BRIDGER (14 page)

Groaning, Jamie caught sight of Desmond and Issac walking down the driveway. “Well, that complicates things.
 
Andy…” she said, a cautionary call for him to slow down.

“What are you talking about?” I asked.

As we neared the driveway, I tensed my legs in preparation to jump out of the truck bed.
 
Instead of slowing down, Andy accelerated.
 
At the sound of the tires squealing against the pavement, Desmond looked away from Issac.
 
Issac’s head snapped up, following the source of his brother’s attention.
 
His face turned white.

It all happened very fast.

Desmond yelled at the house.
 
Jesse, Liam, and Tess sprinted out, looking for the source of the commotion.
 
Confused by what could have freaked Desmond out, I looked past Jamie.
 
Did the old man fall asleep at the wheel?
 
Did the engine catch fire?
 
Were we on a collision course with a giant meteor?

None of those things had happened.
 
It was worse.
 
Much worse.

Sucking in a shocked breath, I began to scream.

Where Jamie once sat was someone – something - I had never seen in my life.
 

Skin tinged green, hair in mossy snarls and flying in all directions was what moments ago had been my blonde-haired friend.
 
She was still pixie-like in size, but her venomous glare and sudden growth of fangs took away every aspect of a Barbie that she once had.
 
Instead, she was closer to a glorious version of the swamp thing.
 
Still beautiful, yet completely horrifying, she moved toward me like a hunter cornering its prey.
 
She grinned.
 
I swallowed convulsively.
 
For some reason I didn’t think this version of Jamie wanted to have a slumber party or paint each other’s toenails.
 
No, this Jamie was deadly.
 
Mom and Memaw would have to write my obituary.
 
This wasn’t going to end well.

Jamie lunged forward suddenly with her clawed hands extended. I fell off the back of the truck bed in an attempt to get away.
 
Instead of hitting the ground, I was hanging upside down.
 
My head was six inches from the ground, looking under the body of the truck.
 
Mud from the tires filled my mouth and covered my face.
 
Still moving down the road, I tried to figure out why I hadn’t hit the ground.
 
That’s about the time my possessed best friend began pulling me back into the bed of the speeding truck.

Choking on mud, I kicked the air blindly with my free leg.
 
Jamie continued to reel me back into the bed, so I grabbed the bumper of the truck in an attempt to hold her at bay.
 
On the third wild kick, I connected with something hard and heard a screech.
 

“Ashlyn, you can make this easy, or difficult.
 
All I wanted to do was go play pool!” Jamie screeched crazily.
 
She pulled at my leg, digging her talon-like fingernails into my skin, anchoring herself physically to me.
 
I cried out in pain and let go of the bumper in shock.
 
Flipping in the air, Jamie slung me back into the truck.
 
All the air was knocked out of me as I crashed back down into the truck bed.

I found myself looking up at the darkening sky.
 
Suddenly it was no longer there. Jamie had eclipsed the now purple sky.
 
Her grin was filled with what looked like moss between her fangs.
 
She lifted her hand and sneered, looking as though she was going to slap me across the face.
  
Her face changed from sadistic pleasure to shock.
 
“Your eyes…” she stuttered, eyes widening.
 
“Ankou, her eyes…are you sure - ”

“Don’t worry about her eyes, Jamie!
 
Yes, I’m sure!
 
Grab her now and get her in the cab before the Protectors come!”

Ankou? Isn’t that who Liam had mentioned yesterday? Protectors? Had I missed something?
 
What was I talking about; of course I’d missed something.
 
My best friend had been a psycho, green pixie for the better half of two years.
 
Most people might have noticed that. At this point I had probably missed a lot of things.
 
Scrambling back from Jamie in her moment of bewilderment, I hit my head against something in the corner of the bed.
 

A crowbar came across my forehead, which left me seeing stars.
 
The stitches in my head from the last accident pulled apart.
 
The side of my head was quickly being covered in blood.
 
No time to think.
 
There had to be something I could do.
 
Racking my brain, all that came to mind was a self-defense show I’d seen on TV.

Right as Jamie brought her face down to mine, I remembered seeing the victim ram the palm of their hand into the assailant’s nose.
 
Hoping it would be as effective as it looked on the show, I mimicked the action.
 
Connecting with Jamie’s nose, there was an audible crack.
 
Screaming in pain and fury, Jamie fell backward as Andy slammed on the brakes.
 
Jamie lost her balance and slammed into the cab.
 
Holding onto the back of the truck to avoid sliding into Jamie, the crowbar began to slide toward her. I stopped it with my foot and kicked it back up to my hands.
 
Taking aim, I slung it at Jamie, hoping it would connect with her head.
 
She jumped deftly out of the way, catching the crowbar in mid-flight.
 
She grinned.
 
“That wasn’t so smart, mortal. Now you have no weapon, and you’ve really pissed me off.”

She was right.
 
I was totally screwed.
 
