Life Lost and Found

30: This is How it Ends

"Shut up!" she cried, screaming as hard as she could at the voices telling her to quit, to stop, to just die already. They had come, quick and harsh and loud, the very moment she had dared consider making fate take her stupid wish back—insisting that her efforts would be too little too late. That no one cared anyway.

"Just shut up! I care!"

Her good hand tightened into a fist. Necklace or no, it was time to get to work. Time to stop hesitating. Time to be clever and tough. "Ladies and gentlemen, please remain conscious until the pity party comes to a full and complete stop," she hissed through gritted teeth.

She coughed again. More blood. Yeah, it was definitely time. She hoped she wasn't too late. She breathed as deeply as she could—steeled herself for what she was about to attempt.

Okay. Okay. In 3... 2... On the count of one, she braced her left arm on the asphalt, pushed hard, and rolled herself over.

She made it, but her right foot twisted in the process.

Her eyes went wide with horror, and she choked on a scream, followed by a few agony-ridden sobs, which were actually not sobs at all, but more screaming. Her fingers dug into wet rocks and road tar, her mind empty of anything and everything except—pain. There was only pain.

She lay there, whimpering, shuddering on the blacktop for some amount of time, she didn't know how long, her ragged, wheezing breath bubbling through rivulets of water running down her face.

Eventually: "This... is still... a good idea?" she sniffled through rain and tears.

Yes. This was still a good idea.

"Don't you die on me, Madeline Parker... don't you quit," she echoed Gina's words from the day of the Epic Six. "This is just like that. Just like the park."

She pictured herself on the track at Alton Baker, pushing her body, ignoring the pain, focused on her goal, breaking the coveted six-mile mark. "So help me," she swore to the rain-soaked asphalt, "I will live to make it seven."

She peeled her face off the road to get her bearings. She was further away from the scene of the incident than she had originally thought. Maybe, what, thirty feet? Her pink camera bag stood out in the dim, red light, lying near the Atelier Sydney sign. Her camera had slipped out and broken in pieces, and she made a mental note to be very, very sad about it—later.

Her head swam, and she steadied herself with her left arm, her eyes locked on the camera bag. Sure, things were alarmingly similar to the night her mother had died, but Madeline had something going for her that her mother hadn't: excellent cell phone reception. She reached forward with her good arm and pulled, using her hip and left leg to push from behind.

She had known it was going to hurt, but the pain still surprised her with its intensity, and she quickly collapsed with a tortured, gurgling scream, her face bent to the road. "Well, we're sure having fun now!" she cried after taking a minute to recover.

She pulled herself forward again with similar results, having to stop and rest for a while each time.

"Road, I think I hate you. Wait..." She clawed bits of tar-covered rock as she coughed again. "Okay, I've given it some serious thought, and it turns out that I do, in fact, hate you."

Reaching forward, she gripped a crack in the road and heaved. She screamed again. She measured the distance as she went. She was one-third of the way there.

"Would Sofie be crying in this situation?" she hissed. "No!" She would just make a joke or something. Or use a figure of speech incorrectly. She thought about how Sofie had looked when Madeline had said she was leaving. "I'm coming, Sofie!" she vowed.