I didn’t know what to do. I felt like a part of me was being shredded to pieces. I was speechless. I suddenly blurted out, “Where are you going?”
He reached for me and held me close. He swept up my hair, inhaled deeply and placed a brief kiss upon my neck. He briefly touched his lips to mine and said, “I have to leave. It is not my choice.”
“I don’t understand,” I whispered feebly.
“I know you do not, and I cannot offer another explanation.”
He was gone in an instant.
I felt an emptiness I couldn’t describe, like a part of me had been torn away. I sat there and stared at the opening to the cave, wanting to cry, but refusing to give in. I knew I shouldn’t be surprised by any of this; there were never any guarantees in life. I, of all people, understood that.
I knew I should not have opened myself up to him. I had experienced too much loss to be comfortable with that. Everything, or I should say everyone, I had ever loved or been close to had been taken away from me. Why should I have expected anything different with Rayn? It was better this way—better for both of us. At least that’s what I told myself.
Chapter 16
Darryl Carter Revisited
Why that little hellion! Red sure turned out to be a feisty thing. I sure wasn’t expecting her to be packing that pepper spray, Darryl Carter thought. I should have known better. I was even going to be sweet to her today. The way she looked at me kind of reminded me of a trapped animal, with those huge doe eyes of hers. I was beginning to think that maybe she could tag along with me for a while. But not now, definitely not. I’m just going to have to take Red down. Pity, too…she would have been such fun to play with.
As soon as the burning subsided, Darryl took off. Unlike most men, he had endured a great deal of pain in his life, courtesy of his loving parents. So the pepper spray, while irritating initially, wasn’t bad enough to slow him down much. He hesitated a bit, not wanting to leave any of his things behind. He didn’t know how long it would take for him to catch up to her. He also didn’t know if he would kill her on the spot or bring her back here. If he had to move on in a hurry, he would be without his gear.
In the end, he decided he would give himself six hours. If he didn’t take care of her by then, he would come back here and collect his gear, and then continue to hunt her down. He was definitely going to catch her—no question about it.
He took off and had to make a quick decision on which trail to take. He looked for signs of her, anything at all that would indicate which direction she had chosen.
“Aha…I gotcha, Red!” he exclaimed.
He was looking at the snow on the trails, checking all three of them, and there on the Boulevard Trail he saw her footprints. They had to be Red’s for two reasons. The first was the most obvious: no one else had been up here besides them, so there were no other prints in the snow. Second, her tracks were completely inconsistent. They appeared to have been made by someone who was having difficulty walking a straight line, someone who maybe was dizzy or in pain. Yes, they were definitely Red’s.
Darryl didn’t waste any time in his pursuit. His tread was light. He wanted the element of surprise on his side. He expected to come up on her at every turn. However, she had gotten further along than he had anticipated. He picked up his speed a little and then even more. He thought that the element of surprise was not as important as actually catching her. He had to catch her; there was no other option. She could describe him to anyone she came across and that could put his future missions in danger of exposure.
It was when he had started jogging that he noticed movement in the distance, way beyond his present location. He stopped to watch and sure enough, there was Red in all her glory, weaving her way down the mountain. He had to hand it to her; she had put an impressive distance between them—impressive, but not nearly enough. She was approaching a clearing, an area that would give Darryl his chance at taking her down. Too bad it was going to end this way; he’d had a lot of fun with that fiery gal. He did want one thing though. He wanted her to know her end was coming--which meant he would have to alert her somehow--so that her fear would intensify. He decided to step on a branch so that she could hear the snap. She was smart enough to know what it would mean.
His opportunity was upon him. Crunch, snap. She gasped, turned to look, then picked up her pace; she knew he had found her.
Ah, this is heaven! Darryl thought.
Darryl’s first shot to her calf was intentional. It was her punishment for running away from him. He watched her flail and groan in agony. His pleasure increased as he aimed his second arrow and released. He knew immediately he’d hit his mark when he saw Red stumble and then lose her footing, tumbling off the side of the cliff. It was a beautiful sight. Yeah, it sure was. He made his way around a thicket to see where she had landed. It took quite a bit of maneuvering before he was able to get a decent view of her. She was lying on a ledge that jutted out about thirty feet from where she had fallen. By the angle of her back, Darryl was quite certain she was a goner. Sure enough, he could see both arrows sticking out of her—one in her leg, the other in her chest. There were also two pools of blood forming around her body. He wondered if that fall had split her skull open. He stood there for a while, just to make sure she wouldn’t start moving. He had another shot in the ready if she did.
After about thirty minutes, when she never so much as twitched, Darryl decided it was time to go. He regretted how it had all turned out. He had really been enjoying this one. Oh well, he figured he would start looking for his next mission.
He decided to head back up to the lodge and clean the place out. Afterward, he’d come back and try to get a closer look at Red.
When he returned to the lodge, he restored everything to its proper order and packed up his belongings. Then he rifled through Red’s things and found her cell phone. He decided it would be good to have for a little souvenir. He disabled it by taking out the GPS chip and burned it over his lighter. By the time he had completed his cleanup, it was getting to be late in the afternoon. He hiked out and headed for another spot to set up camp for the night. He would try to get back to Red first thing in the morning. He prayed it would warm up so all the footprints would be gone. He was all in favor of leaving absolutely no trace, he chuckled.
