The Evolution of Mara Dyer (Mara Dyer #2)(91)

I couldn’t process what I was seeing.

Neither could the cop. He wrested the box cutter from Jude’s hand.

“What in the hell—what’s wrong with you?”

Jude fell to his knees, wincing. The cop turned on the radio. “Dispatch, send backup to—”

But the man dropped the radio before he could finish his sentence. An expression of exquisite pain swallowed his confusion. Then he dropped Jude’s box cutter.

Just a few feet away.

I slumped down and crawled toward it because I was too weak or too scared to stand. Pain chewed through my nerves. My vision was edged in black and red. I crawled anyway.

“Don’t . . . bother,” Jude wheezed. He just knelt there, half bent, staring down, his head heavy and his arms limp.

I moved toward him even though everything in me was utterly repelled. I wanted to stop. I kept going. There was groaning—but it wasn’t mine or Jude’s. It was the man, the cop. I couldn’t see him or hear what he was saying or see what was happening. I had one thing on my mind and that was the blade. I reached for it but my muscles weren’t under my control; they shook and I was weak and when my fingers nudged the plastic handle, it fell through the slats of the dock.

It was over.

I was done. My legs and shoulders collapsed and I couldn’t move myself up or anywhere. My eyes were open still and I was still conscious but there was so much pain I wished I wasn’t.

I felt the vibration of a body hitting the dock. It was the cop; I could see him out of my peripheral vision. His eyes were open. Glassy. His breathing was shallow. I heard a tinny voice somewhere to my left. His radio? The only other sound was the water beneath me. The wood was rough against my cheek. I looked down. The water slapped the pylons as the tide slowly came in. It was louder than I would have expected. The moonlight lit the surface of the water. Peaceful.

But then I noticed shapes down there. The shapes, the things, were slapping wetly against the pylons. It wasn’t just the waves.

In a burst of focus before I lost consciousness, I realized that the water wasn’t empty.

It was filled with hundreds of dead and dying fish.





54





TIME DIDN’T EXIST FOR ME ANYMORE. IT could have been seconds or years before I heard another sound.

Beep.

I tried to open my eyes, but the world was bleached of color. Someone had scraped it all away.

Hiss.

“It’s so much more fun when you fight.”

Jude’s voice in my ear. I tried to kick out but I was tangled in something. Caught and helpless, still.

“She’s waking up.” A new voice, strange and foggy and unfamiliar. I tried to speak but gagged instead.

Footsteps approached rapidly. “Shh, now. Just relax.” A hand on my shoulder, heavy and somehow reassuring.

My eyes flew open and light seared my vision. I closed them for a minute, or maybe five. Then tried again.

A woman leaned over me, blurred at the edges, not looking in my eyes. I caught the underside of her jaw, her neck, and her large chest as she reached over me.

“Who are you?” I asked hoarsely, in a voice that didn’t sound like my own.

I thought I caught a smile. “Name’s Joan, sweetie.”

“Wait—is she—Mara, oh God, Mara, are you awake, honey?”

My mother’s voice rushed in, plunging me in warmth. Something clawed and tore at my chest and it was hard to breathe—then I realized it was a sob. I was crying.

“Oh, honey.” Her hands on me, delicate but solid.

I tried to focus. It was like looking at the world through smudged glass, but I finally, finally saw where I was.

Industrial ceiling tile. Florescent overhead lights. Machines.

The hospital.

The second I thought it, more feelings announced themselves; the tube under my nose. The pressure in my hands, my arms, where more tubes branched out from my skin. I wanted to rip them out and scream but everything was so tight; my chest, my arms, everything. I couldn’t move.

“Why can’t I move?” I asked. I looked down at my body, which was covered completely by a scratchy-looking blanket.

My mother appeared in my view. “It’s to keep you safe, baby.”

“From what?”

My mother glanced up at the ceiling, searching for words. “You don’t remember,” she said, as if to herself.

I remembered Jude taking me from my room and bringing me to a dock to open my veins. I remembered him threatening to kill my family if I didn’t obey.

My mother withdrew something from her pocket then. It was a piece of paper, folded very small; she opened it in front of me. “You left this in your room before you took Daniel’s car,” she said, then showed me the piece of paper. “It was in your journal.”

The journal I didn’t remember keeping. A page of words I didn’t remember writing:

Help me help me help me help me

My mother’s face was broken. She was ashen and drawn and she looked like she’d been crying for a hundred years. “You slit your wrists, Mara,” she said, and choked back a sob. “You slit your wrists.”

“No,” I shook my head fiercely. “You don’t understand.” I tried to sit up and move but I couldn’t. I was still trapped, which poisoned me with panic. “I want to sit up,” I said with desperation.