Page 26 of Apathy
I have never seen Lauren this shaken. She seemed stronger and braver than I was when we first found Megan, but as soon as the police arrived, she shut down, refusing to talk.
She finally looked at Dylan and then at me, her lower lip trembling.
“I’m scared, Sky,” she whispered. “I’m really, really scared. And I don’t—”
“Lauren!” a voice boomed through the clearing. When I looked to the left, her father, Sheriff Benjamin, was rushing toward us, his eyes on Lauren. I had no idea why he wasn’t the first person to arrive at the crime scene, but I didn’t want to ask.
“Dad?” She moved away from Dylan. “Oh God!”
She ran, meeting him halfway, clinging to him as I clung to Dylan. I couldn’t hear their voices, but as Sheriff Benjamin started stroking her back, I knew she would be better off with her family than with me and Dylan.
“Hey,” Dylan spoke, his hand on my shoulder. “You’re shivering.”
“I-I’m just so cold.”Cold like Megan.
“Hey, hey.” He pulled me into his embrace. “No one’s gonna hurt you, okay? I won’t let them.”
“But you weren’t here,” I sobbed. “You’re not here anymore. She had my name carved into her skin, Dylan. She—” I choked. “She looked like me. The same hair color, the same color of her eyes…” I trailed off.
“But she isn’t you.”
I wanted to believe him. I wanted to believe that everything was going to be okay, but how could it ever be when there was a killer in town, targeting girls. Girls that apparently looked like me, carving my name in their skin, and butchering them.
“I know, but—”
“No, I don’t wanna hear it, Little One.” He placed his lips on top of my head and squeezed me tighter. “Nothing is gonna happen to you, and that’s a promise.”
I lifted my head, meeting his eyes, soaking in his strength, in his confidence.
“Okay.” I nodded.
“Okay?” He smiled at me. God, I missed seeing that smile.
“Yeah, okay. I believe you, but can we please go home now?” I pleaded.
He wrapped his much bigger hand around mine and started pulling me away from the paramedics, and through the throng of officers gathered around, toward his car.
Walking next to him, I felt like the world couldn’t hurt me. Like what I saw would just disappear because he said so. I couldn’t even count the number of times he defended me against our mother. The number of times he held me throughout the night when the nightmares I was trying to escape from decided to take a hold of my mind, holding me captive until the very next morning.
And even when I couldn’t tell him what my dreams were about, he still held me, no questions asked.
But the most important thing, I realized as he opened the passenger door of his car, ushering me inside, was that he came.
He always came for me.
Skylar
Swollen blue eyes stared back at me from the mirror, as I stood in front of the sink in the bathroom, trying to wash the blood from my hands. But just like in the forest, no matter how hard I scrubbed, or how many times I used the soap, I still felt dirty, violated, and scared. The smell of the pine trees and wet soil was so deeply ingrained in my brain, that even after lighting all the candles in my room, they couldn’t erase the smell.
The smell of death.
I kept thinking about Megan’s last moments and how she must have felt knowing that there was no way out. What were her last thoughts? Did she blame us for being too late to save her?
Was she conscious when that monster carved my name on her skin?
God, seeing my name there, so violently engraved, made me sick. Just thinking about it made me want to hide, get away from this place. I kept coming back to the last time I saw her in front of the Kraftmart this summer, standing with her mom, laughing at something she said.
Wasn’t it weird that only when a person died, we thought about all the things we could’ve done for them? Maybe if I had talked to her, maybe I would’ve liked her and we could’ve been friends. Maybe if she had been with us, she wouldn’t have been walking alone at night that Sunday before school started and she wouldn’t have been kidnapped.
