Page 12 of Beacon

I start to push myself up, but I don’t have to. Big hands reach down to grab my waist and haul me to my feet. Then they turn me around.

My legs won’t hold me. My knees buckle immediately. Mack has to grab me again and pull me forward toward his chest.

I’m choking again. Maybe coughing or maybe crying against his shirt. Whatever they are, they wrack my whole body in the attempt to clear my throat with each spasm.

“Shit,” he rasps, wrapping both arms around me. “Goddamn fucking shit. What did they do to you?”

“I’m—” I’m strangling on the words, but I keep trying until I can get it out. “I’m… okay.”

He makes a weird guttural sound and tightens his arms. I need them even tighter. I push against his chest as I wheeze and sob like I’m trying to crawl all the way inside him.

I’m not sure how long it takes for me to pull myself together, but he hugs me tightly until I do.

When it finally feels like I won’t slump to the groundwithout his support, I straighten up. He loosens his arms although he keeps his hands on my waist just in case.

“Thank you,” I manage to say. “Thank you. How were you even here?”

“Got worried,” he admits with a weird, quick twist of his features. “So I followed you. Wasn’t sure it’d be safe for you alone.”

It obviously wasn’t. “Thank you.”

“What did they do to you?” he asks again, this time scanning me from top to bottom in a quick, searching glance.

“They… they mostly grabbed me. Hurt my arm and then I wrenched my shoulder bad trying to get away. They just pushed me to the ground, but you shot them before they did anything else.”

“So they didn’t?—”

“No.” I shake my head as I’m hit with a wave of relief so powerful it nearly buckles my knees again. I grab for his shirt to hold on. “You got here in time.”

He makes another one of those throaty sounds. Hugs me again, which allows me to cry for another minute against his chest.

Then next time I pull away, Mack asks, “Can you walk?”

“I think so.” I try, but one of my knees got slammed into a tree root when they pushed me down, and it hurts more than I realized. I have to limp. “Damn it. I’m never going to make it back to Cal and Rachel in time like this.”

Mack is silent for a minute. Then, “You said they’d wait for you at one of the farms for a week?”

“Yes.”

He’s staring at the ground, stiff and unreadable. Then he finally mutters, “Come back to the cabin. You can stay for a few days until you’re able to hike again. Then I’ll take you all the way back.”

I almost strangle on a surge of hope. “Back home?”

“No. Back to Cal and Rachel.” He gives me a steady look. “I don’t want anything bad to happen to you. To any of you. But I don’t want to go home. So I’ll make sure you’re okay, but then I’m coming back here again. You need to stop hoping for me.”

I don’t argue as he puts an arm around me for support as we start walking back to the cabin. Then finally I murmur, “I understand what you’re telling me, but you’ve got to be kidding. There’s no way I’m going to give up hope.”

3

I wakeup with no idea what day it is. What time it is. What room I’m in. What world I’m existing in. My whole body—even my eyelids—are too heavy to lift.

Then I feel again a jarring sensation. Someone holding my hip, shaking my body with it.

It’s not painful or forceful, but it’s intrusive. Unwanted.

“Stop it,” I mumble.

“Anna, wake up a minute.”

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