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“Think you can walk?” She nods once, her chin tilting to her chest. I keep my pace slow, and she hobbles alone a few steps behind me the whole time muttering incoherently. I make out some things, but none of it makes sense about being lost, no one to save her, metal bars and shiny men. I want to ask her about it but refrain for now.
My bag, unsurprisingly is exactly where I left it and I bed down straight away to pick up the bottled water, taking small, calculated sips. Carlie watches me gulp it down like the mere visual will save her from her thirst, and after I’ve had my third sip, I offer her the bottle. She takes it without hesitation, guzzling it down in greedy gulps before I can stop her. Her body lurches forward as the now empty bottle drops to the floor. She hand flies to her mouth as she starts heaving, the water trying to expel itself from her, but thankfully she manages to hold it down.
The beginnings of the day start to unfold as I hand her a couple of protein bars with the instruction to chew slowly. We don’t need her throwing up on top of everything else. She does as told, all the while not looking me in the eye, so I take the time to try start digging a little more.
Clearing my throat, I drop down beside her, noting the way her whole body tenses at the closeness. I hate that she thinks I’m going to attack her, but of course she does, that is exactly what I did, even if it wasn’t what I wanted to do. She doesn’t know that. She doesn’t knowme. I’m just a strange girl who chased her through the woods and stabbed her in the leg. Pulling out the medical kit from my bag, I gesture to her leg and wait for her to nod before I undo my makeshift bandage, apply disinfectant and reapply bandaging.
“Why are you running?” My voice portrays a calm I don’t feel, and I pointedly try to not look at her, hoping that it makes her feel just a little calmer.
Her voice is rough, like her vocal cords are damaged when she answers me, and I strain to make out her words now that she’s whispering. “I can’t go back.”
“Why can’t you go back? Go back to where?”
She looks at me then, her eyes glassy and unfocused. She’s terrified. “Please. Please, don’t send me back there.” Her words crack in the middle like she’s struggling to keep it together in a last-ditch hope to say what she needs to say.
“They might kill me this time. Maybe I’ll want to die. I’ll never get another chance. There’ll never be another chance.” Carlie isn’t talking to me; she’s not really talking as much as voicing her thoughts and I listen to the hopelessness in her words that I know so well.
“Carlie? Where were you? Where don’t you want to go back to?”
“Lost.” The word hangs in the air around us. Lost. Lost where? Maybe it’s the shadows I see in her eyes, or the resignation to a fate that she can’t escape on her own that makes me do it. I can’t send her back.
She brings her knees to her chest and puts her face onto of them, rocking back and forth, muttering once again. I stand up, grabbing the bag and start pulling everything out. There’s not much left in the way of supplies, a handful of protein bars and two water bottles. I take a fifty-dollar bill and push it in the front of my jeans and strap on as many of my knives as I can before repacking the bag and stomping over to Carlie.
She looks up at my approach and I drop the bag down in front of her. “There’s food, water, and some clothes in there. Make sure you ration them properly otherwise you’ll end up hungry and dead.” Pulling the keys from my pocket, I grab her hand, ignoring the way she flinches, and push them in her palm.
“Do you know how to drive?” She nods. “Good, there is a car about two days walk in that direction. Get in it, there’s cash in the glove box, it’s not much but take it and drive far away. Sell the car, ditch it, I don’t care, do whatever you want but do not be seen in it. Change your hair, change your name. Run, Carlie.”
She stares at me like I’m playing a cruel joke on her and she’s the punchline. I stare at her, letting my words sink in. She swallows roughly and launches herself into my arms, I scoot back landing firmly on my ass trying to avoid her, the last few times she’s come at me I’ve end up sore and bloody, but this time she hugs me tightly against her.
“Thank you.” I pat her back twice and nod, trying desperately to keep my own tears at bay. I cannot save myself, but just maybe I can save her. I reach into the front of the bag and pull out my second favorite bowie knife, showing her where it is.
“Hopefully, you’ll never need to use it.”
She gives me a weak smile before slinging the bag on her back. She takes a few steps before turning back to one last time. “Truly, thank you. You don’t know what you’ve just done for me.” Then she takes off.
I stare in her direction until she’s long out of sight, wondering whether I did the right thing by letting her go. I don’t know what will happen to me if I return empty-handed, but if it gets out that I deliberately let her go?Fuck. I don’t even want to think about it. Guess I have to keep my mouth shut and face whatever consequences my actions have brought about, because there’s no going back now. Deep down I know that no matter the punishment, I would never bring that girl back.
Chapter Twenty-One
I’m standing in Clarke’s living room in his personal apartment. It’s been less than an hour since he sent one of his lackies to fetch me and poof, here I am. Back in the Valley. How does he seem to have his finger on the pulse of everything that happens in this town? He knows I’ve returned and the very hotel I’ve checked in to. He always knows.
It’s been a long weekend. I’m tired, I’m cranky and I want to wash every microbial measure of dirt from my skin. The nagging need to scrub my skin raw just to see if the ick feeling releases its hold. Over and over, I see Carlie’s terror. I see it in her eyes, in the way her fingers tremor, the way her joints jerk with her movements.
I can’t imagine what she must have been through for her to shake at my mere presence around her, but if the healed scars and the yellowed bruising is anything to go by, it must have been horrific.
She’s running, and if whoever she’s escaped has hired us, she will never be still again. Only the depraved and sick seek us out, use our services. Whatever hell she was living, I can already tell was no life. She’s better off this way.
The image of her brand flashes in my mind. The taste of bile rises to the back of my throat thinking of what sick sonofabitch held a heating iron and sears a mark into another person’s skin. From how the image came out with a shadow, it is clear that it was forced on her and she did not take it without thrashing around.
Holding in a sigh that would truly show just how worn out I’m feeling, I wipe the exhaustion off my face and try to empty my mind of everything I’ve seen in the last couple of days. Instead, choosing to focus on the insignificant details of Clarke’s apartment.
Few people know the location, and even fewer are allowed to show up at his residence instead of his bar. Clarke uses the bar as the main operation for his business, choosing to persuade his clients with scantily clad women and booze before settling into the gritty details of the job.
I also know that the profits of the bar go to funnel the money he makes from the more lucrative illicit side of his business. This side. Christ knows why he bothers. He has the chief commissioner in his pocket, has for years. I’m not sure there’s much he couldn’t bribe or threaten his way out of at this rate.
When I’d question him about the bar, he fobbed me off with an anecdote that made little to no sense. That people are like wood planks, with the correct pressure applied they will snap and fold to your will, but with the right type of poison they are more pliable to suit your needs, and a sturdy structure needs intact pieces. Understanding what he was trying to say, I left it at that. If he was lining his pockets off of men who were willfully selling their soul for a pair of tits and cheap alcohol, that’s their blunder.
The room is exactly what you would expect from a bachelor. Moody, dark colors coated in leather and metal. Despite the decent size of the room and the clear minimalist styling, it lacks the warmth that is usually injected in a personal setting, appearing unlived in.
