Winter's Scars: The Forsaken (Winter's Saga 5) (2 page)

Chapter 3
Escape

She was still strapped into the harness.  

She woke at what was either dusk or dawn.  She had no idea which direction was north.  Hell, she didn’t even know how long she’d been hanging sideways.  Her eyes darted around her trying to take in as much as she could before she lost sunlight, in case that’s what the sun was really doing. 

She looked down at herself and saw the long black gown she wore was wet with something just as dark.  Frowning just as much from the disorientation as the pain, she looked to her right at the pressure there and saw a bloody body wrapped in a three-pieced suit. 

Meg tried not to scream or vomit or both.

Starting to become more aware of the danger she was in, she began to frantically pull at the safety harness holding her at a painful angle.

Where the hell am I?
  She thought desperately tugging at the buttons and clasps pinning her to the grotesque body beside her.

She saw another body in the pilot’s seat, hunched forward.  The man’s head was impaled by a rock formation that had interrupted the integrity of the chopper’s cockpit.  Gray matter was visible in the dim light
, and for the second time since she came to, she had to swallow the vomit that climbed her throat. 

It tasted like blood.

Or maybe it was blood. 

She reached up to touch her face and felt wet, stickiness. 

Whose blood?  Is this mine or the peeled monster’s beside me?

She used two hands to feel her face this time, touching tentatively, trying to determine whether it hurt somewhere specifically.  That’s when her fingertips grazed the gash near her right temple.  The wound was still seeping
, and though Meg knew she had to stop the blood flow, she had to first get out of the helicopter.

What was I doing in this chopper?  Who are these people? Where am I? And why am I wearing a black evening gown? 
She groaned as she finally unfastened the last of the straps. 

She reached out instinctively to catch her fall and lay there for a moment looking up into the macabre scene inside the chopper’s cab.  Through the still kicked-up dust she tried to look for a way out and managed a shaky breath when
she realized the safest way for her to get out would be to crawl over the body of the gruesome guy dangling toward her and out his door.  It looked like the only realistic exit, however loathsome.  She inhaled deeply trying to garner the courage to climb him when she smelled something familiar.

Gasoline.

Oh shit!

The thought of going up in flames scared her more than the monster she was to use as a ladder. 

She sat up and held anything she could trying to stand.  She growled down at the high heels strapped to her feet and wondered again why she was dressed this way.  She reached around the bloody guy and tried to grab the chopper’s door handle on his side.  She could just reach but wouldn’t have enough leverage to slide it open until she was closer.

She breathed into her shoulder so as not to take in the raw smell emanating off the body she was forced to touch.

With sheer strength, Meg leveraged herself between the front passenger seat and the body to grab the handle and yank it wide to the right. 

It moved without complaint.  Meg breathed a sigh of relief as she watched the dimming light spill into the cab from this new opening.  As quickly as possible, she had herself pulled up and seated at the opening of the helicopter.

“MEG!”
a raspy voice barked.

A bloody hand reached out and grabbed her ankle, trying to yank her back.  Meg screamed as the eyes of the bloody-faced man opened and narrowed in anger
.  Kicking frantically, she freed herself from his bloody grasp and clamored down the underbelly of the chopper.

She
ran. 

Her long, black gown trailed behind her as she moved swiftly
despite her three-inch heels down the rocky side of the mountain.  She ran until night fell obscuring her vision, making her descent even more treacherous. 

Peering anxiously in the direction of the crashed helicopter, she put her hand to the bloody gash on her head.  She felt her heart pounding angrily in her chest, but she
wasn’t out of breath so much as shaking with fear. 

What the hell is going on?
  She screamed inside her mind. 
Who am I and why can’t I remember anything?

Chapter 4 Echoes in the Dark

Indigo eyes searched the Kentucky blue skies methodically.  Alik craned his neck out the window concentrating so deeply
he didn’t feel the crick forming in his neck.  Sweat kept trying to form at his hairline only to be whisked away by the force of the wind pushing against him.  The SUV sped down the four-lane highway in east Kentucky chasing the echo of a helicopter that had flown five-thousand feet above ground-level an hour ago.  

The others in the car had taken turns trying to help by negotiating actual roads that ran as close as possible to where Alik was catching glimpses of the chopper in the sky.  Creed needed all the help he could get
since he was driving like his life depended on it.  Of course in his mind, it did.

“There,” Alik said, pointing to what looked like another ordinary blue patch of sky to everyone else.  “The chopper was there.  They’re heading more southeast now.”

“The Appalachian Mountains aren’t too far off.  Tracking them over that may prove,” Evan swallowed his worry hard, “tricky, Alik.”

“One thing at a time, Ev.”

“What’s that?” Sloan nearly jumped out of her seat pointing to something so far in the distance that no human’s eyes would have seen anything but a whole lot of blur.

“Where?” Cole asked.  He peered over the small girl’s shoulder to see where she was pointing.

“Way out there.  I saw an explosion against that black mountain.”

“Which black mountain?  They’re all black over there!” Cole unbuckled his seat belt and crawled into the back of the SUV, careful not to step on the very sick
coydog, but determined to see what Sloan had seen. 

“What the hell is going on back there?” Creed barked over the roar of the wind gushing in from Alik’s open window.

“Sloan saw an explosion against the side of a mountain,” Evan explained.

“Are you sure, Sloan?”  Alik asked, never taking his eyes off the chopper in the sky only he could see.

“Yes, I can see some smoke or dirt pluming now,” she said, eyes still attached to the faraway scene, afraid if she looked away, she would lose the pinprick mark where the explosion took place in the dimming evening light.

