One Step Too Far (Frankie Elkin #2)(89)

“Tell Rob . . . I love him.” I shake my head. I’m not me. I don’t have to scream and wail and cry. I am someone else, the kind of person who can fix this.

I rip open Bob’s shirt. Survey the damage to his red-furred torso. Blood gurgles from a hole in his left side.

“Pays to be a big guy,” Bob gasps out. “He was aiming . . . for the heart.”

“Joke’s on him,” I agree, trying to think. We’ve just done this. Martin. Bob took the lead, but I remember the steps. First aid kit, alcohol wipes, maxi pads. Okay, I got this. I set down my pack and start tearing it apart.

I had a first aid kit. Where the hell is the first aid kit? And tampons? Dammit, we used them on Martin. I need more feminine hygiene products. I got a really giant man here and he demands more feminine hygiene products. Hysteria bubbles up. I squash it back down. I’m not me. I don’t need to feel hysterical. I’m the kind of person who can fix things.

Bob’s fingers curl around my wrist.

“Stop.”

“I just have to get more supplies,” I babble. “Neil’s pack. He’ll have tampons.”

“You . . . need to run.”

“It’ll be okay. I remember what you did with Martin.”

“Martin’s dead.”

“We don’t know—”

“I can feel the blood . . . in my lungs. Nothing . . . you can do. The others?”

“Miggy’s okay.” I think. “Scott, Neil . . .” I don’t know, but I can’t admit to that level of helplessness. Hopelessness.

“You. Miguel. Go. He’ll . . . be back.”

“Miggy wounded him.”

“He’ll . . . be back.”

“No. Goddammit!” And now I’ve had enough. Of blood and bullet wounds and men dying on me. Bob is going to live because I will it to be so.

Bob is going to live, because three times later, the fucking universe owes me one.

“How’s it going?” Miggy calls out.

“Alive. Side wound. Need more supplies.” I go crawling over to Neil. Feel his neck. “Has a pulse,” I announce, “but out cold.”

With that, I rip the pack off Neil’s back. Supplies are supplies. We’re all scavengers now. “Scott?” I ask.

“Shoulder wound.” I hear the sound of tearing, Miggy performing his own first aid duties.

“Go,” Bob tells me again when I reappear.

“Shut up.”

“Terrible . . . bedside . . . manner.”

“Rob needs you. Bigfoot needs you. I’m going to patch you up. You’re going to live.”

“Tell Rob I love him.”

“Shut up!” I’m beyond furious. I’m livid. I’m enraged. I ransack Neil’s pack, discovering a small first aid kit and yes, two tampons and two maxi pads, which I will never look at the same way again.

“Now, you listen to me, big man. This is gonna hurt like a mother. I don’t have time to be gentle.”

Bob stares at me through glassy blue eyes. “Find it.”

“Find what?”

“Whatever it is . . . you’re really searching for.”

“Shut up! Look at Miggy. Right now. Look.”

Bob turns his head. I jam in the first cotton plug. His entire body bows. But he doesn’t scream. Doesn’t so much as whimper. He doesn’t want to call attention, I realize. He’s afraid of summoning the hunter back.

Now I am sobbing. I can’t help myself as I tear open more packets, and I curse him and clutch at him and just plain beg him to live as I pile gauze on his wound and tape it savagely in place.

Only then do I remember the exit wound.

Finally, I get it. Except I don’t want to get it. What Bob had been telling me.

I stop studying the pale hairy torso in front of me; I inspect the ground beneath.

The earth has turned black with blood. Pints of it. Gallons of it. Too much of it.

“Please,” I try. To Bob. To the universe.

“Tell Rob . . . I love him.”

And then. Then . . .



* * *



—

Eventually, Miggy is there. Miggy tugs at me. Miggy slaps my face.

“Frankie,” he says. “Let him go.”

Then: “Frankie, Scott and Neil still need us.”

Then: “Frankie, get the fuck up and move. Time to run.”

So I do.





CHAPTER 36





We’re sprinting. No, we’re slipping and sliding, slamming into pine boughs and scraping off our skin on tree bark and smashing our shins against rocks. But we don’t stop. We crash and careen, swallowing our screams and ignoring our pain as we race on.

I trip. Stumble down several feet, whack my shoulder against a boulder. I might be sobbing in terror. There’s so much snot and sweat on my face it’s impossible to tell.

I can’t think. I can’t process. I can only move, so I stagger up, stumble on, Miggy right in front of me.

We’re not on any trail. Just somewhere in the middle of the woods. We turn in any direction that leads down, the steeper the better. We’re probably lost. We’re probably about to be shot in the back. We can’t worry about such things.