AllFreeNovel
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The surroundings are familiar.
I’m close.
I walk up a steep hill and see a brown house in the distance, my heart stuttering when I realize where I am.
I’m home.
I stumble, overcome with too many emotions. I want to drop here. Wait for someone to find me. But where I’m at, I’m hidden by the cluster of pine trees.
So close.
I use the trees, roots, and rocks as leverage as I pull myself up the hill. By the time I make it to the top, my foot is screaming in protest and I start coughing, a splat of blood spraying on the snow in front of me.
Shit, that hasn’t happened since Mexico.
I crawl towards the path that I’ve used many times, half crawling, and half walking towards my house. The purse weighs so much, I’ve wanted to drop it a million times.
A promise is a promise.
The pain in my chest is sharper with the cool air. It’s like my lungs are freezing, giving away and dying even as I take a breath.
I’m only steps away when my body slows down. It knows I’m almost there and is refusing to go any further.
I make it to my front step, my chest squeezing tight.
My bad foot presses on the top stair, and the pain makes my ears start to ring.
I grip onto the unfamiliar chair and try to use it as leverage.
If I can just make it to the door handle, I can get inside.
The chair moves, too light to be used as a weight.
I try one more time, pressing my hands into the snow-covered porch and push myself.
My arms give out, and my face slams onto the porch.
And I finally give in to the pain.
24
Ivy
“Aziel?” I ask, confused.
I touch the body, which is cold and the clothes are crunchy from being half-frozen. I lift the shoulder and see a face that looks so familiar and a face that looks startlingly unfamiliar.
“Aziel?!” I cry out.
It’s him, I realize. The white shirt and black dress pants are what he wore over two months ago. Around the edges of his face are traces of the face makeup we wore at the party. This is definitely him, but there are some things that are very, very wrong.
His lips are tinged blue, his slender face hollowed out and thin. His lips are peeled and cracked, blood constantly pooling within the creases. He is clearly dehydrated.
His clothes are wet, and freezing cold, all the way down to his pants. His feet have no socks, no shoes, and I realize one of his feet is bent unnaturally, a lump on the side making me think his ankle is broken.
And his feet are discolored, swollen, and freezing.
I let out a ear piercing scream, realization hitting me straight in the chest.
