blow to shield Jane. Pain rocketed through my body, and I collapsed to the ground. I could hear Jane screaming above me, and then she let out a yelp, and I felt her fall next to me.
My lungs weren’t working. I desperately sucked at the air.
“You couldn’t leave well enough alone,” a female voice shrieked. I turned my head just enough to see it was Laura, standing behind Dylan. He was holding the pipe like a bat.
I couldn’t breathe.
I turned to look at Jane. She was dazed but awake, lying against the wall. Her neck and chest were splattered with blood.
“You, Benson,” Laura spat, “think that you’re the big man because you don’t care about the rules. Do you think that Lily would have tried to escape if you hadn’t been goading her on?”
I didn’t even care about arguing. I just wanted to protect Jane. I forced my aching lungs to breathe the word “stop.”
“Stop?” Dylan mocked. “I shouldn’t have stopped last time. I should have finished you off at the wall.” He raised the pipe and there was nothing I could do. He swung it down like an axe, smashing my raised arm and pounding down into Jane’s leg. She groaned, low and soft.
I could barely move, but they were going to kill us, and I couldn’t let them. He took a step back, preparing the heavy pipe again. I started to stand and got up on one knee before Dylan’s swing caught me in the stomach. I reached for something, my fingers dragging across Jane’s bleeding leg, but I couldn’t stay up.
I plummeted down into the deep window well.
Blackness was gathering all around me. Above me, silhouetted against the sky, I saw Dylan raise the pipe and hack it down onto Jane.
I watched him do it again. And again.
Chapter Fifteen
I woke.
Silence. Pitch-black.
I tried to move, and sharp, terrifying pains pierced my body.
There was a patch of gray sky above me. As I stared, I could see specks of light. Stars.
The almost-rectangular sky was interrupted by a small black spot. I tried to focus on it, tried to see it.
It was a hand. A hand reaching over the edge of the well. No—hanging over the edge.
Jane.
I pushed myself up, trembling with pain. I remembered what had happened. Laura’s grotesque screaming. Dylan’s swinging pipe. Jane’s silence.
I reached for her hand, and the stretch made me gasp. My ribs were on fire. Tears ran down my face as I touched her fingers with mine. They were cold. She didn’t move.
“Jane!” I shouted, desperately looking around me for some way to climb out. I put my foot on the corrugated metal, and it slipped off.
“Jane!” I yelled again. My voice was hoarse and dry. “Jane, wake up!”
I stretched for the top and discovered that the fingers on my left hand wouldn’t grip. They wouldn’t even respond. I crumpled back down to the bottom of the window well, scorching pain wracking my entire left side.
“Jane! You’ve got to wake up!” I moved to the far end of the well and then tried to run and leap for the top, but the sudden movement seemed to cripple me. I couldn’t force my body to jump.
“Come on, Jane,” I said, spinning in a circle, looking for anything I could find. The ground was thick with dry leaves. I kicked through them.
My foot caught on something and I dug it up—a short two-by-four.
“I’m coming, Jane,” I said through the tears. I jabbed one end of the board into the dirt and leaned it against the side of the well. “I’m coming. Don’t worry.” I stepped up onto the high end, and my head was over the side.
Jane was motionless. She was dead.
I grabbed at the grass with my good hand and scrambled up onto the lawn, panting for air and fighting the pain.
I moved to Jane, brushing her hair from her face. She was bleeding.
No, the blood was dry.
“Jane!” I yelled. “No!” I grabbed her neck, pressing with my fingers, searching for a pulse. There was nothing.
I was crying now. I knelt over her, my face bent down to her lips, trying to feel a breath against my cheek. Nothing.
Blood was everywhere—face, neck, arms, legs.
Gripping my useless left hand with my right, I pressed down onto her chest, over and over. I bent over her lifeless face and breathed into her mouth.
Nothing.
What could I do? Where could I go? We had no 911. No ambulance.
I looked at Jane and touched her face. I touched her hand and touched her dress, ripped at the waist where the rough pipe had smashed against her.
She twitched.
“Jane?” I stared at her arm, wondering whether I’d seen something real.
It twitched again.
“Come on,” I shouted, feeling her neck again for a pulse. My fingers were throbbing so much I couldn’t tell.
Her head moved.
“Jane, can you hear me?”
Her hand lifted and fell.
“Stay there,” I said, struggling to stand. “I’ll get some guys.”
She kept moving, pushing herself up.
“Are you okay? Can you hear me?”
She didn’t respond, but moved to her knees. I offered my hand, but she climbed to a standing position without it.
I put my arm around her waist to help. “Come on,” I said. “Can you walk? Let’s get inside.” My body was screaming with pain. Adrenaline must have been keeping me up.
She looked back at me, but her eyes were slightly crossed.
“You’re in shock,” I said, trying to be calm. “Lie down. I’ll go for help.”
But she didn’t listen. She took an unsteady step, and then two more. She was limping severely on her right leg.
“What’s going on, Jane?” I said, trying to hold her up the best I could. “Talk to me.”
She kept walking.
I moved in front, trying to stop her. She was delusional. I grabbed her in a hug, but she didn’t respond.
She took another step in spite of me, and I stumbled and fell. As I hit the ground, daggers of pain stabbed my ribs, hip, arm, and chest. I gasped for breath. Jane kept walking.
“Stop it,” I shouted, trying to get back up. “Jane, just sit down!”
But she kept moving, limping slowly but deliberately around to the back of the building.
I shoved myself up, gritting my teeth against my injuries. She was almost around the corner when I was back on my feet, and I hobbled after her, yelling.
There were no lights close to me. I didn’t know how much time had passed, but the dance must have been long over. Turning back, I could see a dim glow high above me, coming from one window of the girls’ dorm. For a moment I thought I should run there and try to throw a rock, try to get someone’s attention, but Jane was already out of view around the corner and I couldn’t leave her. She would fall at any minute—on the sharp stone steps or
