Page 70 of Cut Off from Sky and Earth
“Ready?” I ask.
“Ready,” she calls back. Her voice is thin, ripped away by the wind and rain.
I grab her shoes and push forward. I don’t want to look, but I do. She slides down the roof. She’s moving fast, too fast, but she still manages to grab the phone on her way.
It’s a Pyrrhic victory, though, because she’s still sliding, headed for the eave and, then, I know, the ground.
“No!” I squeeze my eyes shut and wait for her to scream as she plunges over the side of the roof.
There’s no scream. Instead, there’s a loud thump followed by soft cursing.
Against my better judgment I open my eyes to see her lying against the gutter, twisted now from the impact. She looks up and flashes me a triumphant grin just as the pounding on the door starts.
“Knock, knock.”
I say nothing, my head swiveling from the door to the window. Alex starts to crawl back up the roof, the phone firmly in hand.
The pounding continues. “I said, knock, knock.”
I know this voice, I’m sure of it. But I still can’t place it.
Finally, I croak, “Who’s there?”
A high, long shriek fills my ears. I turn back to the window in time to see Alex sliding backward down the roof. She gathers speed, busting through the crumpled gutters, flies over the edge, and drops from view.
Thirty-Six
Alex
* * *
Icy rain pelts my neck as I lay facedown in the frozen mud. When I press my hands to push up, pain lances through my right shoulder. I collapse, panting.
Stupid, stupid, stupid.
I was so sure I could grab the phone, call for help, and get back into the attic. Now the phone is as broken and useless as I am. It lies, its screen smashed and dark, in the mud near the edge of the lawn.
My pulse thrums in my neck. I gather my strength and will myself to try again. My right arm quivers as I tense it to straighten it. Another bolt of stabbing heat tears through my shoulder, and I hear the crackling of bone grinding on bone. I grit my teeth and force myself to turn onto my left side. Sweat beads my forehead, my stomach lurches, and bile rises in my throat.
I support my full weight with my left arm and push myself to a seated position. Clumsily, I make my way to my knees, ignoring the throbbing in my right shoulder. But when I try to stand, I don’t even make it halfway up before collapsing back to the ground in a heap, my right ankle pulsing as pain shoots up my leg. I can’t walk.
I’m trapped. Helpless. Unable to rush to Emily’s aid. I turn my gaze up to the attic, half-expecting to witness the attack on her play out in front of the round window. But I can’t see anything through the stinging, wintry mix of sleet and sheets of rain.
A hot pulse of anger slices through my agony and despair and with it, a shard of fragmented memory emerges—the first sliver from the night I was attacked two decades ago working its way to the surface like a splinter that’s been embedded deep in my skin.
Tom Weakes’ face pressed against glass. My window. He’s always been creepy, too familiar. And now he’s watching me.
I scream. His eyes widen, and for a heartbeat I think he’s reacting to my shriek. But his expression conveys horror, not arousal, and his gaze is over my shoulder.
I turn to see what he sees and—the scene dissolves, replaced by the light gray mist that always fills my mind when I try to remember the attack.
But the emotion from that night remains. In that moment, twenty-one years ago, when I turned to see … whatever I saw … I didn’t feel fear. I felt rage. Heart-pounding, gut-twisting rage. The same rage that propels me forward now despite the exquisite, excruciating toll it exacts.
I crawl. Each movement sends a jolt of electric heat through my body. I swear, I sweat, I cry, but I keep going. My left hand claws the earth as I drag myself toward the steps, my busted shoulder and mangled ankle bumping uselessly against the hard ground. But I keep inching forward.
Tristan
* * *
