The Understorey, Book One of The Leaving Series (42 page)

I’ll be right back,” he said, removing his
coat and throwing it over my chest.

The heat from his body stayed with the jacket
and I wished I could tell him how much I had needed that. He ran to
his cruiser and I heard him scream into the radio for an ambulance.
So, it’s gonna’ be one of those days?
I hoped that I just
looked worse than I really felt. That’s usually how these things
play out. I’d gone to the emergency room before after a hard hit.
It almost always looked worse than it actually was. Danny ran back
to my side while we waited for the ambulance.

    “We know it’s Jesse,” he
said, probably trying to distract me from the pain I was
feeling.

I squinted my eyes in response, as if to ask
him how. I added my face to the things I was able to move and
realized that I was starting to regain the use of the end of my
extremities.

    “When your mom called me
bawling that you weren’t there I rushed to the Jacobs’ home and saw
a bloody brick loosed from their home on Jules’ floor. I checked
the recording to see if I could get some sort of clue as to where
they were taking you.

“I’ll tell you this, watching you struggle
with him ripped my insides to shreds. I panicked that I’d never be
able to find you. I called Jules. She’s on her way home
Elliott.”

I wished he hadn’t done that. I didn’t want
her to worry. I would have preferred she not find out anything
until after the worse was over.

“She told me to check the school,” he
continued. “I wondered how she knew you would be here but I’m glad
she suggested it. It was the last place I would have thought to
check. You surely would have frozen solid by the time I’d thought
to check here.” He shook his head at the idea before continuing
on,“You managed to pull off part of his mask and I saw that stupid
tattoo he had gotten weeks ago on his neck.” He leaned closer to my
face with a grin, “I bet you he’d never thought in a million years
that
that
was how we’d catch him. He definitely knew you had
cameras in the room.

“I’m also betting he knew you were going to
be waiting in there to catch him.”

So that was what Taylor was checking
on.
She wasn’t looking for Jules. Jesse must have seen the
camera and had her check the house for the main feed. I’m such an
idiot
, I thought.

“He took your cameras, and your laptop,
thinking that he’d gotten rid of any evidence. I don’t think he
realized you were feeding it to my computer offsite as well. What a
fool. It was very smart thinking on your part. It was enough to get
a warrant son. This morning Sam tried to arrest Jesse but,” he
hesitated. I could tell he didn’t want to continue but I knew what
he was about to say anyway. “He can’t be found, but don’t worry!
Sam will get him!

“And Elliott? I’m sorry I didn’t believe you
before.”

He continued talking, jabbering on and on in
nervousness, trying to make me feel better but all I wanted was to
hear that Jules was okay. I at least knew that Jesse hadn’t gotten
to her but I needed so much more. I needed to hear that she was as
perfect as the day she had to flee Bramwell. No, that she was
better. I knew where Jesse was going. Jules would know it too. He
was going to his parents’ cabin in Blackwater Falls. I knew him all
too well. That’s where he went after he did anything that could
land him in jail. It’s where he hid until the dust from the trouble
he always caused settled.

The ambulance finally came around. The
paramedics tried to ask me questions. They told me to blink once
for yes, twice for no and I tried to answer as best I could but it
was truly difficult when their questions seemed to lead in the
wrong direction.

I wanted to scream out, let them know what he
had done. I was desperate for one of them to inspect my neck for a
puncture wound but lost hope when they placed the neck brace around
my throat. This had an unexpected effect and I started choking on
the air with each breath, trying to scream from the pain. They
removed the brace and used a much smaller one, one that wouldn’t
touch my broken jaw but would at least offer some sort of support
in case my neck was broken.

On the count of three, they slid me onto a
backboard, then easily lifted me onto a gurney, not a small feat
for a two hundred pound plus victim. I laid flat and as they rolled
me past the school I noticed that Jesse had spray painted and
vandalized the school, no doubt, in an attempt to frame me for the
job.

I had a distinct feeling that my fingerprints
would be on all the paint cans. On the wall it read, ‘Jesse Thomas
is a psycho’ and ‘Jesse Thomas is going to die’. He had mutilated
all the plant life in his wake and broken several windows as well.
One of the medics removed something from my arm and glanced at his
fellow paramedic. He held up a ribbon of rubber. 

