The Devil's Cauldron (23 page)

He pulled shut the doors onto the balcony and stood trembling.

“Maybe they won’t look,” he whispered. “But if they do, I’ll fight for your life. I promise.”

He didn’t know if Meggie could hear, but that was okay. He was mostly talking to himself, trying to be brave. The witch had a knife. Or had she given it to the man? He couldn’t remember.

And then he glanced over the balcony. It wasn’t that far. He could jump over the edge and land on the grass easily enough. Wesley would say, “Be careful, Ruk, you might break your leg,” but he could do it. What he couldn’t do was leave Meggie lying here in the hammock, hoping they wouldn’t find her.

Eric heaved her out. Holding her in his arms, he swung his leg over the railing. The door to the hallway swung open. Footsteps sounded in the room. Eric got his other leg over and jumped.

Leaping down by himself would have been easy. With Meggie, it almost ended in disaster. First, he had to twist hard to keep from landing on her. Then, he landed awkwardly on one ankle. It buckled painfully beneath him and he tried not to cry out. But the ground was wet and kind of muddy and his foot slipped across the grass instead of bending back the wrong way.

He rose to his feet. His ankle hurt, but not too much. NOT BROKEN, they would say. He struggled to get Meggie back in his arms, checking as he did to make sure she was okay. She seemed to be, though she still wasn’t talking. She stared into his eyes until he had to look away.

She was so pretty, and also very smart inside her mind prison. She probably thought he was dumb, and if she could talk, she’d tell him a million better things to try.

Eric limped across the grass. At first he started toward the main buildings, and the lights that welcomed him, promising help. He didn’t know who was working with the bad people, but he had to try someone. The rain soaked his clothing and he blinked to get it out of his eyes.

A shout sounded at his back. He turned. Benjamin stood on Angela’s covered porch, calling for help. He hadn’t yet jumped over to give chase.

It was a long way to the main buildings, and all of it across grass. Eric wasn’t good at figuring out distances, but he could see at once that he’d never make it. Not carrying Meggie. And he wasn’t going to put her down.

“We’ll never make it.”

But the woods were closer, only a few feet away, down that wet, grassy slope. It was dark in there, with trees and branches, and so many vines and ferns, and plants growing on top of other plants, that if he stayed quiet, he might be able to get in there and hide. After that, he didn’t know what to do.

He staggered toward the hillside. As he reached the edge, his foot stepped in an open drainage pipe that he hadn’t seen in the dark, which channeled water off the lawn and down into the woods. He lost his balance, landed on top of Meggie, and slid down the hillside, unable to stop himself. It was like a terrifying water slide, straight toward the black row of trees. He gripped her pajamas, unwilling to let go and lose her in the dark. They crashed into the bushes and came to a stop.

“I’m sorry, I’m sorry.”

He dragged her out of the bushes, then cradled her in his arms, afraid that he’d hurt her and with no way to know for sure in the dark. He took off his shirt and used it to wipe mud from her face. He was careful around her eyes, mouth, and nose.

Wes’s voice sounded in his head.
Make sure she’s not hurt, Ruk.
 

“Are you hurt?”

No, not like that. He started at her feet and worked his way up her ankles, trying not to poke or pinch her too hard. As he did, he muttered an explanation, so she wouldn’t be mad that he was touching her like that. She seemed to be okay.

Diego’s penlight flashed on the hillside. Eric pulled Meggie deeper into the bushes. It was so dark in here, and he was afraid. But at least it was drier beneath the canopy. He held her close and didn’t move. The light followed the row of trees, then came several feet in. Twice, they walked past his position. The second time, they stopped not ten feet away, on the edge of the grass.

“He’s got to be right here, under our noses,” Kaitlyn said. “Like up in the rooms. I’ll bet he came right in and hid close by.”

Eric drew in his breath. She was right. That was dumb. He should have kept going. But he was tired and needed to rest. And he made noise when he moved. What choice did he have?

“Look what I found in the aide’s pocket,” she said.

“A phone?”

“And look what I found in the address book.”

“Pilson?” Benjamin asked.

“That’s Eric’s last name. And look at this.”

