Damage (5 page)

And I know if it gets close enough, I’ll
feel
it.

Memories of fighting for my life—small hands clenching around that neck, straining to keep its teeth away from my face, wrestling for hours in hot, sticky sheets and waking up in the morning with bruises on my ribs—convince me it’s time to risk turning my back on danger in the name of getting the hell out of here. Now.

I spin and lunge for the now-horizontal emergency door. Amazingly, it is still whole and clinging to its rusted hinges. All I have to do is get my hands on the handle and push. Two more steps and we’re there. I lift my foot, aiming for the center of the door. My boot is only seconds away from impact when I see it.

I jerk my knee to my chest and scream, a raw, terrified sound that stirs up echoes from the front of the bus. But the people up there are only responding to my fear. They have no idea what they’re screaming about. There’s no way they could. They can’t see the Thing from up there. It isn’t in the bus with us anymore. It’s outside, clawing at the glass that separates its fangs from my foot. I’d nearly let it back in and delivered Dani right into its jaws.

My heart slams in my chest as I back away.

How did it get outside so fast? And how am I ever going to outrun it, even if I do find another way out?

Hours of sprints up and down the soccer field haven’t prepared me for this. I was an idiot to think I could ever be big enough or strong enough that I wouldn’t have to be afraid. I will always be afraid. Until the day I die. Until the day this monster kills me.

The Thing lunges. Its face smashes into the glass, sending a crack shivering up the center. A few more hits like that and it’ll be on top of us.

“Shit!” Blood rushes to my head. Fear and the smell of gasoline—so much thicker here in the very back of the bus—is making me dizzy. I stumble and Dani cries out, but it takes me a second to realize I’m the reason she’s in pain. I’m holding her too tight.

I force my hands to relax and my feet to move. I pick my way back over the last seat and across the still forms of Bart Stevens and Na Ngyuen, the only two people socially awkward enough to end up closer to the back than Dani and me. The rest of the bus looms in front of me, an obstacle course filled with bleeding people and crushed seats and a jumble of backpacks and sack lunches and iPods, all useless now that there will be no one alive to use them. Hopelessness catches in my throat, making it hard to swallow. It’s too far. We’ll never make it before the bus goes up in flames.

I can smell it now, above the gasoline and the wet earth of the riverbed. Sour ash and burning rubber. Smoke. Somewhere outside, the bus is on fire. Even if that B movie explosion I’ve been imagining since we crashed doesn’t happen, this bus is going to burn and we’ll all burn right along with our unnecessary possessions if we don’t get out.

“Get out of the bus!” I yell, voice pinging off the crushed metal walls. “Get out! Get as far away as you can! The bus is on fire.”

“Fire!” Someone sobs the word, stirring up another round of fear-echoes, but I don’t wait around to see if the few conscious people take my advice. I turn back to the emergency exit and the dragon that waits for me with its red eyes and bloody teeth, and I run.

I slam into the handle with my side and jump, legs churning through the air, hoping to get some distance between me and the bus. I hit the ground hard, muscles clenching around the shard still stuck in my calf. Agony jolts up my leg and I cry out, but I don’t stop. I don’t dare look back to see if the monster I’ve cleared is already coming after me. I just run. I run as fast as I can, faster than I would have thought possible with glass in my leg, a sliced-up side, and carrying another person. Dani can’t weigh more than a hundred and twenty pounds—a hundred thirty at most. Still, it’s a lot more weight than I’m used to.

But you wouldn’t know it by the way my feet eat up the sandy ground between the bus and the concrete pillars of the bridge. I’m Vince Young in the 2006 Rosebowl, I’m Superman on speed, so fast the wind stings my eyes and makes tears run down my cheeks. If the college scouts were watching, I’d score a fat scholarship on the spot.

Instead, I make an even bigger score. I keep Dani and me alive for a few more minutes.

