The Skylar Experiment : Dead Ending (second draft)

82. Lie In Wait

RILEY

WE DIDN'T MAKE IT FAR from the escape point. Lauren waited a full fifteen minutes before suggesting we ditch the car, take our belongings and cross the state border on foot.

"Why, you think they might search there?" Raymond questioned. He drove calmly now, but his hands were stiff as steel. His eyes were trained ahead and sideways, constantly checking the mirrors. I couldn't remember the last time he had any human-like twitch.

"I don't know how likely it is, but if they block the border and search vehicles, we can't turn around in the waiting line. After the highway, everyone would be on the lookout for a white Audi. People will understand a search of that magnitude." She twisted to glimpse at her brother, who was pale and mute. "And we can't take those bullets out in the car. He won't heal until that's done."

I gazed at him from my corner, still unable to process the last two hours. Two hours ago, I was asleep on the living room armchair. Now, we just lost everything.

Now, the dust was beginning to settle in reality.

I'd had no idea what he set out on doing in the heat of the moment, back in the forest. I would never have guessed. The outstretched flames that flowed down the slope and engulfed the encompassing land, the dying cries of hunters, the ash cloying air and the charred, decayed tree trunks as he let the fire die down...

When I'd looked back through the rear window as we sped away, I saw the fresh scar on the mountain and realized the damage had been far more extensive than what we'd only seen up close. It was a whole hillside burned to the ground.

We all looked at it, yet no one said a word.

Raymond cruised through a neighboring town and pulled up in an alley between two buildings without balconies. Lauren and Luc had brought backpacks with them, but I took Luc's to avoid him having to endure the chafing on his injuries. Raymond assembled a few things from the trunk in a duffel bag, and we started for the border through a continuation of the forest.

Once we reached the cover of trees under a glaring noon sun, we gathered around Luc.

"I'll do it," Raymond offered as he was already kneeling beside him. He was carrying the duffel bag which he dumped on the ground near some tree roots. "I'm the one with the most unused energy here."

Lauren approached them both, the soles of her boots quietly crunching the frozen soil. Her feet landed on a molehill of sorts that gave her more height than she already had. This whole situation of being reunited with Lauren might prove to be trickier than expected, I thought.

The golden opportunity to turn us in had just passed, but none of us really knew what she'd been up to these past months. I didn't know what they discussed in the early morning while I slept or if I believed it with all my heart.

Meanwhile, Raymond lifted Luc's shirt from the back and tsked lowly. I rounded the space to stand behind him and felt my fingertips go numb. The bullets were all buried in tissue and muscle, forming little raw craters that were still damp. I counted them.

Luc leaned forward on his haunches, inhaling deep.

"You sure you don't want Riley to hold your hand? Removing a bullet is a special kind of hurt, let alone seven—hey, do you want to take them out one at a time or all at once?"

He wore a passive scowl, but I couldn't tell if he was more tired than peeved. God, he'd gone full throttle despite all these wounds. He glanced at me, and I mustered what I hoped looked like a tiny, encouraging smile.