Save Me

Chapter 32

Okay, so the picture on the side or at the top (depending on where you're reading this, I think) is what I imagine in this scene. It's not completely accurate, like the bridge is more modern and still in use, but I wanted something for you guys to reference while reading. I thought I described the scene well, but I'm a visual person, so I thought this might help. Oh, and obviously the water is more rapid and heavy since they're in the middle of a storm. Hope this helps!

And I still don't know how many more chapters are left. I think I'm on 34 right now and I'm seeing about two more.

Chapter 32

Tall oak trees haunt me like my shadow following stiffly behind, dark and looming, attached, but not completely. Even with their protective height and dominating structure, I don't feel at all protected by their posture, just simply intimidated.

Rain pelts my skin at a harder, faster rate than moments ago and if I weren't focused on the blinding pain deep in my bones, then I'd be thinking about the shivers racking my body without my permission. If the town of Anglewood were just a few degrees colder, I know it would be snowflakes melting against my skin instead of the harsh rain soaking me to the core.

I shove off of the wet bark I'm leaning against, limping silently to the closet tree there after that I can get to without collapsing. All I can hear is the sound of rain hitting the Earth, the sound echoing around me and diminishing all other white noise far off in the distance.

It's evident that I no longer know where I am, not that I had much of an idea before and I curse myself silently for running further into the woods instead of up the hill to the closest road. Even in my deranged state with all logic gone as my survival instincts took over, I knew this would have a better outcome somehow. If I did manage to climb the wet, slippery slope to the road, there was no way I would be able to flag someone down, at least not before Luke got to me. Out here, deep in the cold, dark woods, I'm not worth the trouble to him and I almost feel sorry for anyone he manages to flag down on the side of the road.

After discovering that the recent murder in our town wasn't the first and that Luke is in fact, like part of me suspected, a serial killer, I couldn't be near him anymore. I tried and I tried to understand and sympathize, to blame his mother like he so easily had, but I just can't look past this. To see the guilt filling River's grave instead of dirt, choking him and suffocating him to the point he's almost completely gone, I can't ever justify what Luke has done.

The blame game is dangerous and deadly and I know because I always lose. I always take the blame not just for my actions, but for others and part of me even feels guilt for what happened to River and his brother.

I should have known. Somehow, someway, I should have known what happened that night and I should have turned Luke in. The night wasn't of any importance to me, so I don't remember the events that played out, but something tells me Luke did something that should have given it away. Whether it was silently slipping back into the house at two in the morning or burying the pliers he cut the brakes with in our yard (that my mother once found while cleaning up her garden, but decided to blame the previous owners instead of facing reality).

I'm sure I felt the same anger Luke did that night because he always corrects me for his mistakes, one of the many reasons I've learned to take blame for things I shouldn't concern myself with. I'm sure I have scars on my body from that night and it sickens me so much that I have to pause against dark wood of a seemingly bare tree incase I can't keep myself together any longer.

I think of the pain in River's eyes as he told me he didn't remember what went wrong, he just knew that he caused the crash. I want to wrap him in my arms and take away the guilt eating him from the inside out like a pesky tapeworm, but part of me wonders if it's too late. Can I really bring light to this new information with no proof or evidence? And most importantly, do I even have the strength to finally take Luke down?