Swell (Complete)

Chapter Fifty-Five (Part One)

"The moonlight plays so soft on her skin,
And she's singing, he's sinking-it's the sweetest sin"

...

Adora stumbled along with Marti, barely getting the chance to find her feet as she'd been wrenched away from his trembling body.
"If he dies, Marti..."
"We'll call for help up top." Marti snapped as she pulled Adora to a standing position and met her eyes at the bottom of the stairs. "He couldn't love you as much as I do." Marti whispered, putting her hands on Adora's cold cheeks and kissing her forehead.
Marti's lips felt like they burned a mark into Adora's skin as she tried to blink back more tears.
"But I love him." Adora whispered against Marti's face.
"You love me too. You told me." Marti started pulling her up the stairs.
"What did you do to Iain?" Adora looked up to the top of the stairs and feared seeing her cousin's body, bloodied and stabbed to death when they reached the flat.
"I hit him with the tripod. He'll wake up, at some stage." Marti explained callously.
Adora looked over her shoulder to the crumpled figure of Will in the sand. She hoped against hope that her phone case had kept her phone dry enough to be usable.
Or that Iain had called for help before Marti had hit him.
"Marti, why did you do all of this?" Adora trembled as the sand caked to her wet tulle skirt.
"I had to show you I was the one. I'm the one who can protect you, I'm the one who will kill anyone who hurts you. Adora, I'm the one who will love you until the day we die." Marti turned around on the steps and her face pinched as she looked at Adora.
Adora bit her bottom lip and forced herself to nod.

They reached the top and her heavy skirt swished past Iain's prone figure. The tripod lay beside him and Adora whimpered as Marti pushed her into the driver's seat of Iain's car.
"I can't drive! I'm only a learner." She gasped as Marti held the keys out from the passenger seat.
"So am I. You're driving so I know I have control." Marti shoved the keys into Adora's trembling hand and took her phone out of the drawstring bag.
"You're calling for an ambulance, for Will, right?"
"When we leave Wheeler Falls. So you have to start driving, the longer you delay, the longer the phone call will wait." Marti sneered and waved the phone beside her head.
"Alright." Adora nodded and fought with her shaking hand to find the ignition key, and then it's barrel.
She couldn't get too far out. She was praying Will had called the emergency services for himself, Marti wouldn't kill her, but she had tried to kill him.
Maybe more than once.
There was no knowing when Iain would wake up and be able to call for help if Marti had knocked him out before hand.
"Which way?" Adora turned the key in the engine and stared out the windscreen.
The dusk light was gone now, and she turned the headlights on as she pulled out of the carpark and stopped at the road.
"Towards the city." Marti pointed over the dashboard and Adora put the blinker on and turned out onto the road.
Away from Wheeler Falls.

"Call an ambulance, now." Adora held tightly onto the steering wheel as rain started to drop on the windshield.
"I don't think so." Marti pushed the button for her window and threw her phone out of it, before hurrying to close it again.
"What?" Adora glanced from the road to Marti as her friend laughed. "You'd kill your own brother?"
"I killed my ex best friend, I killed your ex best friend, family seems to be a logical step up." Marti put a hand on Adora's arm. "I'd kill anyone to be with you. Don't you see Adora? From the moment we spoke on the beach that morning after your date with Tom, after Debbie ditched me... It was meant to be."
"Marti, we became friends..." Adora stared ahead, trying not to feel Marti's hand burn through layers of wet tulle on her leg.
The road was dark, and she knew there was over 30 minutes driving before they hit the next town.
She couldn't wait that long to call for help for Will. He might not have that long.
She turned the wipers on as the rain started to become more than a drizzle. "Marti, I'm scared." She confessed, her voice shaking with her cold, wet body.
"Don't be, Adora, I've planned everything." Marti said gently.
"But my family..."
"We'll call them when we reach the cabin." Marti kissed her cheek.

Every touch burned her skin.
"Where is it?"

Marti chuckled. "You'll see. It's really beautiful. You're going to love it." Marti turned Adora's head away from the road for a kiss on the lips.
Adora whimpered and squeeze tears from her eyes.
"Keep your eyes on the road now." Marti turned her face gently back to the road.

All the notes, and messages, Brett's attack, and Gus' murder...
"You did it all then?"

"From the night of Dodge's party. It was always me protecting you, Adora. Will is too weak." Marti nodded and looked at the road ahead, the asphalt now only illuminated by their headlights and the drops of rain.
"I didn't need protecting until you came along." Adora hissed as she came into one of the hairpin turns of the Ocean Highway.
She couldn't let them get too far away, she'd never be safe if they did.
She kept her eyes ahead and flicked on the high beams. She put a hand down to the buckle of her seatbelt and then walked it across to Marti's.

The U shape appeared before them and she hit the brake pedal and twisted the steering wheel.
They spun on the wet road and Marti screamed as the rock face beside the road stopped them and the car slammed into the side.
Glass shattered and the sound of crunching metal was deafening.
Marti's scream stopped as suddenly as the spinning did.
The airbag exploded into Adora's face and her head bounced off the surface.
Something snapped and as her eyes drooped she felt the rain coming in from the windshield.