Necessary Evil of Nathan Miller (30 page)

I set the quilt down beside her and she
barely stirred. She was cold and asleep, which gave me the idea of
trying to smuggle her out as a corpse as she slept. After all, Mike
expected me to kill her tonight.

I gave her the last pills I had left,
to make sure she’d sleep until I could get her to hospital.
Desperately, I prayed my crazy plan would work, so I could save
both her and Chris.

Then I tried to wrap her in the quilt,
thinking to cover her face as if she really was a corpse. The quilt
almost smothered her, so I took it off her and wrapped her in the
blankets instead. Focussing on her even breathing on my shoulder,
reminding myself with every step that I had to keep her alive, keep
her breathing, I cradled her blanket-wrapped body and carried her
to the car. I laid her carefully across the back seat, closing the
door as quietly as I could, before I slid in behind the steering
wheel.

I drove to the beach, to the spot I
always drove to. Where they'd found Alanna and I'd never find
peace. I knew she had to get to hospital as soon as possible, but
this was my only chance at pulling this off. Protecting her and my
sister.

Once I’d failed to obey my orders and
stop them from taking her, Mott’s next orders were clear. Tail them
until they dumped the body and catch them on the way out.

Catch them, keep Chris safe...and keep
Caitlin alive. I didn’t think I could succeed in all three, but I
had to try. I'd take two out of three – the most important two. To
hell with the rest.

I forced myself to park the car and
take the keys out of the ignition. I clenched my hands on the
steering wheel and took a deep breath. When my exhalation emptied
my lungs, I shoved the door open and stood up.

I slammed my door shut and opened the
one behind it. She looked as if she hadn’t moved at all during the
short drive. I leaned over to check on her before I touched her. I
could hear her breathing, which sounded wheezy, as if she had a
cough or worse.

I remember desperately wanting to take
her to hospital NOW, to shut the door, get back in the car and
drive as quickly as I could.

I lifted her out of the car and carried
her to the beach. I laid her on the sand, still wrapped in the
blankets.

I realised that I’d left my phone in
the car, so I went back to get it, bringing back the first aid kit
from the car, too, little good though it might be. I switched the
phone on for the first time in weeks and rang an ambulance, telling
them I’d found a girl lying unconscious on the beach. Then I rang
the police and told them the same thing. Only I told the police it
was my fault.

I took the scissors from the first aid
kit and tried to cut through the rope around her wrists, but they
were too caked in dried blood. I looked for something to wipe it
away with and came up with a bottle of disinfectant, a couple of
vials of saline and some gauze. Dousing the gauze in the
disinfectant, I hesitated. "I’m sorry, Caitlin, this will hurt, but
I need to do it to free your hands," I told her, wincing as I
touched the gauze to her wrist. She didn’t react, even when I
poured the remaining disinfectant over her hands and wrists, and I
realised why. She couldn’t feel her hands – the rope was cutting
off her circulation, or she was too cold.

I hacked at the rope with the scissors
again and I felt the rope part. When I pulled the rope away, her
hands stayed in the twisted position they had been tied in. I tried
to massage some blood back into her poor hands, but I stopped as I
realised that her hands were twisted because her fingers were
broken.

Shaken, I sat back for a second, trying
to work out what to do next. It was too dark to see clearly, the
crescent moon visible between clouds, then hidden again. I needed
to wake her up, I decided, so that she could tell me where she was
injured. Why there was so much blood…No, first I needed to cut her
free. I sawed at the rope around her legs. This was cleaner,
without the blood coating, so it was the work of barely a moment to
free her completely.

"Wake up, angel. Now you're free." I'm
not sure if I just thought it or if I said it aloud.

I poured the contents of the bottle of
saline onto a bandage and started washing her face, willing her to
wake up. She stirred at the cold touch and I tried to reassure
her.

I thought I heard a car door slam, back
on the road. I left her to walk back to the road, to see if the
ambulance had arrived, but there was no one there, just my car. I
walked up and down the road a bit, looking, but saw nothing and no
one.

So I headed back to her. Too late.

