The Escape. Part 3

Avery's hands dipped back into her lap and Fletcher went on.

"I guess I hit my head pretty badly." He gingerly touched the zigzag of st.i.tches that crossed his hairline. "Or whatever hit me."

"Do you know? Do you have any-"

Fletcher shook his head. "I start to remember and then...there's nothing."

Avery looked toward the door. "After...after I lost my mom, it was that way for me too." She swallowed the lump in her throat. "Sometimes I couldn't even remember what she looked like. All I could see was..." She shuddered.

Fletcher vaulted back to the Founder's Day celebration that summer. That night he had felt a part of something, a part of them. The whole school-the whole town-was there, and everyone seemed happy, accepting.

They were walking from the celebration. He remembered the sound of Adam's voice reverberating through the trees as he and some other kid hollered and laughed about something. How Avery looked walking along, her hands in the pockets of her shorts. A bunch of other kids was there too, and Fletcher was right in the thick of them as they walked the shoulder of the forest road. Then he remembered the moment when everything changed.

They came around the curve in the road, and it was like stepping into a new scene in a movie: the stinking smell of gasoline and burnt rubber and something else that hung in the night air-something he couldn't place. Then Avery's face was illuminated by the flashing red-and-blue lights of the police cars stopped on the side of the road. He saw the careless smile fall from her lips. Recognition flit through her eyes and then anguish so deep that he could practically feel her pain.

Avery took off running toward the hissing chunk of twisted metal balanced on the edge of the road, one single tire raised to the sky.

It was a car.

Fletcher recognized it as the car that Avery's mother had been driving.

He could still hear Avery's cry. He could still see her fingers grabbing at the air as one of the officers tried to hold her back. But Avery got past him and scudded to her knees on the asphalt, digging at the car. Someone else grabbed her and she screamed. At some point Chief Templeton arrived, and Fletcher remembered the silent exchange between Avery and her father as he pulled her toward his police cruiser. Avery looked at Fletcher then, their eyes locking for one aching minute, her world crashing down, his standing still.

Fletcher ran his tongue over the front of his teeth, anxiety burning in the pit of his stomach. "Did you ever have blackouts? You know, about that night?"

He watched Avery's hands clasped in her lap. Her fingernails were bitten to the quick. He had never noticed that before. She cleared her throat. "Sometimes. I don't know if they were really blackouts though. Just..."

"Dark spots?"

She nodded carefully. "Yeah, some details fade in and out. Or I start to wonder if something I know happened actually did. I heard that the brain can block out things that it can't deal with."

They were both silent for a moment. Then Fletcher spoke. "Do you ever wonder what it feels like to die?"

Avery's eyes widened. "No."

But she was only telling half the truth. After her mother died, Avery thought about those last few minutes of her mother's life, wondering what her mom was thinking, what she must have felt. Did she know she was dying? Did she wish for more time? Did she think of Avery?

Even now, it made Avery tear up. She tried not to think about her mother or death.

"I can't help but wonder what happens during...and after." Fletcher looked at her as if he expected her to have the answers. "Do you?" he asked. "Wonder?"

Avery opened her mouth to answer, but there was a knock on the door. Chief Templeton poked his head in. "Avery? Can I see you for a minute?"

Fletcher didn't want Avery to leave, but he had no reason to ask her to stay. He couldn't remember anything important from the woods, details he knew she was hoping he'd share. And even when he wasn't banged and st.i.tched up, Fletcher had never been a great conversationalist. He offered her a small smile and feigned a yawn. "I should probably get some rest," he said.

Avery stood from the chair and nodded. "Okay. That's probably a good idea." She turned and paused, scrawling something on a piece of paper before handing it to Fletcher. "This is my cell number. Call me if you ever want to talk. Not just about"-she waved her arm indicating the hospital room-"but whatever."

Fletcher took the paper. No girl had ever given him her number before, and although he was certain it had more to do with his injuries than her interest in him, he was okay with it.

He waved as Avery closed the door behind herself, and he sunk back in his pillows. For the first time in as long as he could remember, he smiled. His eyes were heavy, but he didn't want to fall asleep. He didn't want to have another fragmented dream, but even more, he didn't want to forget the sweet smile on Avery's face.

