The Box in the Woods (Truly Devious #4)(77)

energy Stevie had. Her body was numb and exhaustion took over. She began to slip from the rock.

“Whoa . . . whoa . . .” David swung his legs over the side of the kayak and slipped into the water, catching her in a clumsy hold. She was dead weight and he struggled to get a grip on her and keep the other hand on the kayak.

“Okay,” he said, seeming to sense the gravity of the situation, “how do we do this? Nate, do you think you can get over here and grab the kayak?”

“I think-k so,” Nate said, reaching for the kayak. He fumbled once or twice but finally got a firm enough grip on one of the ropes on the side and hauled his body over it.

“Arm-m,” Stevie mumbled. “Doesn’t-t-t work-k.”

“Okay,” David said, trying to sound calm, and failing. “It’s okay. I’ve got you.”

He reached up into the kayak and pulled out a life vest, which he put over her functioning arm. Nate was holding the back of the kayak, so David helped guide Stevie into a resting position slumped over the front.

“Okay,” he said. “It’s a short distance to the beach area there. Nate, hold on.”

David climbed up on the rock and got himself into the kayak, pushing back with the paddle and narrowly missing Nate’s head. With choppy strokes, made to avoid striking either of the people attached to the front and back of the kayak, David began to paddle. The closest stretch of dirt beach was about thirty yards away—not a great distance, but impossible in Stevie’s current state. Stevie felt herself growing





sleepy at points. She wanted to close her eyes, but her inner voice and David’s outer voice kept telling her to wake up, hold on. She needed both arms through the life vest. She tried to move her left arm again, and a white-hot pain shot behind her eyes, causing the world to scramble into black-and-white dots. No left arm. Instead, she put further demands on her right. Her right arm was going to give the performance of its life. She commanded it to ignore cold, ignore fatigue. It was the strongest, best arm in the world.

She could feel something under her—her feet were dragging on the ground.

“Almost,” David said. “Here . . . here . . .”

Nate released his grip, which caused the kayak to turn a bit. He staggered onto the beach. By this point, Stevie’s right arm was numb from overwork and she felt herself slide, but she held on until the ground hit her knees. David got out of the kayak, half falling, and got her up under his arm and moved her to the shore. The kayak, its job finished, decided to embrace the moment and float away.

David leaned over Stevie and Nate on the cold, rocky sand.

“You guys,” he said. “Are you okay? What the actual fuck . . .”

Stevie looked up at him. His face blocked out the moon and the fireworks.

“I think my-y-y arm’s broken-n-n,” she said.

And then, mercifully, she passed out.





The next few hours were hazy. Someone from the campground had summoned a ranger, who found them on the beach. Stevie partially noted the conversation that went on, the questions about whether she could walk. She must have failed that test, because someone put her on a backboard and secured something around her neck. There was a strange journey through the woods, bumping along on a board held by two people who had appeared out of the ether. Then she was in an ambulance with Nate.


“The diary . . . ,” she said.

“Forget the diary,” he replied, shivering in his metallic blanket.

Everything hurt—a dull, allover ache that penetrated the depths of her bones. She kept trying to close her eyes, only to have a paramedic wake her and shine a light in them. Why wouldn’t anyone let her sleep? Maybe if she slept, she could read Sabrina’s diary in her dreams. . . .

The thing she was resting on suddenly popped up and she was wheeled into a bitterly cold and obscenely bright emergency room. She watched the ceiling tiles go by as she was wheeled along, watched the fluorescent lights, the signs over doorways. She was taken to a curtained compartment, where a nurse asked her questions like what her name was. People kept appearing, not looking urgent or alarmed, but refusing to let her be. They wanted to see her pupils, listen to her chest, move her arm . . .





That got a little scream.


She kept trying to close her eyes and recall Sabrina’s writing, hold the diary in her mind. But then she got something better. A face. That face, with the wide brown eyes and dark brown hair. Sabrina. She couldn’t quite see her, but she sensed her nearby, whispering something she couldn’t make out.

“Hold it right there, Stevie. You’re doing great.”

She opened her eyes to find that she was not speaking to Sabrina, but to a member of the hospital staff who was inserting her head into a massive machine. It was a brief stay, then she was removed.

God, this place was freezing. She shivered uncontrollably.

“I’ll have the nurse get you a blanket,” the person said.

Back out in the hall, a nurse came along with the promised blanket and tucked it around her.

“Is that too tight?” he said. “Do you want it loose?”

“Moose?”

“Loose.”

“I saw a moose once,” Stevie replied.

The nurse frowned, but she settled Stevie in and wheeled her to her next destination, which was the X-ray department. From there, she went to a small room where her left arm was put in a cast. Finally, her journey through the hospital complete, she was returned to the emergency room. For a few minutes, she was alone, then the curtain scraped back and Nate appeared, shuffling in in a voluminous pair of purple yoga pants and a Box Box fleece.