It wasn’t until I saw brain matter fly out that I dropped the rocks, seeming to come back into my own head as I moved off of Adams’s dead body, scrambling a few feet away, then curling up into a ball as the sobs racked my system.
I cried like I never recalled crying before, from some deep well of pain inside, leaving me gasping for air, my face stinging from the salt of my tears.
I was still trying to pull myself back together when a hand grabbed my shoulder.
It was right about then that I remembered them.
The brick wall guy who’d killed Bellamy.
And the dude I pushed down the hill.
They were still out there.
They could still be coming for me.
My hand curled into a fist as I whipped onto my back, swinging blindly at my attacker.
Only it wasn’t my attacker.
I realized it as my fist collided with his jaw.
Bellamy.
“No,” I said, shaking my head, sure my mind was playing tricks on me. “You’re dead,” I insisted.
“I might not look like my usual, dashing self, but I assure you, I am not dead, love,” he said.
And that was exactly what the real Bellamy would say, not some grief-stricken hallucination of him.
“How?”
“The big one took mercy on me,” Bellamy told me, reaching toward my face.
“It’s not mine,” I told him, noting the concern in his eyes. “Well, some of it is mine. But it’s…” I said, turning toward where two men were looking down at Adams’s body.
“No, don’t look,” Bell insisted, turning my face back to him. “It’s fine. It’s okay. You did what you had to do to survive.”
“I know that,” I agreed, nodding. Was a small part of me horrified at how hard I’d slammed rocks into an already-dead man’s head? Sure. But the other part of me knew that, no matter what, I would always do whatever it took to survive. That was who I was. I was not going to feel bad for what I’d done. “How did you find me?” I asked.
“We followed the screaming,” one of the other guys—a bearded one with either dark blond or light brown hair, it was hard to tell in the dark—said.
“What screaming?” I asked. I hadn’t heard anything. “Who was screaming?”
“You were, love,” Bellamy informed me.
“What? No, I wasn’t.” But even as I said it, I could feel the rawness in my throat which immediately proved me wrong.
“It’s okay. Don’t worry about it,” Bellamy said. “Come on. Let’s get out of the woods,” he suggested, reaching for my hand, then attempted to pull me up, nearly falling to his knees in pain.
“Ribs?” I asked, reaching to press my hands to steady him.
“Yeah.”
“Come on. I’ll help you,” I said, pushing my shoulder under his arm and lifting some of his weight as I got to my feet.
“I’m supposed to be the one saving you,” Bellamy said. “Big, strong man saves the sweet, helpless girl.”
“I’m not sweet. Or helpless,” I reminded him. “And you might be a great many negative things, but you’re not sexist.”
“Hear how she sweet-talks me?” Bellamy called to his friends who were likely part of his team of “fixers.”
“Yeah, must be love,” the bearded one said with a snort.
The other man who was taller and wider had been completely silent up until then. “Are there others?” he asked in an impossibly deep voice.
“There’s going to be someone with glass in his carotid. There is someone who I pushed down a hill, but he should still be alive. And then there’s the big guy who didn’t kill you,” I said, pressing the side of my head into Bellamy. “I haven’t seen him since I got away, though.”
“I’ll stay,” the tall, quiet one said. “Take them back, then come back and help,” he told the other guy.
“You don’t have to take us back,” I insisted. “I can take care of the two of us.”
“Actually, he does. Gunner is the only one who knows how to get back to the cabin. He’s good with the tracking and such,” Bellamy informed me.
“Oh, okay. But maybe you should take Bellamy back. I can stay here and help. It’s my mess, after all.”
“No,” the other guy said.
“You’ll excuse Holden,” Bellamy said, giving me a slight squeeze. “He’s not good with people.”
“Oh, ah, okay. I guess you need me to help you back anyway,” I said, falling into step behind Gunner as he led us back through the woods.
I must have been running faster and for longer than I thought, because the walk back wasn’t nearly as long as I felt like it should have been.
The light was just starting to break through the dark sky as we rounded on the cabin. And nearly ran into a man in a bubble vest who was pushing a dead body around in a wheelbarrow.
“Oh, good. She’s okay,” he said, nodding at me. “Tried to find you, girl, but they took you too fast.”