Wings

NINETEEN

LAUREL THREW HERSELF AWAY FROM THE WINDOW. “IT looked at me.”

“Do you think it saw you?”

“I don’t know. But we have to go. Now!” She heard guttural noises from inside and her knees felt glued to the ground.

The two men yelled at the creature to shut up, but Barnes silenced them with a loud word Laurel didn’t recognize. A gentle crooning followed, and within seconds the howling of the strange creature had quieted.

Laurel leaned back toward the window but felt a small tug at the back of her shirt. She turned.

David shook his head at her and pointed to the car.

Laurel paused, but she wasn’t quite satisfied. She held up one finger to David and snuck one more peek through the side of the window.

Her eyes met the mismatched gaze of Jeremiah Barnes.

“Go!” she hissed to David, and launched herself toward the front of the house. But before she got more than a step away, she heard the glass shatter and felt a large hand grab her by the neck, yanking her through the window into the filthy room. Rough fingers scraped at her throat as she felt the wooden window frame break against her back.

Then she was flying. She screamed for just an instant before she hit the wall on the opposite side of the room. Her head spun. Distantly she heard a grunt from David as he hit the wall beside her. Laurel tried to focus as the room around her seemed to spin. David reached out and pulled her to him, and she felt a trail of hot blood drip onto her shoulder.

The room finally stopped spinning, and she looked up into Barnes’s jeering face. “What have we here?” He smiled cruelly. “Sarah’s little girl. I’ve heard more about you today than I ever wanted to know.”

Laurel opened her mouth to retort, but David squeezed her arm. Laurel felt a thick, syrupy liquid trail down from the stinging wound on her back and wondered how much damage the window frame had done.

“Good girl, Bess,” Barnes said, patting the strange animal on her half-balding head. Then he dropped to a crouch beside Laurel and David. “Why are you here?” he asked in a soft yet commanding voice. Laurel felt her mouth begin to open of its own accord. “We…we had to find out why you…why you—” Then she managed to grab hold of her wits, forced her mouth shut, and glared at Barnes.

“We could tell something wasn’t right,” David said. “We came to see if we could find anything.”

Laurel turned with wide eyes and looked at David. He was staring straight ahead with a slightly dazed look on his face that was eerily similar to the look Laurel had seen on her mom just an hour earlier. “David!” she hissed.

“And what were you planning to do if you found anything?” Barnes asked in that same strangely compelling voice.

“Get proof. Take it to the cops.”

“David!” Laurel yelled, but he didn’t seem to hear her.

“Why are you so worried?” Barnes asked.

Again David opened his mouth, but there were too many secrets that could come spilling out. Laurel closed her eyes, apologized mentally, and slapped David across the face as hard as she could.

“Shit! Ow! Laurel!” David cupped his cheek in his hand, stretching out his jawbone.

A sigh of relief escaped Laurel’s lips and she squeezed David’s hand. He just looked confused.

“I’ve heard enough,” Barnes said, standing up.

The red-haired man smiled — a sinister caricature of a real smile that made Laurel cringe and shrink back against David’s chest. “Let’s break their legs. I could use the exercise.”

Laurel felt David stiffen, and his breathing turned short and erratic.

Barnes shook his head. “Not here; this address is on my card. I’ve got enough blood to clean up as it is.” He crouched down again and looked back and forth between them for a long minute. “You two like to swim?”

Laurel narrowed her eyes and glared at the man, but David held her back.

“I think you’d find a little dip in the Chetco quite…refreshing tonight.” Barnes stood and grabbed David’s shoulders, yanking him to his feet. “Search him.” The other two men grinned and began emptying out David’s pockets — wallet, keys, and a tin of Altoids. Barnes picked up the keys and tossed them to Scarface and slid the mints and wallet back into David’s pants. “So the cops can ID you when your bodies are found in the spring,” he said with a chuckle.

