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“Is he breathing?” Maire asked.
“I don’t know,” Samuel snapped. “I can’t tell.”
Heart slamming into her chest, Maire pulled off her mittens and placed two fingers against the man’s neck, nearly gagging at the stickiness of the vomit, at the rancid smell.
“I think he’s dead,” Maire whispered. “We killed him.”
In the distance came the wink of approaching headlights. Someone was coming. “We should flag them down. Get help.” But Samuel was already shaking his head.
“No,” he said sharply. “We need to get out of here. People will ask questions. We can’t let anyone know we did this.”
“But it was an accident,” Maire said. “We didn’t mean for this to happen.”
Samuel shook his head. “Maire, we’re not kids. You’re what—twenty? I’m twenty-two. I’m trying to get into law school. We screwed up, and if we get arrested...”
“Arrested?” Maire’s chin shot up. “For what?”
“I don’t know, Maire,” Samuel said, his voice rising. “Criminal mischief, reckless endangerment, criminal injury, destruction of property, harassment. Do you want me to go on?”
She glanced down at the body at her feet. Samuel was right. They needed to go. Someone would see the wreckage, find the man. She looked back to Samuel, his dark eyes pleading with her. Maire nodded and he grabbed her hand. They started running. Soon, they were enveloped by rows and rows of slender river birch, each a ghostly white replica of the next.
They ran until Maire couldn’t take another step. Gasping for air, she leaned against a tree.
“I don’t understand,” Maire said breathlessly. “How did he get hurt so badly?”
“I don’t know,” Samuel said, bending over, hands on his knees, his breath ragged. “Maybe he wasn’t wearing a seat belt. He was going really fast. Hit his head on the windshield. Jesus, I have no idea where we are.”
“I’m really sorry,” Maire said, the reality of what they had done settling over her. “It was so stupid. I wasn’t thinking.”
“Yeah, well, it was stupid, but I did it too,” Samuel said. He examined the ground. “I don’t think we left much in the way of footprints. It’s too cold, the snow too hardpacked. Which way do you want to go?”
“We can’t go back that way.” Maire waved a hand in the direction from which they came. “Let’s find the lake. Maybe we’ll be able to see the smoke from the bonfire there.”
Samuel nodded. “Okay. It looks like the ground starts sloping down that way. It makes sense that the lake would be in that direction.”
“I think it’s getting darker,” Maire said, looking to the sky. The stars had dimmed, barely illuminating the path ahead.
In silence they began walking, glancing furtively over their shoulders. The only sound was their feet moving along the icy ground and the uneven hitch of their breath as their heart rates slowly steadied.
The trees up ahead seemed to be thinning out, replaced with scrubby brush. Maire prayed it was the lake. It was getting colder by the minute, and she dug into her pockets for her mittens.
“What are we going to tell everyone?” Maire asked, slipping the mittens over her fingers, grateful for the warmth and even more grateful to cover up the blood that stained her skin.
“I know what we’re not going to say,” Samuel said, pushing aside a prickly shrub and stepping aside so Maire could move past. “We’re not going to tell them that we ran a guy off the road and he came after us with a metal pipe and died. Definitely not that. Let’s just say we got turned around and forget this ever happened.”
“You think Figgy will let it go at that?” Maire asked, wanting to think about anything but the dead man. “She hates that you’re dating Lina, you know.”
“Figgy?” Samuel asked, genuine surprise on his face. “Why should she care?”
“You two used to go out, right?” Maire asked.
“Oh, no,” Samuel said, drawing out the words. “That girl is all drama, all the time. No, thank you. We hung out a few times, but that’s it. Figgy may have wanted more but I was definitely not interested.”
“But she said you two hooked up,” Maire said. “Why would she lie?”
“Why would I?” Samuel said. “Never happened. Never will.” He said this with such finality that Maire almost believed him. “Finally,” Samuel said with relief.
Maire stepped out from behind Samuel. Stiff winds had swept away any lingering snow and Tanglefoot Lake lay in front of them like a polished silver platter. Instead of feeling relief, Maire was again reminded of how very alone they were.