Eric’s heart pounded. He wasn’t sure what they were talking about, but if they’d found his phone that was bad.

“Think he made a call?” Benjamin asked.

“There’s no coverage up here. So no, we dodged a bullet. But now we know, don’t we. They’re working together. Come on.”

At last, they moved along, retreating, he thought, toward the main buildings.

“They must be very angry,” Eric told Meggie when he was sure they were safe, at least for the moment. “Furious. We can’t let them catch us. But what should I do? I wish you could tell me. Or my brother was here. He’s so smart, he’d come up with an idea. And Becca, too. She’d stop Kaitlyn and Benjamin, just you see. Becca has a baby growing in her belly.”

Wes and Becca were somewhere close, weren’t they? That’s right, they told him that when he saw them at Devil’s Cauldron. If only he could remember. He tugged at the roots of his hair in frustration.

“There’s another trail,” he said with a burst of excitement. “It goes past the hot springs down to the lake. That’s how they got up. That’s where we’ll go.”

It took a lot of effort to lift her again. His ankle still hurt, and he’d twisted a muscle in his back when he fell down the grassy slope. But he had to get moving. He was sure that if he kept going around the buildings, staying in the trees and fighting through the underbrush, he would come across the trail up to the hot springs.

“I won’t let you down,” he told her. “You’ll see. I can do it.”

Meggie’s emotions were as volatile as the water boiling up from the dormant volcano beneath their feet. First terror, then hope, followed by a fresh wave of fear. Diego’s murder. Benjamin starting to suffocate her two different times. The first time Diego had interrupted them, and the second time Benjamin couldn’t go through with it. Once Kaitlyn rushed off to deal with the body, his spine had dissolved like a hunk of ice tossed into the hot springs.

Then Eric came. She’d have rather had his brother and his wife. The woman may have been pregnant, but she’d carried a determined glint in her eyes when she came search for Meggie among the hummingbird feeders. Those two would be a match for Benjamin and Kaitlyn.

But Eric was brave and determined, she had to give him that. He knocked Benjamin to the ground, then carried her off. He could have left her in the hammock and run for his life, but he didn’t. And when he hauled her into the woods, he’d even taken the time to clean her off and check her tenderly for injuries. Benjamin had dismissed him as “some retarded guy.”

You callous, spineless asshole. He’s worth a hundred of you.
 

If only she could give Eric instructions. Instead of stumbling through the forest, fighting their way through vines and brush and over moss-covered tree trunks rotting on the forest floor, he should have hidden her somewhere and gone for help. Even fled by himself to the cauldrons to look for Wes and Becca.

Carrying her was a huge mistake. It slowed them down. By the time he finally staggered onto the trail with a shout (
please stop talking and crying out,
she begged him), it had been at least twenty minutes since Kaitlyn and Benjamin came down from the habitat to search for them. Those two would have been busy. Doing what?
 

They’d rouse Jerry Usher. Kaitlyn was manipulating the facility administrator, and in the current circumstances, she’d apply all manner of pressure to gain his help. Maybe Usher would contact local police, warning them that one of the residents had kidnapped her. When the police, not speaking English, caught them, they’d ignore Eric’s frightened babbles, and turn them back over to Colina Nublosa.

Even more alarming was that bit she’d overheard about Kaitlyn discovering Diego’s cell phone had Eric’s contact information in it. Kaitlyn knew about Eric’s brother and his wife looking for Meggie. And what about the part where Kaitlyn spotted Diego talking to someone at Devil’s Cauldron? It wasn’t a stretch to expect Eric to run back to the hot springs.

And here they were, trudging up the hill, Eric like a pack animal, hauling her along. The rain had stopped, but the trail remained a mess of mud and puddles and exposed roots. He slipped and stumbled, almost dropping her several times. The barest moonlight illuminated the trail and it was a trick to keep moving in the right direction. He never complained.

After a few minutes he shifted her from his arms to drape her over his shoulder like she was a child. Her head bounced up and down and she could see back down the trail. Water dripped from her hair and she blinked to clear her eyes.