He chose his campsite about five miles from the lodge and bedded down for the night. At first light, he was up, boiling water for coffee and breakfast. After he’d finished, he cleaned everything up, packed his stuff and went through his campsite to make sure he left not so much as a hair behind.
His training with the Special Forces taught him a lot, and he knew exactly what to do in order to leave no evidence that he had ever been anywhere. He was an expert at fingerprint, hair, and even DNA removal. He was also granted his wish. The weather warmed up considerably and in a couple of hours, most signs of snow were completely gone.
Darryl Carter prided himself in his prowess. He never got rattled, even when Red assaulted him with that pepper spray. He was able to control his breathing so incidents such as that wouldn’t affect him like it would a normal individual. The soldiers in his unit could never figure out how he did it. Well, they never had parents like he did. Maybe there was something, after all, that he could thank them for.
He backtracked to where he remembered giving chase and followed that trail down the mountains. When he came to the cabled section, he slowed his pace so he could carefully look to see where Red was. He went back and forth several times and then he began getting frustrated. He knew he’d shot her while she was on this section. That’s why it was such a great place to catch up to her. She had to slow her pace because of the steepness and the way the trail had narrowed to almost nothing. He went back and forth and he finally discovered the ledge, but no Red. What the hell!
Impossible! There is no way that girl could have gotten up and walked out of there. What the hell happened to her?
Darryl figured he had to find a way to get
down there. He skirted around a few thickets until he found a way, at the very least, to get closer to the spot. After some finagling, he got close enough to have a look. Sure enough, there was dried blood, but that was all.
“Well, I’ll be,” he said as he scratched his head.
He looked around him in every direction, trying to understand an impossibility. Red was severely, if not mortally wounded.
How in the hell could she have gotten out of here?
Strangely enough, Darryl couldn’t even get to that ledge if he tried.
His questions quickly were put to rest as he realized his prey was still out there. The hunt was back on. Darryl could feel his excitement mounting. This was his favorite part and the part he was best at. No one, and he meant no one, had ever escaped from Darryl Leon Carter, and Red was not going to be the first.
He broke though brush to see if he could find any kind of a trail she may have left behind, any indication of which direction she went. But everything around the area was cold, like she had vanished into thin air. He was at a loss in this hunt, and Darryl Carter was never at a loss. This spurred him on with an even greater intensity. He was more than determined now to find her. She had cheated him out of his fun, so now she owed him. And he was going to find her to get his due.
Chapter 17
A week passed since Rayn’s departure, and I felt my heart had been cracked wide open. I couldn’t believe what was happening to me. How did I ever get to this place? My mind was in turmoil; I wanted nothing more than to crawl in a hole and cry for days, but I was stuck here. I couldn’t leave. Heck, I couldn’t even get up and walk out of here had I wanted; I was trapped. Where would my life, if that’s what you wanted to call it, take me next? Maybe there was some kind of place I could live for a while until I learned how to function in this new body of mine.
I knew Talasi worried about me; my appetite had deserted me, as did my ability to sleep. I simply existed.
One night I finally fell into an exhausted sleep and dreamed of him. I dreamed we were together, and I was healthy. We were in a place I had never been. When I awakened, I was saddened by the reality of everything. I wanted to go back to the happy place with him.
So began my quest for dreams of Rayn. I tried to do everything I could think of to help me dream of him. Sometimes I succeeded, other times I would awaken, burdened with disappointment. I thought of how my life had changed from the days I was at Western rooming with Cat to my dismal existence in the caves of the Nunne’hi. I didn’t know how much longer I could exist like this. I contemplated whether there would be a way to end it all. At times, I even wished I hadn’t survived the fall.
That night, I fell into a deep sleep. I hadn’t slept well for the several previous nights, so my fatigue overtook me. I was awakened by a sound of footsteps. I opened my eyes to see three tall figures shrouded in black hooded cloaks. My memory stirred to the night in the woods when I was rescued. I thought I had hallucinated the vision of the three men rescuing me. Evidently, I hadn’t, because they were in my room walking toward me.
I thought I should be afraid, but for some reason, I wasn’t. They came to me, and one of them lifted me in his arms. Then, my mind became very fuzzy, and I drifted in and out of consciousness. When I opened my eyes again, I was in the entrance of a hospital, lying on a gurney, baffled and confused.
The nurses kept asking me how I got there, but I had no answers for them. I was terribly disoriented, and my mind and memories seemed to be so muddled. I couldn’t think straight and kept seeing strange visions of a man that caused my head to pound with pain.
The next morning I woke up in a hospital room. The nurses kept asking me my name, what day of the week it was, etc. I had no answers except I knew who I was, where I was born, my age, and so forth. I was full of questions and wanted answers from them.
Later that day, Dr. Thompson came to my room accompanied by a police officer. They asked me the same questions the nurses had asked, but then, they threw me a curve ball. They said that I had been missing for over two months and asked whether I could fill in any blanks. Unfortunately for everyone, I was clueless, absolutely clueless.
