Never Fade

Monster, monster, monster, monster, monster. I slammed my foot against the trunk door over and over until the plastic began to crack. Where was Rob? Why wasn’t he saying anything?

There was the screech of brakes and the sound of slamming doors. I only kicked harder, a steady bang, bang, bang like the beat of an old rock ’n’ roll song, like guns firing in the night.

I was still sobbing when the back door finally burst open. I rolled out, hitting the dirt facedown with a low cry of pain. Even in the open air, the muzzle was suffocating, and it wasn’t coming off; I was never going to get it off—

“Busy day, girlfriend?”

Vida stood over me, her shadow flat against the ground near my face.

I was struggling as hard as I could to get the damn muzzle off, tasting leather and my own salty tears. I knew I was hyperventilating, but I couldn’t bottle up the swelling panic that had finally burst forward when the Jeep crashed. I didn’t want her to see me like this. I didn’t want any of them to see me like this. Please leave, please leave me alone; I can’t be around you, please, please, please just leave me here.…

“Ruby,” she said, flipping me over. “Okay, okay, Ruby—just let me take it off—”

Her knife snapped the plastic zip tie around my wrists, but I felt her fingers fumble as they tried to work the straps on the muzzle. I was screaming at her, begging, Leave me! Leave me! and it came out as nothing more than a low moan.

“Shit!” She had to use a knife on the leather. It snapped under her careful fingers, one strap, then the next, and then the air was in my mouth, cold and tasting like car exhaust.

“No,” I cried, “I can’t—You have to—you have to…”

“Vida!” Jude sounded far away. “Is she okay?”

My vision bobbed in and out of a foamy sea of gray. The cold was a snake that slithered along my limbs, wrapping tightly around my chest as I tried to catch my breath. There was a scramble of shoes against the loose asphalt on the highway’s shoulder. A new set of hands on me, a new face hovering over mine. “Check on him!” Chubs barked.

“Oh, gladly,” Vida growled, circling around the back of the Jeep.

“Can you stand?” Chubs’s face appeared right over mine, his hands pressing against my cheeks. “Are you in pain? Can you speak?”

I tried to drag myself away from him, coughing up the bitter, burning taste draining down the back of my throat.

“Ruby, Jesus.” Chubs grabbed my shoulders, holding me in place. His voice cracked. “You’re all right. You are, I promise. We’re here, okay? Take a deep breath. Look at me. Just look at me—you’re all right.”

I pressed my forehead against the asphalt, trying to get the words out, the warning. My vision flickered black at the edges, but my head felt like someone had split the back of it open. My fingernails dug into the road, like I could dig in deep enough to bury myself there. I was hearing voices, shouting nearby and far, but I was also hearing Clancy, his silky voice whispering in my ear: You’re mine now.

“Well?” Chubs asked. My eyes drifted up to Vida’s face, which had gone a shade of sickly gray. She swiped the back of her hand over her mouth.

They got me off the ground together, Vida all but lifting me over her shoulder. “Can you get the cuffs off?” she asked Chubs. The chain was still attached to the muzzle, and both dragged along the ground, marking our path.

“Not important—you can drive?”

“Like a f**king boss,” she shot back modestly, “why?”

“No…!” I bawled. I clawed at the collar of my shirt, trying to keep the fabric from tightening into a choking collar. “No, you have to… Have to leave me…”

“Roo!” Jude was shouting. “What’s wrong with her?”

“Get the door!” Chubs ordered. “No, not you, idiot—you stay in the car!”

“Is she okay? Chubs?”

Liam… That was Liam, wasn’t it? It sounded like him, the old him, at the other end of a tunnel. How was that possible? The medicine?

The back door opened and Chubs crawled in first, dragging me across the seat after him. I clenched my teeth against the pain, my vision blurring at the sight of Jude jumping in, sliding under my stretched-out legs. I tried to lift a hand to drag my hair out of my eyes, but I couldn’t feel anything below my shoulders.

My vision flashed white again. Pain was alive, screaming, drowning out the guilt, the devastation, even the fear. And I knew I was going, I was gone, because it sounded like Liam was screaming, too.

“Chubs!” I turned my head, watching as a white hand smashed against the metal grating. Liam’s pleading voice was as agonizing to hear as the rough coughing that followed. “Stop it, you’re hurting her!”

“Oh, hell no you are not opening that door!” Vida yelled. “Sit your ass down, blondie, or I’ll tranq it!”

“Where?” Chubs was asking, his hands smoothing the hair off my back and neck.

I didn’t understand what he meant until Jude said, “In the back—I don’t know how bad it is, but he got her.”

The car zipped back, bouncing until it hit the smooth surface of the highway, and then we were flying forward with a startled protest from Chubs.

“Is she okay? Is she hurt? Jesus, Chubs—just tell me!”

Chubs shoved my sweater and shirt up, exposing my back to the warm air blowing out of the vents. There was a surprised hiss, but I wasn’t sure if it had come from him or me. His fingers felt like ice as they pressed down at the beating center of the pain.

“Oh my God,” Jude cried. He was holding my legs across his lap, hugging them to his chest. “Roo, I’m sorry, I didn’t know—”

“What?” Liam begged. “Is she okay?”

Chubs didn’t lie—or at least, when he did, they were important lies, usually to protect one or all of us. But we were Team Reality, the two of us, and we generally didn’t sugarcoat things. It must have been bad, then, because he decided not to answer at all.

“What about the guy?” he asked. Whatever he put against my back was freezing, and then, without warning, began to sting. Cleaning the wound, I thought, my vision swimming.

“He won’t be causing problems,” Vida said thickly. “Not anymore.”