I could see their silhouettes in the
moonlight, her lying on the sand, him crouching next to her or on
top of her, I couldn’t say. By the time I was close enough to tell,
he’d stood up and started walking to meet me. She just lay there
not moving and I could feel my heart freeze as I wondered if she
was already dead. "She can’t be, she can’t be..." I mumbled to
myself, forcing my legs to keep trudging toward them.

"Are you listening?" he hissed. I knew
he’d been speaking already, but I never heard it, so I can’t
remember it. "I said if you want her, now’s your last chance. She
doesn’t fight as much any more. May as well do her before you kill
her."

Some ancient instinct stirred at the
thought, I am ashamed to admit, and more besides. Traitor, I
thought, willing it to go down, as I trudged across the beach to
where she lay, naked on the sand.

Mike tossed me his gun and I almost
missed it. My palms were sweaty and the gun threatened to slip out
of my hand onto the sand, though I clutched at it like a lifeline.
"You can do this," I muttered aloud to myself.

As though he’d heard, Mike called out,
"Go on, Chris. Oh, and give her a little kiss to wake her up,
before you stick it in her."

My eyes on her, I registered dully
that, shining in the moonlight, there was a slick of fresh blood on
her thighs from what he’d done to her before I’d got here.

I’d reached her by then. There was no
need to wake her up – her eyes stared blankly at the sky. I fell to
my knees beside her and still she didn’t move. The ice in my heart
spread throughout my body as I thought, Oh my God, she’s already
dead. I leaned over, cupped her cheek in my free hand, closed my
eyes and kissed her cold lips. I was so stunned I barely felt her
icy fingers on the gun in my hand, forcing it slowly up. I sat up,
jolted up by the thought that she was still alive, barely
registering that she’d made me bring the gun up to her face, where
she held the barrel to her forehead.

"Do it," she rasped, holding the barrel
firmly in her twisted fingers. Her eyes still stared up at the sky,
not at me. No longer blank, now they were full of pain and anguish
and…defeat? "I’ve had enough pain. Give me death. Please. Before
the pain comes back." Her eyes begged me now, dark pools in her
face that seemed to drag me in, eyes that I wanted to see laughing,
defiant, even crying, ANYTHING but this, like twin black holes
pulling on my heart. "End it." Her fingers crept up the gun, but
she didn’t have the strength to move the trigger.

My heart dropped to new depths of
despair. I'd promised her I wouldn't let them hurt her again, yet
it had happened twice. I owed her more than I could ever repay. I
couldn't let her die – by his hand or hers. Or mine.

Mike’s voice came from behind me,
coming closer. "Want me to show you how to do it? Sure, this one’s
even better than your sister was. I wonder how good the other one
will be..."

If her eyes were black holes, I felt
like a sun about to go nova. My eyes held hers as I rose to my
feet, wrenching the gun from her fingers. I heard the snap of bone
as she cried out in pain. A heart-wrenching sound that would haunt
me later, but I felt almost numb to it at the time. End it, I
thought.

I swung around and shot him, point
blank in the chest, where his heart should have been. Then again,
in the head, over and over, 'til the gun was empty and he had to be
dead, as he slumped onto the sand. I lowered the gun and walked
over to him. I pulled his shirt over his head, though it was
already covered in blood and gained more in the process, and
checked for a pulse. Dead, after all this time, finally DEAD. I
spat on his corpse and carried the shirt he didn’t need any more
back to her.

She was barely conscious and so cold
she wasn’t even shivering, as I struggled to put the bloody shirt
on her. It might have reached her knees, had she the strength to
stand, but I doubted she’d manage that tonight.

I opened my jacket, then slid an arm
under her shoulders to help her to sit up. I held a blanket against
her back as I wrapped my arms around her, trying to share my body
warmth. She slumped against me as I called her name over and over,
urging her to wake up.

"Why? The nightmares aren’t as bad,"
she grumbled finally, her eyes still closed. I could have cried, I
could have kissed her, I could have danced with her all along the
beach, because in my head I was almost singing, She’s conscious,
and if I can keep her that way 'til she’s warm she’s going to live
and I won’t have killed her, I won’t…One less crime on my
conscience tonight.