Without David to hold her back, Laurel launched herself at Barnes, her nails seeking his face, his eyes, anything. Barnes tossed David to his partners and grabbed Laurel’s arms, twisting them behind her till she whimpered in pain. He set his mouth close to her ear and stroked her face. She couldn’t even flinch away. “You just hold still now,” he whispered soothingly. “Because if you don’t,” he continued in the same dulcet tone, “I’ll tear your arms off.”

David was struggling with his captors, yelling and trying to get to Laurel, but he couldn’t fight any better than she could. “Quiet!” Barnes roared in a voice that filled the room and echoed off the walls. David’s mouth clamped shut.

“Take the car,” Barnes said. “Drive up past Azalea and toss them in the river. And don’t forget to weigh them down,” he added cynically. “Make sure there’s no way this one,” he gestured toward Laurel, “shows up before the papers are signed tomorrow.” He laughed. “Spring is ideal, but as long as it’s not tomorrow, I don’t really care when they find them. And leave the car up there. Not in the parking lot — beside some trail. I don’t need some missing kid’s car hanging out in front of my office.” He glared sidelong at them. “Walk back. It’ll do you two good.”

“You’re not going to get away with this,” Laurel muttered between clenched teeth.

But Barnes only laughed. He released her arm and looked at the red splayed across his hand — David’s blood. “What a waste,” he said, wiping the blood from his hands with a white handkerchief. “Take them away.”

The two men trussed Laurel and David together and tossed them into the backseat of David’s Civic. “You can scream all you want now,” Red said with a grin. “No one’ll hear you.”

As they drove, streetlights flickered over the car, just enough light that Laurel could make out David’s face. His jaw was flexed and he looked as scared as she was, but he didn’t bother to scream either.

“Feels good to be out doing this again, doesn’t it?” Scarface said, speaking aloud for the first time. Unlike his companion, Scarface’s voice was deep and smooth — the kind of voice you’d expect to hear from the hero in an old black-and-white movie, not from this rough, disfigured face.

“Yeah,” said Red with a laugh — a wheezing rheumy laugh that made Laurel’s stomach turn. “I’ve been so sick of sitting around that old dump waiting for something exciting to happen.”

“We’re some of the best in the whole horde. But Barnes treats us like we’re nothing. Sends us off to take care of kids. Kids!”

“Yeah.” A few seconds passed in silence. “We should rip ’em to pieces instead of tossing them in the river. That’d make you feel better.”

A soft chuckle from that perfect, movie-star voice filled every inch of the car despite its low volume. A chill shivered up Laurel’s spine. “I’d like that.” He turned to peer back at Laurel and David with a frighteningly calm smile. Then he sighed and turned his eyes back to the road. “But they can’t be found for a few days. Pieces are hard to hide — even in a river.” He paused. “We better just follow orders.”

“Laurel?”

David’s whisper distracted her for one blessed instant. “Yeah?”

“I’m sorry I didn’t believe you about Barnes.”

“It’s okay.”

“Yeah, but I should have trusted you. I wish…” His voice trailed off for a few seconds. “I wish that we could have—”

“Don’t you dare start saying your good-byes, David Lawson,” Laurel hissed as quietly as she could. “This is not over yet.”

“Oh, yeah?” David asked, frustrated. “What do you suggest?”

“We’ll think of something,” she whispered as the click of the turn signal began to sound and the car slowed. She felt the wheels crunch over a dirt road and leave all lights behind. It was a bumpy ride for several minutes before the men pulled over and opened the doors.

“It’s time,” Scarface said, his face a flat, unreadable slate.

“You don’t have to do this,” David said. “We can keep our mouths shut. No one—”

“Shhh,” Red said, clapping a hand over David’s mouth. “Just listen. Do you hear that?”

Laurel paused. She heard a few birds and crickets, but above everything else, she heard the distant rush of the Chetco River.

“That’s the sound of your future, waiting to carry you away. Come on,” he said, setting David roughly on his feet. “You have an appointment and we wouldn’t want you to be late.”

