The Number 8 (18 page)

“No!” He coughed, trying to raise himself to a sitting position. “No one can know about this.”

The two friends shot each other a look of amusement, but nodded in agreement.

“Did you…?” Asmir stuttered, pointing at the river and then back at Annie.

“After you crashed into that rock and blacked out, you drifted into that little corner,” Annie said, pointing to a small area on the far side of the river that was sheltered from the current. “But yes, I saved your life. You were face down and I pulled you out.”

“Did you…?” he said, this time pointing to his lips.

This prompted a reaction that he wasn’t too happy about. Her eyes widened, her eyebrows shot upwards and her mouth made an “O” shape.

“Ohhh, no, no, no. I pulled you out, pushed on your chest a couple of times and you spat out half the river. But I probably would have, to save your life. But
only
to save your life.”

Asmir felt a little offended, but he let it slide. She had saved him.

He let his head fall back onto the ground and took in lungfuls of air. Annie got to her feet, while Becki stayed by his side. She wiped the hair off his face and continued to whisper that she was sorry.

“I’m going to grab some towels for you two. Stay here, we don’t want anyone else finding out about this, or you will both be in some serious trouble. I’ll be back soon.”

With that she left. He stayed on the ground for a few seconds more. The clouds had cleared and all he could see were stars. It would’ve been beautiful if he hadn’t been battered, bruised and barely breathing.

“This was not how I wanted the night to go,” Becki said, her voice soft and sincere.

“Yeah, well, it wouldn’t have been my first choice for a date either,” he said, speaking very slowly and laboring over each syllable.

She surveyed his body.

“Your knee, Asmir. It’s bleeding pretty bad.”

“I can’t feel it. It must be the adrenaline. My body feels like one big bruise right now.”

He managed to turn his head slightly towards her. He could see she was shivering.

“You know how people tell you that an adrenaline rush is fun?” he said, still wheezing.

She nodded.

“It’s not,” he said.

Becki smiled at him for a second. She placed her cold hand on his face and kissed him lightly on the cheek.

“I’m so sorry,” she whispered again.

“Apology accepted. You’re freezing. You should go inside and jump in a warm shower.”

“I’m staying,” she insisted and he was glad.

It was another minute or so before Annie returned with two towels. Asmir had finally found enough strength to get to his feet. His legs ached and he felt like he had been punched about thirty times right in the stomach but, with a little bit of assistance from both girls, he made it back inside. Most people were still downstairs. The incident hadn’t attracted any attention because the music in the bar was way too loud to hear him scream. Annie had only come outside because she was checking on her friend. Asmir had got lucky. Very, very lucky.

They offered to help him back to the room, but he declined. Instead he let them go on ahead and hobbled slowly behind them.

The shower was a welcome relief. All his movements were labored and at one point he didn’t move for a whole two minutes. The hot water loosened him up and allowed him to clean his wound effectively. It relaxed him and most importantly it washed away the adrenaline and restored some balance within his body.

When he got back to the room Annie and Becki were both in bed and were either asleep or feigning it, but they clearly didn’t want to discuss what had just happened.

He dried himself off and jumped into his sleeping bag. The order went Dante, Annie, Becki, him. They hadn’t exactly planned it, but he had definitely made a point of throwing his stuff down the moment he saw Becki do the same. Looking across the row he could see that they were all in different positions. Dante was curled up facing the wall. Annie was lying on her back with her head turned towards Dante. Becki was sleeping facing him and away from the others. He knew how he would sleep because it was the same every night. Face down with his arms under the cold side of the pillow. So, he assumed the position, his arms aching and his chest bruised. He made sure to face away from the sleeping Becki. He didn’t want her to wake up with his face inches from hers. He liked her and that sure as hell would not help.

Asmir got comfortable and shuffled himself a little deeper into his sleeping bag. He could hear Marco snoring. It was very loud for such a small guy, but he didn’t have the strength to care at that moment. All he could do was lie in that warm room with ten others and yet another twenty still to arrive and think about what he had just been through. But his main and overwhelming thought was that, as irrational as it may seem to Dante the next morning, Annie and Becki would no longer be suspects in his mind. They were clean.

