The Thrashers(33)

It took her a moment to realize the “her” was her. “Go,” Jodi said.

She grabbed her phone and held the flashlight up as she slipped down off the truck bed, sliding through something wet.

“Come on. You can do this without a shoulder.”

“I can’t … can’t breathe,” he gritted out. “Maybe my ribs.”

Jodi knelt in front of him, hissing as the rocky dirt dug into her knees. She dropped her phone on the ground, flashlight up, and reached under his arms. As soon as she started tugging, he screamed against her ear—like nothing she’d heard before.

“Julian—”

“Stop.” He panted. “Leave me. Jaws of Life will come.”

He had his face buried into his good shoulder, refusing to look at her.

She considered it for a heartbeat, crawling out alone and begging anyone nearby to go back for him.

The other tire popped. Jodi jerked, falling on her backside. Julian groaned as the truck tilted, the movie screen creaking above them.

She heard sirens in the distance. Just a little longer.

Jodi turned her flashlight into the truck. Wet, red blood sparkled back at her. Lucy’s? Or was Julian more injured than he thought? There was enough space above his waist for her to get her arms around him.

“Dillon, go.”

“Don’t be a martyr, Julian. It doesn’t suit you.” She climbed up into the bed of the truck. “You can feel your legs and all that, right?”

“Yeah.” He bent a knee. “I can’t use my—my core.”

“Stop talking about your abs, you asshole,” she tried to joke, and she thought she heard a puff of breath in response.

Jodi wrapped her arm around his hips and tugged him sideways, sliding him so his legs could face the end of the bed. He yelled out, and she kept pulling, looking for puncture wounds.

“Jodi!”

They both froze. Zack.

“Julian!”

His voice came from the front, near the opening where Lucy and Paige escaped. The sirens blipped and beeped from their right.

“Go,” Julian said again.

“Jaws of Life won’t be here for like an hour.” She tugged at him again, and his legs fell off the truck. He yelped but dropped his feet to the ground, slipping himself from the bed without using his ribs or shoulder.

Jodi grabbed her phone and shone light toward the opening. It was dark, like maybe the projector had stopped. She could barely see the escape route, but Julian grabbed her flashlight and took her arm. She let her legs follow, feeling like jelly.

Zack met them just as they crawled out, Julian panting in short breaths.

“They’re here!” he yelled over his shoulder.

He reached for her first, but she shook her head. “Julian’s worse.”

Zack reached for him and tugged just in the wrong way, but managed to pull him out.

Jodi was blinking hard, wondering why it was so dark. She swayed. She’d crawled through something wet. Her knee was drenched in it.

A stranger in a white shirt appeared next, reaching for her with a “Miss?” He helped her out, and as soon as she stood up tall, she looked back. The spindly back of the screen, punctured and cracked, hung by a few wooden beams where it was still connected.

The EMT dragged her away, even as she said, “I can walk.” The words were thick.

Julian was sitting on a stretcher to her left, his eyes wide and mystified, fixed on her. He looked like he had seventy questions to ask but only a breath to do so.

Someone was yelling. Zack was next to her as she was lifted on a stretcher. She pointed to Julian.

“Dislocated shoulder. Ribs, too. He says he can’t breathe.”

They didn’t listen to her. There were five people over her, forcing her to lie back. Someone wrapped something around her thigh. She looked down.

The right leg of her jeans was black. No, not black. Red.

A few inches above her knee, a shard of glass as big as her hand stuck out of her like an iceberg in dark water.

Oh.

Jodi lay her head back on the stretcher as they wheeled her to the ambulance. Her head jostled and turned to the left.

The movie was still playing, projected onto the trees behind where the screen used to stand. A streetlamp winked at her. And then went out.





Chapter Ten





She opened her eyes to a white room. Pale linen curtains billowed against the open windows, and a bird sang on the tree outside. Cool sheets slipped over her thighs as she sat up.

Emily sat at the end of her bed, smiling at her. Too-wide teeth and pale blue eyes.

She reached out a shimmering hand, stretching her fingertips for Jodi’s arm.

“I’ll protect you.”

Her fingertips landed on her skin like a kiss.

And passed through her.



* * *



Jodi woke in a white room. A curtain to the right, pale blue and unmoving.

The chirp of her heart monitor on her left, and Zack sitting in the chair.

“Hey.” He sat forward, smiling. “You’re fine. You just passed out.”

She furrowed her brow and sat up to look down at her thigh, and bright pain burst into her brain. She hissed through her teeth.

“They had to wait to pull it out at the hospital. Said it was on the femoral artery, so they needed blood before they could take it out.”