“What do you want to do
, Alik?” Creed asked the guy whose directions he’d been following explicitly for the past hour.

“What do
you
feel?” Alik asked.  He continued to watch the sky as he spoke with the soldier beside him.

“I think you need to tell me something pretty quick.  The sun is setting and…”

“That’s not what I mean, Creed.  You and Meg—you have this special connection.  If anyone can feel which way to go, it’s going to be you.”

“Wait, you’re leaving this huge decision up to the guy who only learned how to feel emotion yesterday?” Cole chided
.  Feeling completely out of control gave a sharp edge to his voice.

“Shut up,” Farrow snapped at Cole, knowing in her heart Alik was right.  Creed needed to do this.

“What do you want me to do?” Creed shrugged, eyes darting from the road to the side of the mountain as Sloan’s sharp, gray eyes kept vigil.

“First, pullover so you can concentrate,” he suggested.  “Farrow, looks as if we need your driving skills after all.” 

Creed indulged Alik and pulled the SUV to the side of the road.  As he walked around to climb into the back, he took a long gaze at the scenic beauty bathed in waning sunlight.  It paled in comparison to the girl who held his heart in her hands.  Sighing deeply, he grimaced at the thought that now the girl wouldn’t even recognize him on the street.

Farrow sat in the driver’s seat awaiting orders.  “Just keep following this road for now,” Alik
directed, his indigo eyes squinting more from the dimming light than from the wind whipping past them as she accelerated back onto the deserted highway.

“Okay Creed.  Just think about her.  Remember the way she
look at you,” Alik coaxed. 

“Oh, jeez,” Cole muttered only to get a sharp elbow into his ribs from Sloan.

“Hush,” the tiny doctor scolded.

Ignoring everyone around him, Creed closed his eyes and immediately conjured up the image of the girl whose face he would paint on the side of every building if he had that talent.  Her large, catlike eyes—so full of emotion—sparkled back at him. 

He had to force himself not to think of the blank stare he’d last seen on her beautiful pale face, but remember instead the way her high cheekbones pushed up, half-closing her exquisite eyes when she smiled at him.  He thought of her dainty hands reaching up and touching his temple, pulling all the pain she felt there out with her fingertips and brushing it away, cleaning his soul with her purity and strength.  He remembered feeling unworthy that she would use her gift to soothe him.  But in her eyes, he saw the reflection of the man he wanted to be.  Her man. 

He was so lost in his dream of his dark-eyed soul mate, he thought the tug he felt deep inside was just another dimension of his devotion showing itself before he recognized the sensation as his Meg calling to him.  At least, a part of her was.

Ignoring the tears slipping down his scruffy face, he spoke the words everyone was waiting to hear:  “I feel her.  She’s there.  Follow the crash.  She’s there,” Creed pointed excitedly off into the blackness.  “She feels like a magnet pulling at me,” he mumbled to no one in particular.

“Is she hurt?” Evan asked—his voice quivered with equal parts excitement and terror for his big sister.

Creed pinched his eyes shut in obvious concentration.  “I only feel her pull.  It’s weak, but I don’t know if it’s because she’s hurt or because her memories of me,” he swallowed the emotion building in his throat, “are gone.”

Alik stopped trying to squint into the engulfing blackness and leaned back into the car, rolling his stiff neck.  “You heard him Farrow.  Let’s go find our girl.”

“I can’t believe this.  She better be there, Creed.  We’re putting all our hope in your daydreaming skills.  For all we know, what you’re feeling is just gas.”  Cole crossed his arms.

“Listen Cole, I know you and I have some unsettled shit to work out concerning Meg, but now is not the time or the place.”  Creed’s voice commanded authority and everyone’s head turned to look at him in the shadows of the SUV as they flew toward the magnetic pull only he could feel.

Cole’s jaw snapped shut and a deep scowl formed on his youthful face.

Chapter 5  Gifted Girl

Meg stopped running only long enough to rip her dress and wrap her bleeding head with the black scrap.  She considered whacking the three inch spikes off the heels, but decided against it.  The strange angle of the remaining shoe would hurt more than the well-made Italian Strapys and she had to have shoes in this terrain. 

She looked around her.
Lights moving linearly below gave her proof there was a road she needed to get to.  She took off quickly, pushing her hunger and thirst aside so she could concentrate on the path at her feet. 

Fifteen minutes later, Meg was standing at the side of a dark, two-lane road.  She breathed deeply, trying to concentrate on what she knew.  Meg turned and headed south on that mostly deserted Kentucky road and forced herself to think.

What do you know?
  She asked herself.

I know I was in a helicopter
that crashed into the side of a mountain and that the bloody monster of a guy called me “Meg.”  I know I have a bleeding head wound and that I have no pockets, no form of identification at all.  The only other thing I have is this ring wrapped around my finger. 

That just brought up more questions, primarily centered on:
  Am I married?

Meg rubbed her eyes tiredly.  When she dropped
her hands, she saw the glow of headlights slipping over the black tongue of a road as it lolled from the mouth of the valley.

Self-consciously, Meg tried to smooth what was left of her black dress.  She looked down at herself and frowned.  In her haste, she’d ripped the dress at an asymmetrical angle starting at her midthigh on one side and ending at her calf on the other.  The thin straps holding it to her
frame left very little to the imagination and Meg felt herself shiver more from self-consciousness than chill. 

The last paintbrush strokes across the horizon from the setting sun had long since disappeared as she ran down the hill.
  Now the sky was as dark as charcoal, giving the approaching yellowish headlights a predatory feel to the lost girl.  She wrapped her arms around herself, trying to muster the courage to wave the vehicle down, but thinking it was just as likely that she should duck behind the nearest bush and hide.