For the longest time I sat in the ambulance
wondering where I’d seen something like that before. It was what
the nurse at my doctor’s office would use when taking blood, when
she needed to find a vein.  
But why?
I screamed in my
head.
For what reason? He injected whatever it was that did this
to me in my neck? What if he gave me something else?
I
thought
. What was he doing? He was too smart to make so many
mistakes.
Then, I heard the medics.

“Son, can you tell me what drugs you
took?”

He studied my confused expression.

“The syringe?” He asked. “What was in the
syringe at the scene?”

Syringe?
I thought.
I knew
it.
   
“Nothing,” I managed to just barely slur
out. “Kill,” I mumbled.
    “What?” He asked, furrowing his eyebrows and
pitching his ear toward my lips.
    “Jesse....tried.....kill.......me,” I finally
muddled. I took a deep breath and said the only thing I could
possibly say, “Pain.”

He nodded. It was so painful to speak and
with every word, every roll of the tongue I fought back the bile
rising in my throat. I had never been in so much pain and could
barely voice it. I passed out so many times I lost count and every
time I woke I wished I would black out again.

I woke, this time with no pain. I heard
machines beeping, liquid dripping and the shallow breathing of my
family. I pried my eyelids open and looked around. Jules wasn’t
there. I knew if she wasn’t there I couldn’t have been out for that
long. I lifted my arms and found that although they felt like jelly
I could indeed lift them and that relieved some of my anxiety. I
tried to speak but couldn’t. My jaw was wired shut.

“Elliott?” My mom said softly, eyes red from
hours of crying. “Elliott, you’ve had to have surgery on your jaw
son. It went well but your jaw had to be wired shut. If you want to
communicate with us you’ll need to write down what you want to say,
okay?”

I squinted my eyes and nodded in agreement.
She brought over a pen and pad. I couldn’t hold them so she put the
pen in my hand and held the pad steady for me while I wrote.
    Jules?
She hesitated, clearing her throat, and looked over to my father.
My dad came up and squeezed my hand.
    “She was here yesterday son,”
Yesterday?!
I could tell he was leaving something out.
I pointed to Julia’s name and waited.
    “Well, now Elliott, I don’t know if
I...........well, I’m just not sure how to tell you this but after
she left the hospital yesterday I saw her to her car and told her
to go straight to her house where her mom and dad were waiting
because we still haven’t caught Jesse yet.”
He paused for a long time, long enough for me to feel the tears
slide down my temples. He didn’t need to say it, I knew.
She
never made it home, right dad? Just say it! She never made it
home!
I screamed ‘no’ through wired teeth. I didn’t give him a
chance to continue. I began ripping out anything attached to me and
tried to sit up. I could hear Maddy’s muffled sobs as she buried
herself into my grandmother’s stomach.

My Uncle Danny helped my dad restrain me
against the hospital bed. If I hadn’t had been so weak from the
drugs I know I could have broken through them, nothing would have
stopped me from getting to Jules but I could barely hold a pen let
alone fight off two grown men.

They waited until I calmed down. All I could
see were watery faces staring down on me in pity. I scrambled for
the pen and paper and tried to write down everything I wanted to
know. My mom helped me once more.

   
How long?

“Julia was here from the second she got into
town until I had to order her several times to go home and get some
sleep and something to eat. She repeatedly refused me but I
eventually convinced her that you wouldn’t be up for
hours......”

I underlined the words ‘how long’ and waited
impatiently. I wasn’t interested in the back story.

    “Eight hours,” Danny
said.
Eight hours. Eight hours away from her being safe in my sight or
enduring whatever hideous plan Jesse had for her. Only eight. I
felt like vomiting but knew that wouldn’t have been an option with
my jaw wired shut and shut my eyes for a moment instead to catch my
breath.
   
