The Skylar Experiment : Beginnings

Chapter Thirty-Three - Hospital Stay

I FLOORED THAT PEDAL on the empty roads like my own life hung in the balance. A couple minutes into the ride, Emma seized again and started foaming at the mouth. I'd been so relieved to find her alive, but now I was scared it wouldn't last. Dark veins popped underneath her pasty skin, branching out.

"Can they treat this?" I asked, a tremor in my voice.

Ethan was turning her on the side. Those gurgles tossed my stomach upside down.

"Probably something for the seizures... and I think she's getting a fever," he answered, the back of his fingers stuck on her clammy forehead. How did her wound affect her so bad without other injuries? "There's no actual treatment for the bite."

Lampposts and traffic lights finally revealed the ash around Ethan's hair and clothes, as well as stains all over him. Pretty sure I looked just as sweet. I prepared to ask more questions when the wheel locked to the right, driving us into the gravel berm. No matter how hard I pulled, it wouldn't correct course. The car stopped. Headlights went out.

My heart thumped in my ribcage. I slid my hand between my thighs and around the revolver grip, eyes darting around the road. Of course, nothing was visible. I've seen this movie before.

Could one of them have slipped from the group and followed us? I would assume that, given their tenacity.

"Riley?" Ethan murmured, and felt so weak.

I carried a friend in the back who needed drugs and doctors asap, and an exhausted kid. All I had to keep us apart was this puny firearm and a hunk of metal. Nothing moved in any of the rear windows.

I snatched the bloody knife from the passenger seat. I returned it to its owner, because those doors on both sides seemed too insecure, and clambered next to him and Emma. We huddled in silence, stuck against the seats and console.

The first thing to appear in the window, I was aiming for the head. No mercy. No hesitation. It'd be like target practice with Dad. I just had to be faster than whatever tracked us.

From back to front, then front to back, lanes were still yellow and bare. But that swaying corn field raised my heart rate.

The driver's door clicked. My arm followed my ear, and I braced the gun.

A fraction of a hand got into the frame. It formed a snapshot in my mind, and I put pressure on the trigger when someone screamed.

"Fuck, it's me!"

I lowered it, breathing fast. Ben had thrown his palms up, eyes popped wide. Then I wanted to smack him silly. "You could have warned us!"

He stood in the doorway, offered the slightest sorry grin as he stared around the interior. "Everyone okay back there?"

▲▲▲

I was asked to stay in the passenger's seat while he took over, got the car running once more. We sped past a sign with directions to the hospital. Still at his request, I washed down my grimy eyelids, nails and arms with a damp cloth. Any trace of dirt or death. He said it'd be weird, surprising the hospital with too much blood on me.

"A loaded gun in the car?" I said, and counted the dollar bills, biting my lip. Must be enough to last a month. There was also a map, a first aid kit, and cartridges. I understood why Luc was angry we didn't hide here. "That's not weird?"

He glanced at Ethan in the rear-view. "Shit happens."

"You weren't at Homecoming?"

"Honestly? I was in bed when Devin called." He veered into the parking lot.