fucker never would have taken me if he hadn’t come out of nowhere and hit me. I wasn’t even conscious when he put me in the car. I have no idea how long I was out. It felt like a long time. I’m not sure if I took that hard of a hit or if he kept me unconscious with some kind of anesthetic. I did have my helmet on when I crashed. The last thing from that ride I remember was seeing him coming at me from the side. He came out of a side street, or a driveway, I’m not sure. I was going too fast. When I woke up, we were driving through the woods. I was so disoriented I don’t even know which way we came in, I just know we ended up behind the house.” He looked at me. “Is my bike totaled?”
I nearly laughed at the fact that his bike was his biggest worry right then. “I mean, it’s damaged,” I told him, “But I think it can be fixed. The police have it right now, though, it’s being used as evidence.” When I remembered seeing the bike where they found it, and telling the detective it was Jamie’s bike before they’d even run the plates, everything seemed to hit me at once, and my eyes filled with tears. “Jamie,” I whispered, “I just can’t believe you’re here. I thought I’d never see you again.”
He touched my face. “I’m ok,” he said softly, “I’ll be ok. You know I’m tougher than I seem. And I think that’s why you were still looking for me even after he said I was dead. I don’t know if telepathy is real, but I kept talking to you, hoping somehow you could hear me telling you that I was trying to get to you and I was sorry.” I shivered as I remembered my dreams, and I wondered if somehow, I had heard him through the connection we shared.
“You never had anything to be sorry for,” I told him, then I sat back. “Let me see your leg.” I reached for it, and he groaned. I could tell he wanted to tell me not to touch it. But he let me pull back the bandage he’d made with ripped bed sheets and an old kitchen towel. I managed to keep my composure, but my breakfast almost came back up. Jesse made a horrified sound behind me, and in my peripheral I saw Caitlin’s hand fly to her mouth. It looked like it had started to heal, but not properly. I could see the splintered bone in the open hole in his shin, and the skin around it was hot and discolored. I finally realized that the smell I couldn’t place in the cabin was infection, not death. It was more than I could doctor with a first aid kit from the drug store. He needed surgery, some hefty antibiotics, and some pain killers. I could, at least, offer him some aspirin from the kit. He took them gratefully even though we all knew it wasn’t going to touch that kind of pain. I prepared to get him the hell out of there and to someone who could really help him.
Before I could stand though, he looked at me, and that’s when I knew that despite everything, he was truly going to be alright. “So, did we win the game, or what?” I burst out laughing even though only Jamie knew why. “Don’t you lie to me, Caden. I’ll find out when I get back to campus, anyway.”
“We won,” I assured him, “I kicked their asses in overtime.” I said “I.” We all knew who won that game.
Jeff was looking at us like we’d lost it. “Why are you guys even talking about the stupid game, anyway? That night was the worst. If we hadn’t gone into overtime, Caden might have gotten your messages in time. That team was good as hell, and we were all exhausted, but Caden pretty much carried the whole team in overtime. It was a helluva win but a horrible night.”
Jamie’s face broke into a grin, and he gave a little laugh. A laugh I remembered just a while before thinking I’d never hear again. “It was a horrible night,” he agreed, “It definitely wasn’t great for me, either. But it does mean a lot that he played so hard for it.” He laughed again.
“Oh, god,” Jesse said beside Jeff, “This is about some weird sex thing, isn’t it?”
“Ok,” I said, refusing to answer that question even though it wasn’t a weird sex thing, “Let’s get Jamie out of here and find some fucking phone service.”
I put an arm under his left arm and gently picked him up, bridal style. He held on and smiled at me. Then he made a face. “Ugh, sorry. I stink. I know this leg smells and I haven’t had a shower in, I don’t know, weeks? And dear God, what do I look like right now?” He seriously had the nerve to look embarrassed about his appearance and hygiene when he’d been trapped in the wilderness with an infected open fracture for almost a month.
“What do you look like?” I asked him, “Like the most beautiful thing I’ve ever seen in my life. Like my everything, that I thought I’d lost forever. Jamie, I don’t give a shit what you smell like. Or how your hair looks. You’re in my arms right now, talking to me when I thought I’d never see you again. The fact that you’re here with me is the only thing in the entire world I care about. I’m so happy right now, I could lick you clean. I don’t care.”
Jamie beamed at me, but Caitlin passed us at that moment, still holding her phone in the air. She glanced at me. “Gross, Caden. TMI.” Jamie just laughed.
I sat him gingerly on the couch and left Jesse and the girls there with him, while Jeff and I went into the woods to get some big limbs to make a cot. We used the branch Jamie had tried to clock me with when he thought I was Weird Wally and found another that was similarly sized. We brought them into the cabin and worked on tying a sheet between them while Jamie nibbled on the snacks we’d brought and nursed the bottle of water, trying not to overdo any of it and vomit.
When we were satisfied with the cot, I tested it out before letting him on it, because damned if I wanted to drop him if the cot broke after everything he’d been through. When I was sure it was safe, we helped him onto it and the five of us picked it up. I probably could have carried him out of there myself, but he was really light with us all holding the cot, and we thought it would be easier on everyone, Jamie included. He kept his leg stretched out, covered in some of the bandaging supplies from the first aid kit, and held on as we took off through the woods.
We followed Caitlin’s nail polish trail, going back the way we came because we didn’t know where to find the path Wally had taken, nor where it came out. We were probably about halfway back to the clearing at the beginning of the trail when Caitlin announced she had signal. We told her to let go of the cot and Jeff took up the extra slack as she dialed 911.
I pulled my phone out, too, because there was a call I needed to make, there was someone who needed to hear about it as badly as I had. I didn’t let go of the cot as I clicked on Jamie’s mom’s name and hit call. She answered in the sad, weary voice she’d had since he’d first gone missing. “Mama Angela?” I said, and he looked up at me with tears glistening in his eyes as he realized who I was calling, “You might want to sit down for this.” I put it on speaker for him.
“I am sitting, Caden. What is it? What’s wrong?” I knew she thought I somehow had more bad news to give her, or that there was news about the police search for a body.
I didn’t leave her worrying for long. “Nothing is wrong. I have someone here who wants to talk to you.”
Jamie reached for the phone before I could even hand it to him. “Mom?” he said softly, and there was a silence on the other end of the line for a long moment.
There was finally a sob, and her voice came back. “Jamie?!”
“I’m ok, mom,” he said, “They found me. I’m coming back.”
