“He isn’t saying, Max. Says that if he can’t have her then he sure as hell isn’t serving her up to you. He said that his life is over, and it’s fitting that hers is, too. He said she wanted to die, and now she’ll get her wish. She needs us, Max. But it’s pretty clear we don’t have much time. We’ve got extra patrols out. And the volunteer group that is already forming. We’re going to find her.”
He heard the words. All of them. But his head was roaring. Like he was at the ocean. With Meri. Just the two of them.
“We have to assume she’s hurt pretty bad.” Chantel didn’t spare him. “There’s an ambulance on the way.” Whatever else
Chantel had been about to say was lost as Max ran up to the next house. And the next.
He already knew the plan. Had his orders.
Knock on doors. Ask the appropriate questions and apologize for the intrusion.
Somewhere along the way, he forgot about the apology.
His wife needed a doctor. And he was one.
He just had to get to her.
* * *
“NO! NO! NO! NO!”
“Get up Meri! Get up! You are not going to die. Not going to die. Not going to die....”
“Not going to die. Not going to die....”
Meredith choked as her dry, clogged throat worked its way around the words. “Not going to die.”
She heard a voice. Didn’t recognize it as her own. But knew that it was. Repeating what the white figure in her dream had been telling her. “No. No. No. Get up. You are not going to die.” Trying to move, to figure out where she was, all she knew was that she had to get up. Something was telling her to get up.
She opened her eyes, and cringed as the light brought flashing pain to the top of her head. She was in a small room. Alone.
The pain was familiar. One she knew.
She had to get up.
And it all came flooding back to her. Steve. Her ultimatum. The beating.
She had to get up.
She was supposed to be free or dead.
Instead she was on the bathroom floor of the home Steve had bought for them. The home he’d been coming to for four years, spying on her and her family. Stalking her.
She had to get up.
He’d locked her in. He always locked her in. There was a window. Up high. Could she get to it?
She had to get up.
Meredith tried to move her tongue. Touched the tip of it to her lips. Her neck hurt. She tasted blood. And salt.
But didn’t think she’d cried.
She had to get up.
There was moisture on her face. And her neck. Beneath her, everywhere. A pool of her own blood.
She had to get up.