Chapter 34

It was morning and the soft tapping of rain on the thin, glass windows of the lodge woke Asmir up. After his exertions the previous night his body had allowed him to sleep peacefully despite the battering. That morning, however, it was a different story. His chest was so sore that even moving from his front to his side was unbearable. He could breathe, so chances were his ribs weren’t broken but his whole chest was extremely tender. The cut on his knee was also stinging but the ointment he had used before he had gone to bed had definitely helped. He didn’t even need to check. He knew both areas would be bruised and he wanted to avoid any questions about them from other passengers, so he wormed his way out of his sleeping bag and got to his feet trying not to make a sound. This wasn’t easy because every move he made felt like another knife being jabbed into his chest.

Unlike the previous evening, it was cold in the room. The heat of the thirty-plus bodies had somehow evaporated and all that was left was a nasty chill that made Asmir shudder. Everyone had their sleeping bags pulled all the way up to their necks or over their heads.

Asmir checked his phone. It was eight o’clock and it was clear that they were all going to be late leaving because the bus was scheduled to leave at nine. Quietly, he tiptoed to the bathroom and took a quick shower, which, like the night before, proved to be the secret medicine.

He got out feeling relaxed and calm. The pain was still there but after the two ibuprofen he was planning to take, he was sure it would be bearable. His knee was swollen and purple in color but it was his chest that was more concerning. Some patches were dark blue, but the most painful areas were now almost black. He hadn’t seen a bruise that color before and he made a mental note to keep a close eye on it to ensure it didn’t get worse.

At eight-twenty Asmir was showered, shaved and fully dressed. The painkillers he had taken a few minutes before were kicking in and he was feeling more human. A few of the others were stirring now but no one had had the bravery to get out of their warm sleeping bags and venture out into the cold. In the corner, Dante was still in the same position as he had fallen asleep in. He had a knack of doing that. Annie on the other hand, wasn’t. She had inadvertently started spooning him at some point during the night, probably because of the cold. But as Asmir tried to pack in silence, he was plotting ways of waking them up together to make it as awkward as possible. He was evil like that. But, as a thank you for saving his life, he decided not to do that to Annie. Instead, he woke Dante on his own and told him that the guys’ showers would be packed in the next few minutes, so he should get up. Dante agreed and left to take a shower, which gave Asmir plenty of time to plan his next genius prank on him.

Asmir grabbed Dante’s phone, which he knew was not password protected and set an alarm for eight-thirty. He put the volume to MAX and left the phone on Dante’s bed while he scurried back to his own area.

Sure enough, at eight-thirty, Kelis’ ‘Milkshake’ began to play at full volume. A chorus of groans went up and people began to sit up in their beds to see what idiot had set the alarm. What they saw was an empty bed and Dante’s phone blasting the tune and buzzing loudly as it tried to move around his bed. But the greatest reaction had to be Annie who nearly had a heart attack as the phone had been inches from her right ear. She grabbed the phone and fiddled with it until it finally turned off. She sat bolt upright and saw Asmir packing with a smirk on his face.

“I know this was you, Dante wouldn’t do that,” she growled at him.

“How dare you? I am just over here minding my…”

She interrupted him, scowling, “Oh, save it! Even after I saved your…never mind,” she said catching herself. Everyone was watching and they had agreed not to mention it.

“Why would you even do that?” she asked instead.

Asmir raised his voice so the rest of the passengers could hear. “Me? It’s his phone and his alarm. Maybe
he
did this on purpose. Where is he now?”

People started bad-mouthing Dante all around the room. It didn’t take much to convince the rest of them that it was his fault. He had been the villain of the trip after all.

“Whatever, Asmir, you’re an asshole,” she said.

“I could’ve done a lot worse,” he whispered under his breath.

She obviously heard this. “What the hell did you say?” she seethed.

“Nothing, Annie.” He waited for everyone to start doing their own thing before going over to Annie. He hadn’t been mean for no reason, so he needed to explain this to Annie.

