Dreaming of Alten

Chapter 13. Alten in Real Life

I scream and try to pull away, but Colin's holding on to me too tightly. I hit his arm with my hands but it doesn't seem to affect him. "Let go of me!" I yell at him.

"Shut up," he says coldly. He drags me up to my feet, so roughly that I almost lose my balance, but he pulls me up by the back of my shirt before I fall.

"What are you doing?"

He doesn't answer, just pushes me, forcing me to walk down the beach in front of him.

"Let go of me!" I shout again, trying to twist free, but Colin now has an iron grip on my arm, so tight that I'm sure it's going to leave bruises. "Stop!"

He shoves me. "I told you to shut up."

I look desperately around the beach, but there's no one except us, not even Kimberly, who's usually joined at the hip with Colin. I remember then that Alten's just gone to the car, so he should be somewhere close, maybe even on the way back, so I start screaming for him.

Behind me, Colin laughs. I can feel his breath on my ear. "Yelling for your boyfriend?" he asks, and something about the way he says it is just wrong, like he knows something I don't, and he's amused by it.

I stop screaming and feel a wave of fear wash over me. "What did you do to him?"

He laughs again. "You'll see."

That's when I look down and see that Colin's hand, the one clutching my arm, is covered with blood. I stop breathing. If Colin wasn't so strong, I would have stopped walking too, but he continues to push me forward, and I have to move in spite of myself. "What did you do to Alten?" My voice is a whisper. I feel more scared than I've ever felt in my life.

He doesn't answer, but he doesn't need to. When I look in the direction of the Porsche, I can see three people coming towards us. Two of them are Colin's friends, Mike and Ethan, and the one in the middle that they're dragging along is Alten.

Both Mike and Ethan have blood on their hands too. Lots of it. It looks like they've just murdered someone. I look quickly at Alten to see if he's hurt. There are two or three cuts on his face, and his cheek is turning red, maybe from a punch, but otherwise he looks okay.

So where is all the blood from?

"Ash!" Alten sounds both worried and relieved as he yells my name. "Ash, are you—" Mike hits him across the face, but Alten shakes it off like it's nothing and keeps talking. "Ash, are you okay?"

I try to reply, but Colin tightens his arm around my neck, so much so that all I can manage is a weak gasp.

"Let her go!" Alten struggles to get loose, and Mike and Ethan both hit him, one after the other. Alten grunts and doubles over, his body going limp. I would scream, if Colin wasn't pressing down so hard on my throat. As it is, I think I'm about to pass out.

"You think you're really smart, don't you?" sneers Colin, addressing Alten. "Having your friends follow us and try to stop us. Too bad they're so useless they didn't even notice us until just before we killed them."

My stomach twists. Killed? Did Colin just say he killed Alten's friends? Is that why all three of them have so much blood on their hands?

I think I'm going to be sick.

This can't be happening. This isn't supposed to be happening.

Between Mike and Ethan, Alten starts to move, weakly, and they both hit him again, but this time they do it together. One of them hits him in the stomach and the other one hits him in the face. Alten goes limp again. I can hear him gasping for air, and then Ethan hits him again, and Alten sort of chokes.

"Stop!" Without even thinking about it, I drive my elbow back into Colin's stomach, and he's so surprised that he lets me go. I feel the blade of his knife scrape over my arm as I pull away from him, and then I take off running down the beach. I can hear them shouting behind me, but I don't look back.

The Porsche. I have to get to the Porsche. I left my phone in my jacket. Alten wasn't holding it, so it's probably still in the car, or maybe he dropped it somewhere. If I can find it, I can call someone. Or I could get in the car and try and get help.

But what if they kill Alten too while I'm gone?

No, they can't. They won't.

There's blood, warm and red, dripping into the palm of my hand, running down from a cut in my arm. It must be from Colin's knife. It should hurt, but I can't feel it. I can't feel anything at all.

Something hard hits me in the back and I'm falling before I know it. My hands hit the sand and then I tumble over onto my side. Suddenly, I can feel pain, but not in my arm, in my hands. They feel like they're on fire.

"Gotcha!" It's Colin. He pushes me onto my back. He's still holding the knife in one hand. I can see red on the edge of the blade. I try to get up, but he holds me down by putting his knee on my stomach, and then he grabs a fistful of my hair, pulling my head up so that he can look at my face. I push at him with my good arm, trying to get him off me, but he's too strong.

"Let her go." Alten's suddenly there, standing behind Colin. Blood's trickling out the side of his mouth and he looks a little unsteady on his feet, but his voice doesn't sound any different from how it usually does.

Colin doesn't say anything, but he doesn't let go of me either. His hold on my hair hurts, like he's trying to pull all of it out by the roots. I hear someone make a sort of whimpering sound, and after a second I realize it's me, and that the sound is slipping through my lips without my being aware of it.

Alten grabs Colin's shoulder to pull him away from me, but Colin's holding on to me so tightly that the three of us roll over in a heap and everything just spins. Somewhere in the middle of it I hear myself screaming.

Colin falls on top of me and for a minute the breath is knocked out of me and I see stars. Then the weight vanishes and I look up to see Alten and Colin standing over me, hitting each other. I gasp and try to catch my breath, but I can't seem to get any air into my lungs. I hear myself making a strange sort of wheezing sound.

There's blood on my shirt. I think at first that it's from my arm, but it's not. I can tell because the patch of blood I can see is growing bigger and bigger, and my arm is nowhere near it.

I try to raise my hand to feel where the blood is coming from, but I can't move.

"Ash!" Alten's kneeling next to me, looking horrified. He puts his hands on my chest, pushing down so hard that it hurts.

I try to speak, to tell him to stop.

"Don't move," he says. "Don't talk."

Why does he look so scared?

I feel myself begin to drift away and Alten puts both his hands on either side of my face. I can feel the touch of his fingers on my cheeks. They feel very soft and very warm. "Stay with me, okay?" he says. "I need you to stay with me, Ash. Please."

I'm not going anywhere.

Am I?

I can see blood on Alten's hands when he takes them away from my face. My blood. I'm bleeding.

I'm cold.

Colin's face appears in my line of vision behind Alten's shoulder. I can see Mike and Ethan too. I try to tell Alten, to warn him, but I can't speak. I can't move. I can't breathe.

They pull Alten away from me and start hitting him. I can see them kicking and punching him until he goes down into a heap on the ground. Colin and his friends stand in a loose circle over Alten. I can hear them laughing.

Alten's face is turned towards mine. His eyes are open. His lips move, mouthing words to me. My vision's getting blurry and I can't tell what he's saying. It could be I love you or I'm sorry or maybe something else.

Colin drags Alten to his feet and gets his friends to hold him upright.

The last scene I see before I lose consciousness is Colin stabbing Alten with the knife. Over and over and over.