Thirty-Nine
The police swarm like someone kicked a wasp’s nest, making it hard to tell if there are a lot of them or if the few who came are moving exceptionally fast. They surround us, but more of them go into the motel room with the open door and the dead girl on the carpet. A woman officer is the first one to actually talk to us, bending down to our eye level with the concerned look of a mother.
“I’ve got a tourniquet, okay?”
It takes a second for me to realize it’s Natalie. Natalie’s the only authority figure who bothered to treat Beck and me like anything more than two additional corpses who could be addressed later.
Natalie pulls something up my leg. I can’t breathe until she gingerly moves it up above the wound without actually touching the injury point itself.
“I have to apply a lot of pressure, so this is going to hurt,” Natalie says.
Beck gives my hand a squeeze, as if giving me permission to squeeze her back.
“One, two…”
Beck looks up at Natalie, an almost drunk-looking smile on her face. “We really thought you were the murderer.”
Natalie grimaces as she says, “Three.”
She truly puts her whole body weight into it, andgod, is it some of the most intense, localized pain I’ve ever felt. I gasp into Beck’s shoulder and stay still through the accompanying wave of nausea.
“Paramedics are on their way,” Natalie says, scooting over to Beck. “Let me see your side.” She inspects Beck, but seeing the blood is making me woozy. “This isn’t lethal, but you may need some stitches.” Beck nods. “I’m so sorry I came so late. I had to go back to the station to get my gun, but by the time I got here…”
It was long over.
A duller version of the pain remains as the tourniquet stays in place, but my head clears up ever so slightly.
“They’re gonna think we’re murderers,” I say.
Natalie breathes slowly. “What happened with the girl in there?”
More sirens join us.
Beck stares off as the ambulance arrives. “She killed the two who were found in the ravine. Your friend Evan killed the girl the FBI said was my sister.”
I don’t think we ever confirmed Natalie knew who we were, but I barely react. If she didn’t know before, now she does. It’s nice she knows. Numbness sets in to protect me.
Now Natalie stares off into the distance, pulling her knees into her chest. It somehow makes her look decades younger and in way over her head.
“You don’t believe us, do you?” I ask.
Natalie looks over to us, exhaustion creeping into her expression. “When you’re both stable, let’s talk.”
A pair of paramedics haul us both to the ambulance.
* * *
It never occurred to me how quiet small-town hospitals might be. It almost felt like being in a normal doctor’s office, with only a handful of staff passing us by as Beck and I are moved from waiting room to exam room. An old white doctor with a fluffy head of white hair stitches me up and gives me a blood transfusion, talking about fishing conditions the whole time. Beck, it turns out, does need her one gnarly bullet graze sewn up, but the doctor jokes with her that she won’t be getting the “good stuff” I’m gonna get for the pain. Now, she has two scars from her little sister. The rest of our injuries are fixed with bandages and antiseptic. Beck asks if she needs any new vaccines if she bit a human being and the nurses laugh.
Natalie is the first one in the recovery room, standing over Beck and me as the nurses administer the “good stuff” into my IV. Her shirt has bloodstains along the sleeves.
Beck’s and my blood, I realize with a turn in my stomach.
“Alright,” she says. “Tell me what happened.”
We tell her about the woman I saw in the parking lot back in October, about the texts Evan sent that lured us out here, about being followed through town and through the woods, about Evan’s confession in the cabin and how Beck had to shoot him, and finally about Paisley’s eight-month stay at the motel and how she ended up dead too.
The story spills out of Beck and me in a frenzy. By the time it’s Natalie’s turn to talk, I feel like I’ve run a marathon. The water bottlethe hospital provided doesn’t have nearly the amount of water I want as I suck it down afterward.