He went to sit down in Dante’s corner and got the reaction that he knew he would.

“What the hell do you want now? I’m not in the mood,” Annie said getting her stuff together.

“Listen,” he whispered. “I wanted to cause a scene this morning so that if anyone hears about what happened last night they wouldn’t believe it. After all, why would you jump in the freezing river to save the life of someone you loath, right? Them thinking that you can’t stand me, saves both our asses in this situation.”

“Ahh, dammit, Asmir. It’s too early for games. If you’re going to do something like that, tell me first!”

“I needed your reaction to be genuine and it was. But again, from the bottom of my heart, thank you for what you did last night. You didn’t have to do that for me, so I’m very grateful.”

She looked at him, dazed. “Asmir, it is too early for all of this. I am so confused. My brain is only 40% awake right now. Let me wake up first, OK?”

Asmir did as she asked. But he had planned it all well. Even though it had been Annie that had pulled him out, the people in charge wouldn’t have seen her as any less responsible for the reckless and dangerous events of the previous night. He thought he had done what he had needed to to ensure that neither of them would get in trouble.

An hour later, they were all on the bus. As he had predicted, they were going to be over thirty minutes late leaving River Valley. Both he and Dante had pretty miserable memories of the place but for very different reasons and neither of them were a reflection on the lodge or the location. Dante had been hungover for the whole visit and Asmir had nearly died after diving into a fast-flowing icy river. But at least they would be sure to remember the lodge and the spectacular scenery. The lodge for their unique sleeping arrangements, the smiling and courteous bar staff and the well-lit and perfectly staged photographs in the surrounding areas.

Another ten minutes went by and the most important person had still not arrived. Mel was not in her seat and, thinking back, he hadn’t seen her last night either. Ben was getting antsy and was ready to get going as were all the other passengers. Each minute that flew by, the crowd got louder and their protestations got more difficult for him to ignore.

Just as a few of the louder passengers had gotten out of their seats a woman who Asmir recognized as one of the bar staff got on the bus and whispered something to Ben who looked even more worried than before. Once they had finished talking, she turned to address the bus.

“There has been a change of plan. You are going to head on to the next destination. It just won’t be with Mel as your guide.”

“What happened?” Dick asked from near the front.

“Well, I was informed this morning that Mel has had to leave this tour due to a family emergency and she won’t be returning. At the next destination the company will have a new guide waiting for you.”

With that, she got off the bus and they drove off. But unlike the others this clearly didn’t sit right with Dante. He turned to Asmir, his face like he had just been given an impossible puzzle to solve.

“Az, what the hell is going on?”

Chapter 35

Dante was still looking at Asmir. He had been acting strange all morning but on this, they both agreed.

“Why would she leave like that?” Dante asked.

“Didn’t you listen? She’s got family issues. Not everything is suspicious. Sometimes there’s an explanation.”

“Oh yeah, like why you keep wincing whenever you move and why you were up before everyone today?”

“Just wanted some peace,” he said, shuffling awkwardly.

“That’s bullshit and you know it. You’re always the last one up. There’s something going on with you and I’m pretty sure it has to do with Annie. You haven’t looked at each other all morning. What’s the deal? You like her?”

Asmir laughed, but quickly stopped as it hurt too much.

“You’re not as good a detective as you think, mate. No I don’t like her. Well, not like that. She saved my life.”

Dante didn’t know what to say. He just sat, staring, wondering whether it was Asmir talking nonsense or whether he was actually telling him the truth. Then, Asmir told him one of the most far-fetched and unlikely stories he had ever heard but, for some reason, he believed him. He didn’t want to but Asmir showed him the bruises on the chest, the cuts on his knee and explained Annie’s role and he found it hard to argue with the evidence.

“Why didn’t you just tell me?” Dante finally asked.

“I didn’t want to get the girls in trouble, D. All of us would be kicked off the bus if anyone found out. You know that. I’m only telling you because you have a vested interest in keeping a couple of us around,” he said winking.