Cody's Come Home. Mary Sullivan

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СКАЧАТЬ it hurt. A hot blade had been driven into her chest.

      Small branches, dirt and pebbles rained down on her. She tried to cover her head, but only one armed worked. When the debris stopped falling, only her pounding pulse echoed in the sudden silence.

      Like an unforgiving enemy, pain visited every cell in her body. Her shoulder ached. Her ankle throbbed.

      She lay still, playing possum, in case he was up top watching her. She listened for footsteps, too hurt to defend herself if he came down. Her heart pounded against the constricted wall of her chest like a boxer battering a speed bag.

      For what felt like a good ten minutes, she lay still.

      He was gone. He must be by now.

      She peeked up the hill, but the trees and vegetation were too thick to see if anyone stood on the ridge.

      The ravine was deeper here than farther along. Getting out would be hard. She refused to cry.

      She struggled to shrug out of her backpack, but a searing ache shot through her shoulder. It felt as if it had been ripped from its socket.

      “Damn!” she shouted.

      So dumb, Aiyana. Be quiet! What if he’s biding his time waiting for you to betray your position? She clamped down on the impulse to moan.

      Squirming, sweating, swearing when it hurt, she managed to get the pack off her back and toss it aside so she could sit up. The minute she did, her ankle screamed bloody murder, and she flopped back down.

      Pain, so sharp her eyes watered, shot up her leg.

      She rose onto one elbow, gingerly, while her shoulder sent out a banshee wail of protest. She peered along the length of her body. No broken bones, but she’d hit the ground hard enough to jam her foot under and between two boulders. What were the chances? Close to nil, but somehow Aiyana had managed it.

      Story of her life these days.

      No. Don’t think that way.

      “I’m not a victim,” she muttered, when what she really wanted was to shout to the world, to scream at the monster with no face who had chased her here, “Never again.”

      I will never be a victim again.

      But, of course, she didn’t scream. She might be defiant, but she wasn’t stupid.

      A squirrel argued with her from a tree ten feet up the hill. Otherwise the woods were silent.

      She lay on her back, panting.

      Okay. Calm down, Aiyana. How bad is it? Take stock of your injuries.

      Why did her chest hurt so much? She touched herself with her good hand.

      Her camera had twisted around her neck in the fall and she’d landed directly on it, the lens jammed against her breast.

      She took if off and studied it. Her body had sustained damage, but not the camera. She placed it on top of her knapsack.

      Alone at the bottom of a mountain—okay, a very long hill—injured and stuck, she would have to pry herself loose and crawl back up. Tentatively, she sat up, but the motion torqued her leg and ankle awkwardly, increasing the pain by a quantum leap. She had to ignore the agony and get that foot unstuck. She had to do something. Dusk settled over the valley like a damp blanket. With it, a chill seeped into her bones. She wanted to be back up that hill and on her way home before darkness fell.

      No, that wasn’t true. What she really wanted was to call the police to send someone here to get her unstuck and to arrest whoever was chasing her.

      She reached for her phone, but her hand came up empty. What...? Where...? She distinctly remembered clutching it when she’d started her fall.

      Her heart sank. She must have lost it on the way down. Somewhere between here and the top of the ridge lay her only lifeline to the outside world.

      Panic clawed at her.

      You can cope, Ai. You’ve learned powerful lessons. You will do whatever needs to be done to survive. You’re strong.

      She would get herself out of here.

      Fury wrapped around her like a shawl, powerful and dark, and she cursed the man who’d put her here. Rage gave her strength.

      Reaching for the boulders trapping her foot, she pushed. She pulled. She prodded. They didn’t budge.

      Refusing to be beaten, she snagged a heavy branch and pulled it to her, then nudged the end between the soil and one of the rocks. She leaned her weight onto it with her good arm, prying the rock, straining until sweat bloomed on her forehead.

      “Nnnnggggg.” The boulder moved a fraction of an inch. Yes! Then the branch snapped.

      “Nooooo!” She cursed long and creatively. The squirrel scolded.

      “Be quiet,” she yelled, and threw the stump of the branch as far as she could. Angered beyond bearing, she cared less and less if that guy was still here. She needed this night settled, one way or another.

      Up on the ridge, the sun cast its last remaining rays over the treetops, almost horizontal now. In the valley below, dusk roared in with a vengeance, changing the light from mauve to purple to black too quickly.

      The damp mustiness of the woods around her was familiar in a threatening way. She’d been here before. Not in this ravine, but here in her fear-ravaged psyche.

      Get a grip, Ai. This won’t kill you.

      No, not in fact, but it felt like it would.

      She picked up a clod of earth and threw it with all of her strength, choking on her frustration.

      Retrieving a cotton handkerchief, she wiped her face. Sweat chilled her as the temperature dipped.

      She called for help, screaming for all she was worth. She waited. Silence mocked her. Whoever had been chasing her was gone. She was alone.

      “No panicking allowed, Aiyana. Take stock.”

      The squirrel complained again and Aiyana shot back, “I’m not talking to you.”

      She looked through her bag for every speck of extra clothing she had brought with her. She tried to get out of her jacket to put on her wool sweater, but her shoulder hurt too much.

      She’d have to use her good arm to lay the sweater over herself and tuck it around her sides as best she could.

      Done. Next she took stock of her provisions. One protein bar and half a bottle of water. She unwrapped the bar and bit off a small portion, chewing slowly, making it last. She ate only half of it and took only two sips of water.

      She lay back down on the undergrowth, studiously ignoring whatever creepy-crawlies might be hidden under the redolent leaf mold. It smelled of death. Maybe by October all the insects had gone into hibernation, or whatever they did for the winter.

      A nerd who loved science and all things natural, Aiyana’s СКАЧАТЬ