They prodded their captives forward along the dark path as one of the men sang raucously and badly off-tune, “Oh Shenandoah, I long to see you. Away you rolling river.” Laurel grimaced as she kicked yet another rock with her bare toes and wished for the first time in her life that she’d worn some real shoes instead of flip-flops.

Then the trees cleared and they stood in front of the Chetco River. Laurel sucked in a breath as she stared out at the foamy white rapids rushing by. Scarface pushed her onto the ground. “You just sit here,” he snarled. “We’ll be right back.”

Laurel had no hands to catch herself with and she’d sprawled on her stomach, her cheek resting in dark, wet mud. David soon sprawled beside her, and the hopelessness of their situation finally sank in. It was all her fault and she knew it, but how do you apologize for getting someone killed?

“This isn’t how I thought it would end,” David muttered.

“Me neither,” Laurel said. “Dead at the hands of…what do you think they are? I don’t…I don’t think they’re human. Not any of them. Maybe not even Barnes.”

David sighed. “I’ve never been so reluctant to admit that I think you’re right.”

They were silent for a few moments.

“How long do you think it’ll take?” Laurel asked, her eyes fixed on the frothy rapids.

David shook his head. “I don’t know. How long can you hold your breath?” He laughed morosely. “I guess you’ll last a lot longer than me.” But his laughter broke off quickly and he sighed.

It took two seconds for Laurel’s mind to put it all together. “David!” A tiny spark of hope quivered to life in her head. “Remember my experiment? At your house, in your kitchen?” She heard the mutters of the two men as they made their way back to the riverbank. “David, take a very, very big breath,” she whispered.

The men were carrying huge rocks and singing some song Laurel didn’t recognize. More loops of rope wound around her hands and she felt Scarface test the weight of a rock almost as big as a beach ball.

A few more minutes found David in the same position. “You ready?” Scarface asked his partner.

Laurel stared out at the river. It was at least a hundred feet to the middle; what did they expect them to do, walk? As if sensing her question, Scarface picked Laurel up in one hand and the rock in the other as if neither weighed more than a pound or two. Red did the same with David. Before Laurel could wrap her mind around this new anomaly, Scarface tossed her. Cold air rushed against her face, and she screamed as she flew high in the air, just past the middle of the river. She barely managed to gulp in a mouthful of air before the rock sank through the surface and dragged her under.

The water stung like frigid needles as the roaring darkness closed in over her head. She blinked her eyes open and strained her ears for David. His rock rushed past her, barely missing her head as it descended into the murky blackness below. She wrapped her legs around his chest as he slid through the water beside her. Her rock yanked at her arms, and she tightened her legs around David. She hoped he’d managed to take a good breath.

It was only a few seconds before their rocks thunked against the bottom of the river with an eerie clack. Laurel looked up but couldn’t see even a pinprick of light. She could make out only the barest outline of David’s white skin in front of her eyes and couldn’t tell if he was still conscious. Her mouth delved in the darkness searching for his. Relief flooded through her when she felt his face move too. Their mouths met and Laurel concentrated on sealing her lips with his before blowing gently into his mouth. He held his breath for a few seconds and blew some of the air back into hers. Hoping he would understand what she was doing, Laurel pulled her mouth away and began wriggling, testing her bonds.

The water was icy cold and Laurel knew she had to work fast. First she had to get her hands in front of her, or none of this was going to work — she might not even be able to get close enough to David to give him another breath if she couldn’t use her hands. She bent forward and tried to slide her arms down her back and under her legs, but her back didn’t want to bend that far. She felt the skin on her wrists tear as she pulled harder, knowing David couldn’t hold his breath for much longer. Her spine ached as she forced it to bend farther — then even a little farther than that.

Her body rebelled, but finally her hands slipped under her knees and she kicked her legs free, searching frantically for David. She looped her arms over his neck and pressed her mouth to his again. They breathed several breaths in and out as she tried to decide what to do next. She blew a big breath back into David’s lungs and separated herself again. She pulled on the rope that connected her to her rock, and when she reached the bottom, her numb fingers searched for something sharp.