The explosion rips through the air, filling the world, booming through the narrow riverbed. It crashes into my ears, rattling the loose piece in my brain. The heat comes a second later, burning against my back, so hot I start to sweat even though the front of my body is freezing cold.

The bus exploded. It really did, just like I was afraid it would.

Wouldn’t Trent have loved to see that?

It’s my last thought before something hits the back of my head and more warm blood spills down my neck. The gray light filtering into the riverbed flares white, then yellow, and then blackness sweeps in. I fall, the arms holding Dani clenching one last time before my vision snuffs out.

Dani

So tired, so cold. But still, I’m sweating. My forehead and upper lip are freckled with little beads, just like when we have ballet rehearsal in the theater during the summer.

The owner insists a theater in upstate New York doesn’t need air conditioning. Maybe that’s true at night—when the temperatures drop and the patrons come inside wearing sweaters and jackets they can take off if they get too warm—but for the dancers practicing in the eighty-degree heat of midday, it’s stifling. My leotard is always drenched and sticky by the first break.

But I’m not wearing a leotard now. I’m in my school uniform. It’s the crisp cotton of my white button-up that’s glued to my clammy skin, not the soft fabric of my ancient dancewear. And I’m not inside … I’m outside. Cold, winter air stirs the hair on my neck, trying to freeze the drops sliding into my collar into sweat-cicles.

What am I doing outside? And why does my body hurt all over?

With way more effort than something so simple should require, I open my eyes. I catch a glimpse of rocks and dirt before my lids slam closed, shutters made of lead.

Where am I? What happened? And why can’t I keep my eyes open?

Images tease at the edges of my brain—glass shattering, wide, frightened mouths, strong arms that hold me tight as the world spins—but I can’t seem to hold on to the pictures long enough to make sense of their message. I am so tired. So,
so
very tired. Too tired to think, too tired to talk, too tired to stay awake.

Stay awake
. Jesse. He told me to stay awake. He was holding me, carrying me out of the wrecked bus, trying to save my life. But now I’m sprawled on cold sand.

Dread jolts my heart like an electric shock and my eyes flicker open. The bus. The accident. What if Jesse didn’t make it out, what if—

“Dani?” His face appears above mine, blue eyes as bright as the clear winter sky behind him, triggering a grateful squeeze in my chest.

He’s alive! It feels like I’ve been given some priceless gift. Crazy, since I hardly know him, but maybe not
that
crazy. He saved my life. I was dead weight, but he picked me up and carried me with him when he could have jumped out of the bus and saved himself. “Are you okay? I just woke up. I don’t know how long we’ve been out. Can you hear me?”

“Mm … hrrss … ” In my head the words are clear, but they come out muffled and strange. I try again to tell him I’m okay, but my lips won’t cooperate. “Nee … mmmm.”

“Don’t try to talk.” He winces as he slides one arm beneath my shoulder and helps me sit. Before I can get accustomed to the feel of his arms around me, of my elbow crooked around his neck, the world spins. I catch a dizzy glimpse of smoke and fire as Jesse’s other arm slips beneath my knees, and then he’s lifting me off the ground. Over his shoulder, ribbons of red and orange snake through the frigid air.

The bus. It’s on fire. It really
did
explode. Mina and Nate and all the other kids and Mrs. Martin and the bus driver—the same old man who drove the bus for every field trip for as long as I can remember—are burning. Maybe while they’re still alive, trapped and unable to escape.

The realization sends another jolt through my body, chasing some of the lethargy away.

“We have to … get help.” I twist in Jesse’s arms as he turns and stumbles away from the wreckage.

“I told them to get out. We can’t do anything else. We have to keep running. I don’t know when it’s going to come back.” His voice is strong and sure, even though what he’s saying verges on nonsense. “I don’t know why it didn’t get me while I was passed out, but it’ll be back. I know it will. It’s not going to stop this time.”

Paranoid
nonsense.