Dr. Thompson said it appeared that I had sustained and had been treated for severe injuries including a severed spinal cord, which had caused my paralysis. He said I had been shot in my leg and chest and that I had also suffered a fracture to my jaw. My memory loss was due to the severity of my injuries. It seemed the circumstances of what had happened would forever remain a mystery.
There wasn’t anything else they could do for me in the hospital, so they were sending me home and setting up help for me.
My new life had begun. I was moved home the next day, and I initially had nursing care around the clock. I began physical therapy and learned how to live as a paraplegic. The thought of living the rest of my life in such a state was quite daunting to me initially. I couldn’t begin to fathom how I could make it for a week, much less months and years.
The physical therapy was grueling. I never imagined what it entailed. I had heard accounts of it, but it required brute strength and an endless positive spirit. The therapists knew how hard to push me, and it amazed me at times to see how much more I could actually do versus what I thought I could do. Their mantra was always, “If you can visualize it, you can do it!”
I never thought I could curse the way I did during those sessions. I was embarrassed by my words and actions. My parents would have been mortified if they could have heard me. Thankfully, that was the only time I was glad they weren’t around.
The therapists seemed to like it when I acted that way.
“That’s it Maddie! Let it out!”
“Let it out? I don’t want to let it out! I want to freaking walk! Why do you get off your asses and try doing this for a change, instead of barking out orders all the time!” I yelled back at them one day as they tried to teach me to get out of bed on my own. As I yelled at them I swung my legs over the side of the bed and threw my body in my wheelchair. I looked up at them ready for their screaming retort when I saw them beaming and they both started clapping. I hadn’t even realized I had accomplished that milestone until then.
I quickly progressed to where I only required nurses during the day. My home made it convenient for me to maneuver around. I was adapting to my new life!
I continued trying to remember what had happened to me. I remembered hiking up to Mt. LeConte, but everything after that was fuzzy. The more I tried, the more frustrated I became.
About a couple of months after I returned home, the dreams began. I dreamed of a cave filled with beautiful people.
Suddenly, as if the sun’s rays penetrated the cave walls, I looked up to see a man. He was the most stunning man I’d ever seen. He came toward me, smiling, holding out his hands, reaching for mine. In the background I saw my parents, looking on, as if they approved of this man. I couldn’t take my eyes off of him; he was simply the most beautiful thing I had ever seen. He was tall and muscular with long wavy black hair—the kind you’d want to run your fingers through. But his eyes were an astonishing color of green; bright like emeralds. I had this nagging sense that I had seen him somewhere before, but I didn’t know where.
I woke up in a cold sweat with a pounding headache.
The dreams started increasing in their frequency, along with the headaches. The doctors thought it may be a post-traumatic thing, but they could find no other cause.
Cat, January and Carlson came to visit. They tried to persuade me to return to college.
“Maddie, please come back to Western. We miss you and you know we’d do everything to help,” Cat begged.
“Cat’s right Maddie. You’d be surrounded by your friends and besides, all colleges have accommodations for disabled students. So that part could be worked out,” January piped in.
“Come on Maddie. It isn’t the same without you. And I sure could use the help with chemistry,” Carlson said.
“You all know
how much you mean to me, but honestly, I think I need to stay in Spartanburg for now. I’m not totally comfortable being away from my doctors and therapists and I’m not one hundred percent on my own yet either. I think I need more time. Maybe next semester.”
The dreams of him, the beautiful dark stranger, continued with increasing frequency. Sometimes, they would be a continuation from the night before, my own little series. Each night, there would be a new part added. Conversations with him, information about how I came to be in that place of the caves, names of the beautiful people there. This continued for weeks, until I looked forward to going to sleep at night so that I could live in my series of dreams. It was odd how my sleep seemed to center around them, and they were so vivid when I awoke I felt like it had truly happened.
Chapter 18
One night something awakened me. I sat up in my bed, leaning back on my elbows, looking around my room. I felt a presence there, but I couldn’t see anything.
“Who’s there? What do you want?” I don’t know how, but I knew someone was in my home.
Suddenly, I was gripped with an unimaginable terror. Memories tumbled forth from the dim recesses of my mind. I had visions of a man with unbearably evil eyes, striking me and slashing my face with a knife. I began shaking uncontrollably and became lost in this nightmare of a memory. In the distance, I could hear someone calling my name, over and over, telling me it was all just a memory and that I was fine. When I eventually regained my senses, someone was standing over me, wearing a black hooded cloak and whispering. I began screaming again.
The hooded figure gently held my arms and continued to talk to me. I immediately felt comforted, and for some peculiar reason, I was no longer afraid.
“Who are you? What do you want?” I whispered back, my voice filled with desperation. I no longer feared him, yet I needed answers.
“I am someone who cares deeply for you and I am here to take you away, if you choose this journey,” he replied.
The stranger lifted his hood and let it drop off of his head. He looked up, and I got my first real glance at him. I felt myself reeling with shock and attempted to inhale some badly needed air into my lungs. It was the unknown man from my dreams.