Chapter 35
“Paige!” Eddie screamed as Paige went down to her knees and then toppled to the ground in a heap.
She didn’t answer.
Eddie shook his body in its bindings. He pulled and pulled and pulled with his arms until his muscles felt as if they would snap and his back would break, but it only resulted in tightening the ropes around his wrists.
He wanted to rip free from the tree, to reach out to her, to touch her, but his arms and legs may have well belonged to someone else. Nicholas had been too efficient in binding him.
Blood stained nearly three-quarters of the blanket covering Paige. She was badly hurt. He needed to do something. Think, dammit. But it was hard. Pain, mind numbing and piercing, battered and beat his thoughts.
He saw nothing around him but dirt and rocks and a pile of his clothes. His torn shirt sat on top of the pile and just beneath it his jeans. His jeans. He kept a small pocketknife in his jeans. If there was only some way he could get to them.
But there wasn’t.
He was so tired. So very tired. Strength oozed from his body. Insects buzzed around him, landed on him, fed. He wanted to sleep. He wanted to curl up with Paige and a pillow and not wake up. And then he saw her.
She stood in the doorway, maybe thirty feet from him. She was blonde, naked, hairless from the neck down, and part snake. Or maybe she was dressed in snake? Scales, blood red and sharp, wrapped around her waist, hugging at her as she moved. She carried Nicholas’s straight razor. Eddie flinched at the sight of it.
Beautifully frightening, the angel of death had come for him.
He was pleased it was a woman, although he wasn’t sure why he felt that way. He was glad it was over. He would not fight her.
Eddie looked for a sign of Paige’s breathing, but couldn’t find one. He watched her chest to see if it fell or rose, but her crumpled fetal position made it difficult to tell. He hoped that it did. Tried to convince himself that it did. But she already had a lifeless rag doll look about her. His mind shied away from that word. Lifeless.
She can’t die. It can’t end this way. But maybe it did.
The angel of death spoke his name. “Eddie?”
He thought of answering but wasn’t sure what to say to her.
“Eddie, we have to hurry.”
“Yes. Hurry.”
End it quickly.
Would he go to heaven? Hell? What about Paige? Would they be together?
“You’re so beautiful,” the angel said. “Has Paige ever told you that?”
“I hurt.”
“I’m going to take care of that.”
The blonde angel pressed a switch on the wall next to the door. Immediately the cable holding his neck went slack. His head slumped forward. A wary hope wafted through him. Was she going to help or hurt?
The angel glided towards him, put a hand on his neck, kissed his cheek. He tried to speak but his voice broke like rotted wood. Only a crackle of unintelligible sounds escaped his throat.
She cut his ankles free with the razor. Fresh spikes of pain rocketed up his legs to his groin as soon as his feet touched the cool earth. His legs would not support his weight. He dangled by his wrists.
The angel leaned into him to support his weight, and cut one of his wrists free, then the other. He slumped against her body, and she eased him to the ground.
Eddie reached for Paige, pulled her up into his arms. She felt cold to the touch, lay limp in his arms. He held her, begging her to forgive him for failing her. With one arm cradled around her shoulders, he pulled her tight to him, cupped her cheek in his hand. This was his fault. He should have saved her. He should have been her white knight.
Tears rolled down his check, fell to his chest, burned.
“I’m so sorry,” he whispered. “Please don’t die.”
As he sat holding Paige, the angel spoke to him. He looked at her, saw her mouth moving, but could not understand what she was saying.
The angel shook him by the shoulder. “Do you have a cell phone?”
He thought about her question. “Yes. Yes. It’s in my jeans. But it doesn’t work.”
“Nicholas carries a cell phone jammer,” she answered. “I’ve turned it off. Your phone will work now.”
She picked up his jeans, pulled the phone free, and dialed.
The three of them huddled together under the gnarled Sycamore tree overlooking the road, Eddie wrapped around Paige, the angel wrapped around him. He glanced from Paige, to the road, back to Paige. He could feel the blonde watching the door to the house.
Eddie kept the blanket pulled tight around Paige and kept pressure applied to the wound in her abdomen. He thought she was still breathing, hoped she was still breathing, prayed she was still breathing. Worry sent his fingers to her wrist, fumbling for a pulse, finding a beat too faint to last much longer.
Within a few minutes a car with red and blue flashing lights pulled into the drive. An officer stepped out of the car.
The blonde woman screamed to the officer. “We need help! Please, hurry!”
The officer climbed back behind the wheel, pushed the gate open with the bumper of his car, and accelerated up the driveway. The sticker on the door of the car read COUNTY SHERIFF.
The sheriff stepped out of the car, pulled his pistol, and hurried towards them. He was a short, stocky man with small darting eyes.
“Is everyone okay?” he asked. “Is there anyone in the house?”
“We need an ambulance, fast,” Eddie yelled.
“There’s no one inside,” the blonde woman said. “Just a body.”
The sheriff dropped to a knee beside Eddie, touched Paige’s neck, and then called for reinforcements on the radio clipped to his collar. He turned to the house, went inside, his pistol in front of him.
Before the sheriff re-emerged from searching the house more flashing red and blue lights and the sound of sirens filled the wooded area. Eddie watched them convoy up the drive.
EMT’s and officers rushed to them. Someone came, helped the angel up, and led her away. Someone else came, pulled Paige away from him. His heart didn’t want to let her go, but his mind whispered to him that they could do much more for her than he could. He let them take her.
Two women lifted Paige onto a gurney, rolled her to an ambulance.
Eddie tried to crawl after her. He wanted to go with her, but someone else grabbed him.
“I need to be with her,” Eddie said. “I’m her husband.”
The EMT held him still. “She’s in good hands,” he said. “We’re going to Mediflight her to the hospital. Let’s focus on you.”
The EMT gave the cuts on his chest a quick glance then went to work on his ankles, waved over another EMT to help. One of them asked him questions: Name, age, allergic to medications? Eddie tried to respond, wasn’t sure if he got the answers right.
“You’re in shock,” the EMT said.
Then they put him on a gurney, rolled him to an ambulance.
“She saved your life,” someone said. “Wrapping your severed heels like she did.”
Eddie chuckled, found the statement funny. Of course, she’d saved his life. She’d killed the killer, been his knight in shining armor.