They came around a bend and the woods momentarily cleared on the steep hillside to show a dark expanse below and behind them, all the way down to the clearing of Colina Nublosa. Lamps dotted the property, casting it in a soft, diffused light, fuzzy through the humid air. They’d made it farther than Meggie had thought possible. Surely Eric would run out of steam long before he reached the top. But no, here they were, almost up and over the shoulder of the mountain. A hint of sulfur lingered over the smell of wet forest. They must be close. They were going to make it.

And then she spotted a blue light sweeping back and forth below them, somewhere between their position and the care center. A second light flicked on, this one brighter, with a stronger beam. It turned off again and the people coming up after them continued by the small penlight. It too blinked out a moment later, obscured behind trees.

Eric! They’re coming.

But he continued to move doggedly up the hill, never stopping to look behind. He hummed a song, which came out in scattered bits between his grunts of exertion. It was the theme song from an old sitcom.

Turn around. Please.

He shifted her again and her right arm, which had been dangling by her side, now got tossed over his shoulder. Meggie’s hand came to rest on his bare back. He’d never put his shirt on again after wiping her face, but had tucked the wet, muddy thing into the elastic band of his pajama bottoms.

Meggie tapped her finger. Three times, then her arm swung free again. The pursuit drew closer. Any moment their enemies would round one of the bends below them and they’d be caught.

Eric reached the next bend and leaned into it, grunting. Her hand fell across his back again. She tapped and tapped.

“Hey, you can move.” Eric stopped and shifted her around to look her in the eyes. “Are you getting better? Are you getting out of your prison?”

She blinked furiously.

“Oh, that’s impossible. Because the witch hurt you. I remember.”

He stared at her with a look of deep concentration as she tried to blink him a message. It amounted to nothing more than a shout that something was wrong. But he wasn’t getting it. His arms were trembling and he looked like he wanted to put her down.

No, not yet. Look behind you.
 

“What is it? Do you need something? Are you thirsty? I’m kind of thirsty. Wesley drinks soda, but I don’t like the bubbles.”

Wesley came out sounding like
Wussy,
but she’d heard him say it before and had eventually
parsed it out. Eric’s beloved brother, never far from his mind.
 

Eric, please. I’m begging you. Look downhill.

Something dawned on his face. His head whipped around and his eyes widened. “Very bad. Very very bad.”

Go. Run.
 

She was lucky he didn’t understand her. Instead, he resorted to the one tactic that had served him well so far. He found the closest spot to hide and took it. In this case, it was a rounded hump of rock off the right shoulder, covered with moss and ferns, and even a small tree trying to grip the rock by burrowing its roots into the fissures. He carried her off the trail and got them mostly around the boulder moments before Benjamin and Kaitlyn came up behind them. Meggie slumped with her back against the rock and her head drooping to one side, and she could see the trail clearly as her two enemies rounded the bend.

Kaitlyn and Benjamin were moving silently, mostly in the dark, with the single penlight pointing down at the ground. They were trying to catch Eric unawares. If he hadn’t been in the switchbacks, but in the flatter, thicker forest, he might not have spotted them. As it was, they’d only just gotten off the trail in time.

“I’ve lost the prints,” Benjamin whispered. He held the penlight.

Kaitlyn put a finger to her mouth and pointed to the ground. Benjamin nodded.

With all the rain and mud, it must have been simple to follow their trail most of the way. And the fresh prints, not yet washed away by the rain, could only be Eric’s. And deep too, no doubt, given that he was carrying a heavy burden. But out of sheer luck, Eric and Meggie had been passing over a stretch of bare stone, washed free of dirt and worn by hikers over the years.

Kaitlyn held the larger flashlight, presently turned off, in one hand. The other drew something black from a jacket pocket. It glinted when Benjamin’s penlight passed over it.

A gun.

Meggie tried to turn her eyes to see Eric’s face, but he remained out of sight. He stayed frozen. She silently begged him to stay that way. If he moved at all, he might catch their attention. As it was, if Benjamin turned his light a few inches, it would expose them and show that they were not lumpy protrusions of the boulder.

After several tense moments, Kaitlyn and Benjamin continued up the trail.

“They’re ahead of us,” Eric said a moment later. “We can’t keep going. And then they’ll get to the hot springs and see we’re not there. What will they do then?”