Instead, I replied, "It’s over. They’re
not going to hurt you again."

She gave a breathy snort of laughter.
"Promise?" Her tone was wistful, though she also sounded resigned
to hearing a no.

The only way I could make sure I hadn’t
killed her was to keep her alive. "I swear I’ll never let them hurt
you, ever again."

"Then you'll have to kill them all,"
she said. "Because they won't let me live. Or you, either. We can
identify them."

"It doesn't matter," I replied. "We'll
say I did it. I hurt you. You'll go to hospital and my sister will
be safe. I'll…get arrested. Go to prison. And it'll be okay."

I became aware of something in my
pocket. Reaching in, I pulled out the forgotten can of Coke. I
cracked it open and took a mouthful, before I pushed the can to her
lips. "Drink this. It's Coke. The sugar'll give you some
energy."

She opened her eyes, looking
bewildered, before she took a sip. I held the can for her – gun in
one hand, can in the other – as she drank, until she'd finished it.
When it was empty, I dropped it on the sand, not caring about
anything but her.

"You need to warm up. You’re too cold,"
I told her, wrapping the blanket tighter around her, pulling her
closer to me. "Stay with me, angel. You need to stay awake 'til
you’re warm. Tell me about your family."

"Caitlin," she mumbled.

She was still sleepy from the pills.
Pills I shouldn’t have given her, I realised now, too late.
"Hmmm?"

"Caitlin. My name is Caitlin."

"I know," I replied softly. "You didn't
want me to…"

"My friend. You…saved my life. That
makes you my friend. You can…call me by my name." She coughed
violently and rested her head against me.

"Sure, angel. Caitlin." I corrected.
"It'll take some getting used to. Is it okay if I occasionally call
you angel, too?"

She nodded slowly, her body growing
heavier as she drowsed. But I couldn't let her sleep. Not yet.

I repeated my question. "Tell me about
your family. The people who'll be really relieved to see you very
soon." I was patient. What else did I have to do but keep her awake
and help her get warm until the ambulance came?

"I don’t have much family. My mother
died when I was very little – I don’t remember her. There’s just my
father and he works away so much, on contracts, that I don’t know
if he’ll even know I’ve been gone..." Her voice faded and I tried
to think of something else to ask her, to keep her talking, but my
mind was blank when she suddenly asked, "What day is it? I mean,
the date?"

I had to
think a moment, then checked my watch. "It’s the
31
^st
of July."

She let out a wordless exclamation,
then swallowed. After a few moments, she spoke again. "Then the
semester’s started. I’ll be so behind."

I fought down a laugh. Just like
Alanna, her first thoughts were to her studies. Not how long those
bastards had her, not how many days 'til her birthday…how many days
she was into the semester.

My blank mind coalesced into a
question. "What are you studying?"

"Medicine." She started coughing.

I automatically tried to pull the
blanket tighter around her, my mind suddenly anything but blank.
Full of questions, I didn’t know which one to ask first.

How old are you?

Did you know Alanna?

Why did I never see you there?

What would a normal person ask
first?

"How long have you been studying that?"
I tried to ask casually, but I found I was gritting my teeth.

"One semester," she croaked, her throat
still sounding raw from all the coughing.

So she started after...I took a year
off. She couldn’t have known Alanna. I wouldn't have seen her.
That'd make her around eighteen.

"What made you choose medicine?" I
asked.

She cleared her throat twice before the
words came out in her voice. "Someone told me once that it helped
them feel better just because I was there. I remember feeling
useless and wishing I knew enough to be able to do something more
material to help them. I went and got my first aid certificate, but
it wasn’t enough. I wanted to be a doctor because...one day I could
save someone’s life and that makes it all worth it..."

She continued speaking, but I didn’t
hear it. The voice I heard was Alanna’s. "What if after all my
study I could save someone’s life? How could you want to do
anything less, if it meant someone could die if you didn’t do
everything you could?"

Don’t let her die. Keep her alive.