Opening my mouth to scream, she brought the crowbar down across my chest with inhuman strength.
 
No pain could compare to this.
 
I couldn’t think.
 
I couldn’t breathe.
 
She had to have broken ribs.

“I missed the chance to kill you last week, but I won’t fail again now, Ashlyn.”

My mind reeled at her comment.
 
When had she tried to kill me last week?
 
Hadn’t we spent the better part of the week together?
 
Then I recognized her mossy hair from somewhere.

When I had been taking Chris back to the house, moss had floated to the top of the water in the pond where Dad died.
 
Only, it hadn’t been moss.
 
It had been Jamie. Chris was right.
 
There had been something lurking under the water.
 
It hadn’t been the Loch Ness Monster, though.
 
It was much more dangerous than that.
 
It had been my best friend.
 

“You…you killed my dad?!?"

“You were very much the target, love.
 
Then, when I tried to kill you at Reese’s house, he just had to know you had an EPI pen.”

This wasn’t making any sense.
 
She’d tried to kill me not once, but twice, in the same day.
 
If my best friend was capable of this, I really hated to know what the guy in the front of the truck was willing to do.

She rapped the cab of the truck before she began to approach me again.
 
“My Lord, I think we can go home now.”

Home?
 
She’d mentioned home before.
 
She’d been talking to this maniac since we first got here.
 
She had planned this all along.
 

Wherever ‘home’ was for her, it was a pretty good bet I wasn’t going to like it.
 
The truck accelerated again, the force pushing me against the truck bed wall once more.
 
Jamie lost her balance momentarily from the sudden jolt.
 
The only option was to somehow get out of the vehicle before she was back on top of me.
 
I pulled myself over the side of the bed with the last of my energy.
 
I prayed Jamie wouldn’t react quickly enough.

I felt her claw at my ankles once, but this time surprise was on my side. The truck continued to barrel down the road.
 
My face connected with the mud. My nose cracked. Hearing her shriek of outrage, Ankou screeched to a halt once more.
 
I looked up soon enough to see Jamie hurtling herself out of the bed of the truck, flying towards me. Ankou spun the truck around, coming to a stop to face me.
 
He looked out of the windshield with hungry eyes, waiting on Jamie to finish her job.

So dead.
 
I was so dead.

In my brief moment before death, there was no flash before my eyes.
 
All that was there was Jamie’s triumphant smile.
 
No one would ever believe I was flayed alive by a mossy-toothed, sophomore cheerleader.
 
That was a tabloid cover if I’d ever heard of one: “Fairborn High School Cheerleader Turns Into Swamp Thing.” Cue the movie deals.

Appearing out of nowhere, Jesse and Liam came between Jamie and I.
 
Jamie hurtled into Liam, limbs thrashing in all directions. Jesse leapt on top of the writhing mess, but there was no way to tell who was winning.
 
Everyone was yelling.
 
I curled up in a ball, just waiting on Jamie to come finish me off.
 
God, I was an easy target.
 
I’d better be Rambo woman or something in the next life.

Tess was close behind the two men who were keeping Jamie at bay.
 
She scooped me up in her arms and turned to sprint the opposite direction.
 
Desmond and Issac came charging forward, each gripping daggers in their hands.
 

Daggers not unlike the ones the chained men had wielded in my dream on Christmas.

Desmond yelled at Tess.
 
He threw his dagger at an unseen target from this vantage point.
 
Whoever it was meant for, I hoped it hit its mark. “Get her out of here, Tess!”

As Tess turned back toward the house, I was facing the brawl.
 

Jamie had Liam pinned to the ground.
 
He was bleeding from his head.
  
Jesse was running toward the front of the truck to head off Andy, Ankou, or whoever the heck was in there.
 
What he thought the old man was capable of, I wasn’t sure.
 
Anything was possible, though.
 

Tess held me tighter against her body to stop me from whipping around like a rag doll. “It’s all right Ash, we’ve got you.
 
It’s all right.”

All right?
 
She had to be kidding.
 
How was any of this all right?
 
There couldn’t possibly be anything any further from the definition of the word. Everything was spinning.
 

I was dizzy from the loss of blood.
 
Groaning, I retched, throwing up all over the both of us.
 
She didn’t even miss a beat in her stride as I slipped quickly into hysterics.
 
Too busy escaping from the emerging war zone, Tess had no words of consolation.
 
She simply held me closer.
 
She pressed my bleeding head against her chest to stem the blood flow and my screams.
 
I passed out.

* * *

Opening my eyes slowly, I was afraid to look around.
 
Were any limbs missing? I silently willed each of them to move to make sure the crucial members were still attached.
 
Legs?
 
Check.
 
Arms?
 
Check.
 
Head?
 
I sure hoped so.

Someone squeezed my hand.
 
Reacting instinctively, the ensuing scream could have broken windows.

“It’s okay, it’s okay, we’ve got you,” the voice said.
 
“You’re fine, you’re fine. You’re okay.”