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I can’t breathe.
I can’t breathe.
I can’t breathe.
“He can’t be dead,” I mumble, more to myself than anything. “He can’t be. It’s not possible. He’s alive. He’s alive because we just talked to him. He…he has to be alive.”
“They must’ve found him when he came tonight.” Austin wipes his eyes with the back of his arm. “That’s why he never got here. That’s why he was late.”
“He was supposed to be okay,” Mara whispers. “He has to be okay.”
“They didn’t do this tonight. He’s been dead longer than a few minutes,” Memphis says, and I silently agree. Something about this isn’t right.
Aside from the obvious.
“What do you mean?” Austin asks, struggling to stand up.
“He’s, um, h-he’s been there for a while.” Memphis’s voice is shaky as he squeezes his eyes shut, thinking. Calculating, maybe. “Several hours, at least. Probably more like a day or two.”
“How would you know?” Denial draws a wrinkle across Austin’s forehead. “That’s impossible. We were just talking to him.”
Memphis’s eyes pop open. “I read a lot of nonfiction, remember? True crime. There’s no way his body would look like that after just a few minutes.” He runs a hand across his mouth, shaking his head. “He’s been here at least a day. Has to have been.”
“If that’s the case, who’s been messaging us? If he’s been dead for a day or longer, who has his phone?” Austin looks around as if accusing us.
“Days… Maybe that’s why he canceled. Maybe he was… Maybe he was gone all along,” Mara whimpers, looking at me with horror in her eyes. She chews her bottom lip, her chin quivering.
What if that’s why he never texted me back?
But then who was messaging us on his profile?
I can’t seem to swallow. My throat is tight and uncomfortable. I’m not sure I’m breathing.
“If they killed him, they probably have his phone,” Austin says, running a hand through his hair. “We have to get back to the house and lock the door. Wait for the police to come.”
“The operator said it’ll be at least half an hour before someone can make it out here,” Memphis informs us. “And that’s not including whatever time it takes them to get around or deal with the tree in the road. Even under the best conditions, these people have the house key. Locking the doors won’t do any good and it’s too long to wait. We have to run.” His eyes go wide. “Oh, shit. We have to warn Paulette and Logan.”
I swallow as reality sets in. Poor Paulette and Logan are running down the road with no idea what’s happened.
“He’s right. We have to run. Right now, our only chance of getting away from these people is getting out of this town,” I say, standing to my feet. “We don’t know when they’ll be back. We’ve told the police about the…bodies.” As I say the word, his face flashes in my mind. He was a person. Someone with thoughts and feelings and goals and ambitions. He had people who cared about him. And now, in the blink of an eye, he’s gone. Reduced to rotting in the dirt under a house.I’m so sorry, Ethan. So, so sorry.“Now, we have to get out of here.”
“Will we even make it?” Mara asks, already moving.
We all race to keep up.We just have to try, I tell her silently, not willing to expend my energy on any more words.We just have to try.
My legs burn as much as my lungs, but I refuse to quit moving as my feet slam into the ground beneath me. My bag drags across the gravel, the wheels bumping and jostling it in every direction, but I can’t slow down.
I can’t.
I won’t.
Memphis stays with me, though I suspect he’s moving slower than he is capable of in order to stay together.
Guilt weighs on me for letting us split up in the first place. Paulette and Logan are in danger now, and we may not make it to warn them. We were safer in a group.
Safety in numbers.
Though I know, realistically, it wasn’t my fault, and the group’s safety isn’t my responsibility, I wish I’d asked them to stay. I’d been so determined to find out why the Hawthornes’ SUV was there, I hadn’t really been paying attention to what was happening with everyone else. I wish I’d told them we shouldn’t split up. I wish I’d asked them to consider staying.