He’s probably in shock, a fact that would consume more of my attention if my arm didn’t choose that moment to snap into my chest and stay there, twitching, for several seconds. Even my muddled brain knows what this means. Involuntary muscles spasms, the cold sweat, the light feeling in my head, the lethargy, the inability to think straight—I’ve felt all of these things before. When I was younger and my diabetes was totally out of control, I suffered insulin reactions all the time.

But back then, I always had a doctor or a nurse or at least a grown-up close by who knew about my condition. And I kept a roll of lifesavers in my pocket, prepared to give my sugar a boost when I needed it. I still keep a roll in my backpack, along with my shots and blood sugar monitor.

But my backpack’s not here. It’s burning on that bus, right along with my best friend.

“Mina! We have to go back. We have to help—”

“We can’t help. Anyone who was alive after the crash is dead now. We have to go!”

His words make my throat burn. I taste the orange juice I had first thing this morning. Orange juice. I’ll think about orange juice instead of Mina, instead of all the other scary things I need to think about. For once, concentrating on the math of carbs-versus-insulin is a blessing.

I close my eyes, visualizing the cool glass of juice. I only had a few sips. That’s all. Then the shot in the bathroom before Mina and I got in line for the field trip. The bus crashed before I had the chance to unwrap the muffin I’d intended to eat. Now, I’ll get progressively sicker unless I get something in my system. It’s actually amazing I’m not worse than I am already. But I definitely can’t let Jesse drag me out into the middle of nowhere. I have to stay by the bus and hope an ambulance and trained medical professionals get to me in time.

“Wait … I’m diabetic. I have to stay by the bus.” I manage to get the words out with only a slight slur. I know Jesse has to have heard me, but he doesn’t stop walking away. In fact, he breaks into a hobbled run, a jog-hop that jolts my aching head with every step. “Please, I need sugar. You have to stop. Please, I—”

“I can’t stop. I’m sorry. I just can’t.” He shakes his head and casts an anxious look over his shoulder. “And I can’t leave you there. It could hurt you. It could be real.”

The words prick at something inside of me, that part that knows what it’s like to be afraid for no reason, to be out of your mind believing in things that aren’t there,
people
who aren’t there.

I haven’t thought about Rachel in years. Dreamt about her, woken up screaming with her ruined face burned onto my mental screen—yes. But I haven’t consciously thought about her. I’ve done my best to erase those memories, to wall them up inside my mind and let them suffocate from lack of oxygen.

But now the wreck, the fear, the smell of smoke, and the horrible ache in my head …

The walls are crumbling. I can almost sense Rachel slipping out, stealing out of her prison with a
tap tap tap
of her best dress-up shoes.

No. She’s not real. You’re just going into shock. You need food.

I shiver; the sweat on my neck feels like someone is holding an ice cube to my bare skin. “I need sugar,” I say. “I have to eat or I’ll get really sick. I’m diabetic.” I hold my bracelet in front of his face and watch as understanding creeps across his features.

His incredibly handsome features. Even now, even afraid and delirious, the strange temptation of his skin remains. I want to trace the strong line of his jaw, feel if his lips are as soft as they look. When my hand drops, it doesn’t fall back into my lap. It moves to his chest, feathering over where his muscles clench tight beneath his sweater. It’s all the confirmation I need that I’m not in my right mind. If I were, I would never dare to press against him, to explore the place where his chest bone becomes muscle with my fingers.

“Okay … okay,” he mutters beneath his breath, not seeming to notice my touch though he pulls me closer. “So you need to eat? You don’t need … a shot or something?”

“I took my insulin before I got on the bus. I just need some candy or juice, some kind of sugar or I’ll get sick.”

But even as I speak, saying things I know are true, I can’t help but notice how much easier it is to form words than it was a second before. Except for the odd rattled feeling in my head, I’m starting to feel better, not worse … which doesn’t make sense.

Jesse slows, but doesn’t turn around. “Okay. I know a place we can go. It’s not too far, and I think they have food. They should, anyway. At least a Coke or something.”