Page 119 of Brimstone Hollow

“Where the hell are you going?” my dad spit, his voice trailing after me.

“I don’t know,” I answered. “I don’t know.”

And now I grab my arm as the pain rushes through my shoulder, up my neck, into my head, across my chest.

“Annie,” Dishman says. The car is stopped now. Dishman has the passenger door open and he’s pulling me out. His arms are strong and sure. The smell of his laundry detergent, his soap, fills my nose. I realize there are other people around. They’re shouting things, racing around, working. We’re not outside anymore. We’re inside.

I blink. It’s all fluorescent lights and bleach smell. I’m lying on a bed, I realize. Dishman is standing beside me. He’s holding my left hand. He’s soaking wet.

“You came back,” I say.

He nods.

“You came back to catch Will,” I say.

Dishman leans down, kisses the top of my head, and says, “No, Annie. I came back because I knew you’d be in trouble. Because you’realwaysin trouble. Stay alive, okay? Stay alive.”

“Sure,” I say. And then I close my eyes.

THIRTY-THREE

IT’S NIGHT, SOMETIME VERYlate, and the rain is still tapping against my hospital room window. Bart Casada turns out to be the first visitor I have once the doctors have decided I’m no longer actively dying and can be left by myself. I’m still exhausted, in pain, heavily medicated, and hooked up to all manner of machines when the big man edges into my room and says, “Heard you got bit by a timber rattler.”

“Yeah,” I say. “Apparently that’s what happens when you play with snakes.”

“You got the finger?”

“Yeah,” I say. “Hand me my jacket.”

I point to my leather jacket, hung on the back of the nearby chair.

“Here you go,” Bart says.

He’s wearing his farm clothes, his boots still caked with dirt. As he hands me the jacket, I get a whiff of sulfur. Rotten eggs, I think. And then I laugh to myself.

“What’s so funny?” he asks.

“Nothing,” I tell him. “Good luck using that finger. The damn thing’s half rotten.”

“Old man says we gotta try,” he says, taking the baggie and slipping it into his overalls pocket. He starts to go, then turns back, and with a sarcastic grin says, “Useless to you now, though.”

“What do you mean?” I ask.

“I was gonna testify about seeing Chief Dishman coming out of the church.”

“Yeah?”

“Well, I won’t have to now. Stupid son of a bitch turned himself in.”

Bart turns and leaves, and I take a long, rattly breath, and look at the IV bag next to me. Among other life-saving fluids, I’m being pumped full of antivenom, likely manufactured in part with venom Ezra took himself. My eyelids drift shut. I’m not sure how long I sleep. All I see is darkness.

When I open my eyes again, it’s because I hear someone whispering. “Honey, you awake in there?” I turn my head and see Thelma slipping silently into the room like she’s on a secret mission.

“Yeah,” I say. “I’m surprised they let you in.”

“The doctors were no trouble,” Thelma says. “It was that big tattooed lady outside that gave me the most hassle.”

“Tina…” I say. And I remember that Tina had been on her way to get me. On her way to take me home. She must be sitting outside my room now.