But the river was too swift. Anything that might once have been sharp had been ground down to a slick, smooth finish. She let herself float up to David for more breaths before pulling herself back down, following David’s rope this time. Her fingers fumbled with the knot around the rock and she slowly began to pull a strand of the rope free.

After a few more tries, she swam back up to give David a breath. He was struggling to get his arms in front like hers were, but he wasn’t as limber and hadn’t made any progress. After a deep breath, David went back to trying to flip his arms around, but he wasn’t even close. Laurel gritted her teeth; she’d have to do this alone. She worked herself slowly back down the rope to the knot around David’s rock.

It took three more breaths before the knot came apart in her hands. But the rope was still trapped beneath the huge rock. Bracing her feet against the bottom of the river, Laurel heaved at the rock, trying to free the last loop of rope. Her feet slipped, and she kicked off the one flip-flop that had survived the icy plunge. Her toes searched the crevices of the rocks and found a better hold, and she strained against the rock, trying to roll it just a few inches. She felt it start to move and pushed a little harder. The rock shifted suddenly and Laurel’s feet slipped away from it. The river tossed her in its current, her arms lurching back as the rope stretched taut.

David’s white form rushed past, a slave to the current and out of reach before Laurel could even try to grasp for him. It was less than a second before he was out of sight, a tiny trail of bubbles the only fading sign of his presence.

David was gone and Laurel felt like an idiot. She should have planned that better. All she could think as she stared frantically into the darkness was that it had been a long time since his last breath.

Panic edged into her thoughts and Laurel tried not to let it overtake her. The lack of air had already begun to sting her chest, but it was far less uncomfortable than any of the other things she was feeling right now. Her feet were raw from pushing David’s rock, and her wrists ached where the ropes still dug in as she flopped helplessly in the current.

She closed her eyes and thought of her parents for a few seconds, regaining a semblance of calm. She would not let her mother lose her entire family. Hand over hand, Laurel slowly dragged herself down her rope to the rock. It had worked for David, and it was probably her best hope. Because of the cold, her fingers were even clumsier now, and Scarface had done a better job than his companion. The knots yielded more slowly, and by the time she got them undone, her chest was screaming for air with an agony she’d never felt before.

And the hard part was still in front of her.

She found a decent toehold and pushed her rock, begging it to move easily.

It didn’t even budge.

She cursed in her mind and, even in the water, tears found their way to her eyes. She took a few precious seconds to move some of the smaller rocks in front of the one blocking her rope and braced her sore, tingling feet again. She pushed with all her might, and as darkness started to descend on the edges of her sight, the rock began to slide. Laurel shifted her hands and pushed again, expelling the last of the air from her mouth as she forced the rock another inch forward. Another, another, just one more.

Suddenly she was flipping through the water like a rag doll, with no concept of which way was up. She kicked frantically, trying to find some sort of bearing in the murky water. Her toe kicked a rock with agonizing force, and she bent her legs against it and thrust upward with every ounce of her dwindling strength. When she thought she could not last one more second, her face broke the surface and she gasped in a chestful of air.

The current was still dragging her along, and though she kicked toward the shore, her body had been drained of its strength. Her feet scraped the bottom and she tried to stand, but her legs wouldn’t obey. The force of the water threw her down, and her arms and legs clattered against the rocks as she tried to gain control.

Then something looped over her head, pushing her under for a few seconds. Laurel whimpered, knowing she’d been found by the two thugs, now ready to finish the job they’d started. But when the heavy loop reached her waist, it yanked her upward and away from the water. Away from the unmerciful rocks.

“I’ve got you,” David said in her ear over the sound of the current. His still-tied arms were looped around her waist, and he slogged through the shallow water toward the shore. He dragged her a few feet out of the river and onto the reed-strewn bank before collapsing on the ground. His teeth chattered in her ear as they lay together, both gasping for air.

“Thank you, God,” David sighed as the arms around Laurel went limp.