Page 52 of Wild Child
That thought anchored me out of the moors of my mind and put me back into reality with a firm shove. Just like she had in Afghanistan.
Ellie. Ellie, Ellie, Ellie.
No, I wasn't in Afghanistan. I hadn't dreamed of returning home to her wary gaze. To the feeling of her so near me last night that our breaths mingled.
Consciousness returned slowly. My brain sorted through the voices to remember a cabin. The forest. Ellie flitted through the memories like a fairy until everything cemented itself again. My heart took off at a gallop. Ellie had been alone with Kimball and Steve and . . . someoneelseall that time.
They could have—
The unmistakable sound of fist hitting muscle broke the air. With it, the guttural shouts of animated men.
My eyes flew open.
A bright bonfire illuminated the dusky mountain canyon. At least an hour must have passed because night had already fallen. Beyond it lay mostly shadows, but the pulsing pain in my head likely accounted for some of my inability to see. Or to make sense of what Ididsee.
Three massive men grappled in a stone circle like wild things. Heavy fists flew with dull thuds, flashing in the firelight. None of them moved quickly, but every punch seemed deadly. One slam of a fist into a pair of ribs resulted in an audible crack, then a howl of pain. A slap to the face echoed through the night, eliciting shouts of delight from two other faces I didn't recognize. Kimball stood with two men that didn't fight. That meant six men in addition to me.
Or were there others?
My head didn't move as I swept the space with my gaze, attempting to find Ellie. No sign of her. A good or bad thing? Hard to tell. Had she run away? Broken free to go for help? She damn well better, but even with a head injury that made my thoughts like liquid, I knew it was an impossible hope. That stubborn wild child would never leave me here. That meant she likely waited in the cabin, or in the shadows. Bound, probably.
Whatever they did here clearly had nefarious intent, and I didn't need to linger around and figure it out. Right now, I had to find Ellie and get out of here. My sole objective was to keep her intact and safe.
If my body would stand.
With the three smaller men focused on the fight, and the three other beasts beating the hell out of each other, I carefully shifted to the left. My eyes went to half-mast, as if I were still asleep and I kept my body contorted in the same position. Carefully, I tried to shift my whole torso all at once. The awkward bend of my knees gave me some leverage to move, but not much.
No one seemed to notice at first, but it only took a few inches to know this wouldn't work. It would take forever to get out of sight, and by then some of those idiots would be dead. Their attention would turn back to us. My head throbbed just thinking about it, and my stomach curled in on itself, ready to vomit at my first opportunity, but I forced it back.
I let Ellie down once and I would not do that again.
One deep breath in.
Out.
I rolled.
The ground bumped into my shoulders, elbows, and hips as I rocketed away from the fight and spun into the shadows not too far away. Bushes cracked beneath me, louder than fireworks. My shoulder blade hit a log and jarred the old injury, but I kept going. I forced my body into the shadows where bushes and brambles awaited. The shouts continued to ring out despite my escape.
Dizzy from the movement and my aching head, I let my body stop. Three seconds passed while I tried to gain my equilibrium back before I shoved to my hands and knees, then up to my feet.
The world shifted beneath me the moment I straightened, and I sagged back down. By willpower alone, I managed to stay in a crouch instead of dropping like dead weight. Darkness crept over my vision, layered with white stars. A breath away from unconsciousness, I leaned on my fingertips and blinked rapidly. When I forcefully ground my knee into the slate rocks below, the pain woke me back up.
Ellie,I thought.Get. To. Ellie.
Flashes of bonfire gave way to a sandy landscape. I blinked as the rock walls of the canyon shifted, transitioned to a desert at night. A familiar, Afghani desert.
No,I thought desperately.I can't go back there.
The hallucination carried more feeling than vision, but I recalled stars spattered high overhead. An overturned Humvee with fire crackling out of the engine. A body lay out the side of the broken Humvee, coated with dust. Blood dripped down limp fingertips. The ringing in my ears became a dull whine and occupied my thoughts for too long. Shouts came from the distance, interspersed with theack ack ackof hostile rifles.
Not there,I mentally screamed.I'm not there. I'm in Pineville again.
But my brain didn't understand, and it slipped back in time. My mind didn't work here in the desert. In Afghanistan. Somewhere in the back of my head, I felt pain, but wasn't sure where it belonged. My ribs? Shoulders? What happened to my guys? Where was I? Where did the blood on my hands come from? My left arm wouldn't respond to my command.
Ellie, I thought desperately. She was the only reality that made sense, even here. The only thing that mattered while I stood on the precipice of death in such a hellish world.
Ellie.
