Page 74 of The Chaperones

Chapter Thirteen

Saturday morning, 1:47 a.m., thirteen minutes earlier

Mona, the PTA mom

I keep staring at the sky, waiting for another flash of lightning, a downpour, but the second storm doesn’t come. Every muscle in my body knows it cannot lift me up, let alone support me another step. At last, I’m still. I let the tiredness I’ve been fighting for too long consume me.

I don’t know how much time has passed before something pings my eyes. Prods at them. I open one, and it blinds me. That quickly, it’s black again, then too bright. Then, darkness once more.

“Hello?” I croak into the night, unsure if I’ve seen anything outside my dreams. The brightness beams over me again. I hear a voice. It isn’t the voice in my head. It’s someone else, calling. I can’t make out the words. But it’s a voice. A woman’s. It waits, then calls another time. Then the brightness sweeps over me, and I know what it is. A flashlight. It starts to grow smaller, the voice fainter.

Through the fatigue, I feel myself start to panic. I use both hands to force my body off the ground, feeling the grass matted to my face. When I touch it, it’s damp, viscous. My nose must have started to bleed again. There’s no time to think about that now. The light shines across another section of brush. She’s retreating. I have to stop her.

I sit up, so dizzy that I fall back to the ground. Before I do, I shout, “Over here.”

I hit the ground, and nothing exists beyond the deep pit of blackness I fall into.

“Mona,” I hear through the distance, feel the faint rocking of my body. “Mona, can you hear me?”

I murmur.

“Oh, thank god,” the voice says. “Can you sit up?”

I feel my torso lifted off the ground, too limp to help. Then I’m seated, my eyes closed, my head lolling back until I start to fall again. Only, she catches me.

When I open my eyes, I can’t believe it’s her, saving me.