Into the Peaks by Ryan Lill-Washington

Author:Ryan Lill-Washington [Ryan Lill-Washington]
Language: eng
Format: epub
Publisher: Ryan Lill-Washington
Published: 2024-02-27T00:00:00+00:00

Chapter nineteen

Izzy

For years I was plagued by nightmares of the woods, my sleepless nights sifting me from the safety of my bed back into the Pines. I would prepare myself before bed each night, knowing that when I closed my eyes I would be racing through the trees all over again.

The rain was coming down hard, the tops of the pines unable to stop the downpour from flooding the forest floor around us.

“We have to move, Luke,” I told him, leaning in to lift him again.

“No,” he said, another groan escaping him. “I can’t, Iz. I can’t do it.” The rain ran down his face as he let his head fall back against the tree. “Please, just go.”

“No,” I told him again, “I’m not going to leave you here. I could feel the tears starting to build up in my eyes again. “I can’t.” I could feel my head shaking, refusing to listen to what he was saying.

I couldn’t leave him here to die.

I wouldn’t.

“Iz, you have to find help,” he said, his breathing getting heavier. “You can’t stay here. He’s going to find us.” He took in a deep breath and clenched his teeth. The blood from the arrow in his shoulder had spread through his shirt. It wasn’t stopping. He sat with his head tilted back into the bark of the tree, his jaw tight, his teeth clenched.

“Luke,” my voice cracked, “I can’t do this again.” I finally broke. The tears began to drip down my face with the rain. It was all I could hear around us, every drop sounding like shattering glass as it hit the forest floor.

“God dammit, Izzy, go!” He lifted his head just enough for his eyes to lock on mine. The pain in his face had turned to a look of desperation. If we were anywhere else I would have thought he was angry with me. “I’ll be fine. You have to get out of here, please. There has to be a ranger’s station somewhere. You can’t trust anyone back there.” He lifted his hand and motioned back toward the embankment.

He was right; there was no way of telling which of them were involved. There was no way the person who was shooting at us from the top of the hill had gotten past every single one of those officers. I tried to recall their faces; attempting to conjure the circle we once stood in-they all seemed so distant now.

“Iz,” Luke said, snapping me out of my thoughts. “You have to go.”

“I’ll come back,” I said, my voice shaking. “I promise.”

The moment the words left my lips, I could feel the guilt begin to spread inside of me like a cancer. The last promise I made I had broken, and the one before that I couldn’t have kept. I came back into the woods. I left Eyvette to die.

“I know you will,” he told me, grabbing my hand and squeezing it.

I smiled at him while my mind cruely played all the ways he would die before I came back…like a movie in my head.

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