Avery and her father walked down the hospital corridor in silence. When they got into the elevator, Avery turned to him, arms crossed in front of her chest. She suddenly felt protective of Fletcher after seeing him dwarfed in that hospital bed, his face and body ravaged. She was annoyed that her father would make her a go-between.

"So you want the breakdown?" she snapped. "Because he didn't say much."

"Avery," her father said quietly, "we found Adam." He pushed the b.u.t.ton for the parking level, and the car started moving.

Fear fluttered in Avery's chest. "Is he okay? Does he remember anything? Are you going to tell Fletcher?" She paused. "The last two nights were freezing. How long was he out there? He must have hypothermia. Why are we leaving if he's here? I want to see him. You know, to say hey."

A long silence followed. Avery could tell her father was taking his time, letting her get out all of her questions. But the silence stretched too long.

"Dad?"

Her father reached out and squeezed her hand. "Avy, honey," he said quietly. "One of the search teams found Adam in the woods. He's dead. They found his body."

Seven.

"What?"

The elevator doors slid open to the parking garage, and her father guided her toward his black SUV. He must have helped her into the car and buckled her seat belt, because Avery couldn't remember doing it herself. All she could think about was the empty ache that pulsed through her body.

"Adam's dead?" Images flashed in her mind: Adam in his letterman's jacket. Adam walking through the library, a grin like sunshine, and Avery's heart melting into her shoes. Adam was a boy she had a crush on. Adam was a boy she wanted to kiss. Now Adam was dead. "What-what happened?"

"We're not sure yet. The ME's report isn't ready, and of course the-"

She pressed her fingers on her dad's arm. "In civilian, Dad. Did you see him? What happened?"

His voice was gentle. "I didn't see him personally, Avy. And we're still waiting on a positive ID from his mother."

"But they know it's him."

"They're pretty sure it's him. The s.e.x and height are right."

"Dad, Adam's and Fletcher's faces have been posted all over the news. You know what he looks like. I know you can't make an official statement, but I'm your daughter, not CNN."

The chief ran his hands through his graying crew cut. "Honey, the body was in pretty bad shape."

Avery's stomach rolled and she felt tears p.r.i.c.k at the backs of her eyes. Dej vu pelted her. She and her father had been sitting in this same car two years earlier when her father had said the same words: The body was in pretty bad shape. At the time, "the body" was her mother. She had hated him for calling her mother "the body." She had hated him for making her mother generic. She wasn't a body, Avery had wanted to scream. She was my mother!

"W-what happened to him?"

Adam had been missing for almost two days, and Avery braced herself for the worst. Her father always grunted through crime shows when TV cops stumbled on a so-called corpse that still looked pristine four or five days after death. From his place on the couch, he would explain in clinical-and often gross-detail that "decomp begins four minutes after death."

Avery knew that rigor mortis set in after just a few hours and that Adam's skin would have paled as blood pooled in the lowest points of his body. She knew that if the body had been left unattended in the woods, there would be blowflies and maggots and any other manner of scavenging insects or animals. She tried to shake the images out of her head, but she still needed to know.

"Avy..." Her dad c.o.c.ked his head, and Avery knew he was trying to placate her.

It was bad.

"Please, Dad?"

The chief gripped the wheel and squinted as he guided the car out of the garage and into the startlingly bright daylight. "He was beaten, and quite a ways away from where they found Fletcher."

Fletcher's voice thrummed in Avery's ears: They didn't find me, Avery. You did.

"It sounds as if the blows he sustained killed him. His head-his face... He was barely-" The chief grimaced and shifted in his seat, not bothering to finish his sentence.

Avery had never seen her father, a seasoned police officer, look so saddened and disgusted by a crime. She knew it had to be worse than he was letting on.

"Do you know who did it? Was there any evidence to-"

He held up a silencing hand. "It's an ongoing investigation."

Avery bristled. "I went to school with Adam. We played baseball when we were kids."

Her father let out a small, mirthless laugh. "You guys are still kids."

Two hundred forty-two.

There were two hundred forty-two tiles on the ceiling of Fletcher's hospital room. He'd counted them. Twice. It felt like forever since Avery had left, and he was bored.

Well, if he was being honest with himself, he was scared. Whoever had done this to him and Adam was out there, waiting. What was to guarantee that the sneakers squeaking up and down the hallway were nurses' shoes and not the footsteps of his attacker coming for him? It was just a matter of time.