Why aren’t you looking for
her?
    “We’ve searched everywhere
Elliott. She’s not here son. We found her car running on Main with
the door open. We think she’s alive because there was evidence of a
struggle and it looks like he took her away in his car Elliott.
He’s taken her somewhere. We’ve notified all the necessary
authorities and they are all doing everything they can,” Danny
said, before pausing. He leaned in and focused on my eyes, “Is
there
any
place you can possibly think that he would have
taken her? Anything you could give us would be helpful
Elliott.”
I nodded and wrote,
Blackwater Falls.
   
Someone must have called for a nurse
then. I didn’t complain until I saw the syringe in her hand. I
began to protest but it was no use. I couldn’t stop her and my dad
and Uncle Danny had me by the arms.

As I drifted off to sleep, I thought of
nothing but Jules. All I could ever want in the entire world was
being threatened and I was handicapped by the very thing Jesse
tried to kill me with. I fell asleep angry hoping the rage would
burn the drugs faster so I could wake and tear out of the hospital
with a vengeance.

    I dreamt of Jules from the second my eyes closed
to the second I woke. She inundated my thoughts and I woke to blood
boiling when I realized where she was. I opened my eyes and checked
around the almost quiet room.

I immediately grabbed my chest, just below my
left collarbone. It was an instant excruciating misery and throbbed
terribly. I frantically pulled the hospital gown from my body but
found nothing there. Impulsively, I rubbed the area trying to
remove the torment.

I had no idea the time but it looked late,
only my dad was in the room with me. It was definitely late in the
night because my dad was snoring steadily and I barely heard a peep
outside my room. I heard a nurse tell someone to get some sleep
before she closed their door and I waited for her footsteps to dim
before I began removing anything that would have kept me tied to
that insipid bed.  

When I was positive there was nothing still
attached, I slipped from underneath the covers and grabbed the bag
full of the clothes I came in. I tossed everything on as quickly as
I possibly could and crept from the room as quietly as
possible.

Before I left, I noticed the pen and paper
and tossed it in my back pocket. I was grateful to the last person
who had come and left the room because the door was cracked open an
inch or so and I escaped without so much as a sound. I knew I had
precious little time to get away because my heart monitor stopped
beeping and I could already hear the nurses’ speedy steps heading
the direction of my room.

I had no idea how I was going to get to my
truck but I didn’t care. I was working down my list and wasn’t
going to worry about everything at once.
One step at a time
,
I kept telling myself. I turned the corner and was almost found
out. I peered back around that same corner and saw someone, people,
I never expected. My entire team, including Matthew Tanen, sleeping
along several chairs. I took a closer look at everyone sleeping in
the waiting room and figured Matt was my only chance because he was
closest.

I quietly snuck up to him and pulled at his
sleeve. He startled awake and I had to restrain his booming voice
with my hand. Several of my family members stirred but thankfully
never woke and when I thought Matt had a grip on himself I pulled
him toward a hidden hallway.

    “What the hell are you
doing out here Gray?” He asked.
    Matt, I scribbled as legibly but as fast as I
could,
R
emember that time you said you owed me because I
wouldn’t let you cheat off my paper in Chemistry and instead stayed
with you all night and helped you
study?
   
“Yeeeesss,” he
said reluctantly.

I’m calling in that favor
, I wrote.
I need your help and I don’t want you to ask questions.

Matt was the kind of loyal friend that knew
when to let things go when you wanted it dropped and he agreed
without hesitation. We ran toward the double doors and I had a
fleeting thought towards the pain in my chest. That’s when it hit
me, hard.

Oh my God! Julia!

From The Other Side

“Jules, can you breathe alright?” He asked,
knuckles tight on the steering wheel.

I nodded my head, barely acknowledging him,
not that I could talk anyway, with all the duct tape he had
plastered to my mouth. I learned my lesson early on in this little
abduction that if I didn’t answer promptly I paid dearly with a
slap to the face.
“What was that?” He asked, cupping his ear, feigning he missed what
I never said and laughing maniacally.
Jeez, who is this
guy?
“Psycho,” I mumbled through tape.
My saliva and the heat from my breath softened the glue on the tape
and was beginning to chafe the skin around my mouth.
We were heading northeast toward Blackwater Falls from the little I
was able to see. I was hogtied and on my back and every few
minutes, when I could gather the strength, I would strain to peek
over the dash in attempt to get my bearings.