A guard was posted outside his room, but fear crashed through Fletcher in waves, making him sweat.

The door opened and a nurse and an orderly walked in, shuffling papers and ma.s.saging IV bags while talking. Fletcher pretended to sleep. He hoped that the heart-rate monitor clamped to his finger wouldn't give his ruse away.

He watched them though slit lids. They were the same two who had been in earlier that morning.

"I heard he was barely recognizable," the nurse said, her voice hushed and anxious. "They could barely tell it was him."

Fletcher's heartbeat raced. He strained to listen as blood pulsed in his ears. Who are they talking about?

"That's terrible. I guess this kid was lucky."

"Such a shame. It's a real tragedy. Who would do such a thing to children?" There was a tremor in the nurse's voice. "This town has always been so friendly, so safe. Now I'm afraid to walk to my car at night."

"The police'll catch 'em," the orderly responded. "That Chief Templeton is all over it. They'll find the guy."

Fletcher opened his eyes with the click of the door closing. He let out the breath he didn't know he had been holding.

Did they find Adam? Something twitched in Fletcher's stomach and he wanted to sit up, to get the orderly and nurse back, but something-maybe whatever it was that was slipping through the needle in his arm-weighed him down and kept him quiet. He sank back into his bed, his mind wandering.

The light was starting to change around him, the tops of the pine trees fading into the darkness. They looked like big paintbrushes. Somewhere far away were the rush of water and the gentle rustle of dry leaves. Closer to him was a gurgling sound, occasionally punctuated by a raspy attempt at breath.

He knew he should turn and look at Adam. He knew he should move and get his friend help, but his body wasn't his anymore. It was heavy and useless. The soft earth cradled him like a coffin. His breathing was shallow and sent a thousand burning spikes into his lungs.

Fletcher heard the sound of gravel crunching, of twigs breaking. He strained to see, but it was becoming more difficult to stay awake. And then-there was nothing.

Fletcher half expected the machines attached to him to go haywire with chirps and beeps, signaling that his pounding heart was going to give out, but the machines made no sound. He tried to blink away the memory, but his fingers twitched just the way they had out there in the woods when Adam was close enough to touch-close enough to help.

Fletcher tried to swallow the lump in his throat. The sound of Adam's raspy breath was heavy in his ears. He should have helped. He should have done something.

"Fletcher, honey?" His mother knocked while opening the door-just as she had his whole life. She never waited to be invited in.

Her voice was cheerful and light, but she wore a sad smile. Her ashy-blond hair was combed in its usual neat bob, and her milky-blue eyes peered at Fletcher, as if she could take his vital signs just by looking at him. "I brought you some real food."

Fletcher didn't feel hungry, but he couldn't remember the last time he'd eaten. His stomach growled, the sound making his mother smile. She held out a brown cardboard box and opened the top. The aroma of burgers and fries immediately overtook the sanitized odor of the hospital room.

"That smells amazing," Fletcher said. He sat up. "Is Dad coming?"

His mother fixed an apologetic smile on her face. "Oh, he wanted to be here for you. He really did."

Fletcher nodded as grief welled in his chest. They had all been one big, happy family once-Fletcher; his sister, Susan; and their parents. But Fletcher and his mother had moved out and into the house in Avery's neighborhood. It was just across town from his sister and father, but far enough away. Right now, Fletcher couldn't remember why they had moved.

"Burger?" His mother was holding up a sandwich wrapped in yellow paper.

He smiled. "Yeah."

Fletcher was halfway through the burger and a quarter of the way through his chocolate shake when he stopped chewing. "Is it true they found Adam? I heard one of the orderlies talking with a nurse. Can I go see him?"

Mrs. Carroll stiffened, the shock evident on her face.

Fletcher popped a few fries into his mouth. "Didn't they tell you? I thought it would be all over the news."

She cleared her throat. "It has been, honey. Have you seen the news?"

Fletcher shook his head and continued eating. "No. No TV in this room."

His mother smoothed the pleats of her skirt. "Fletcher, honey, you can't see Adam."

Fletcher looked up and furrowed his brow. "Why? Is he in ICU or something? I know I'm not family, but I bet the nurses would still let me in."