Page 76 of Criminology of a Character

“Get up.” She hoisted her companion off the ground, but Annalise’s limp body resisted her movements. “Please get up!” Panic edged her voice. “I don’t want to die here. I can’t carry you, but I’m not leaving you.”

“My feet,” Annalise whispered.

“I know.” Bel brushed her blonde hair out of her face. “I know it’s cold, but please?—”

A gunshot interrupted them, and both women flinched. He’d moved closer.

“I need you to run.” Bel could barely breathe through her sobs as she forced Annalise forward. The women slid twenty feet down the slope, but then Charles came into view, his manic aim searching for them. Bel lunged behind a thick tree, too afraid to move, tooafraidto breathe. The sun was setting. The air was frigid. They would die like The Matchstick Girls, cold and alone and forgotten as they froze.

“Where are you?” Charles roared. “You can’t hide from me! I will find you, and I’ll rearrange that face of yours.”

Bel held her breath as she crept away from the tree’s cover while his back was turned. She didn’t care how badly her carelessness hurt. She could endure the bruises from falling. She would survive the scrapes from colliding with the branches, so she increased her speed. Her boots slipped on the snow, and her body bounced off the trees as she set a dangerous pace, but she refused to slow.

“You think you’re so beautiful?” Charles continued, his voice drifting further away. “You won’t be for long, Detective. I’ll turn you into a monster when I find you. Maybe I’ll operate while you’re awake so you can feel every cut my scalpel slices as I carve up that pretty little face. Then I’ll leave you alive when I’m done. Let you live grotesque for the world to despise.”

Bel’s tears blurred the trees until they were hazy blobs, but she kept running. She kept fighting. She kept dragging Annalisedown the mountain. They wouldn’t survive this run. She understood that, but that wasn’t why she ran. She ran because if shewasgoing to die, she would leave this world on her terms. She would die frozen like The Matchstick Girls and not like the six Annes below the ground.Notlike an experiment hacked apart and pieced back together. She’d find a beautiful tree to sit under and greet the cold as night fell. Cerberus loved walking in the woods. Eamon alwaysfoundher in the woods. Perhaps the forest wasn’t such a horrible place to meet her end.

Bel’s handsshook as she sat below the tree’s protection. She didn’t know how long they’d run. She didn’t know where they were. They’d lost Charles hours ago, and at first, the adrenaline had carried her down the mountain, but now her sweat was cooling, freezing her from within her clothes. She needed a coat. Annalise needed shoes and a hospital, and she wasn’t doing well. Whatever Charles did to her refused to wear off.

Bel wiped her mouth, her breath unsteady and her fingers stiff. Her tears were frozen to her cheeks, the crystals painful, yet she couldn’t stop crying. She’d found a tree to sit under, but now that she faced the end, she couldn’t bear it. She didn’t want to die here alone and scared. She wanted to live. To see her dad again. To hug her dog one last time. Shewantedto look Eamon in the eyes and tell him the truth. To feel his lips against hers. To hear his heart beating as she lay on his chest in the middle of the night. She wanted him to ask her to move in with him over and over until she finallyagreed,because she longed to say yes. When the time was right, she would say yes, and she started hyperventilating. Her fingers barely workedtheywere so cold.Her limbs wouldn’t stop shaking. She didn’t want to die. Not like this. Not like The Matchstick Girls.

“Get up.” She crawled to the shivering Annalise. “You need to get up.”

“You…. Go…” The woman’s voice shook as violently as her body. “I… can’t… don’t… make… me.”

“I’m not leaving you alone.” Bel almost dropped her. “We are going to survive.”

“I… can’t.” Annalise tried to shove her away, but Bel held on tight, pulling her down the mountainside. It wasn’t much taller than the highest peak she’d hiked, but the elements made it impossible. She didn’t even know if making it to the bottom would save them, but she refused to give up. She thought she could, but she couldn’t. She would live. She had to.

The women stumbled through the snow, their movements growing slower and slower until Bel’s legs gave out. She collapsed to her knees, her mind no longer in control of her limbs. All feeling had fled her extremities, and she couldn’t even sense the cold where her palms pressed against the frozen ground. Shewasn’t going tosurvive this day, but she couldn’t help but stare at her fingers and wonder if she would lose them. Would Eamon love her if she lost her fingers? Or better question, could she love herself if her hands were mere stumps?

“I’m sorry, Dad.” She leaned back on her heels. “I know I’ve put you through a lot of horrible things. I’m sorry you finally have to bury me. Please put me next to Mom and take care of Cerberus and Eamon. I love—” Her words died in her throat. That couldn’t be right. It was a trick of the light. Her dying mind growing cruel. Her eyesmisinterpreting their surroundings.

“Annalise!” Bel lunged for her half-frozen companion, the discovery pumping strength into her limbs, and she hoisted the woman off the ground. Her body ached, but the numbing pain didn’t stop her from hobbling forward because there was a roadten feet in front of them. They’d found a road, and where there was a road, there would be help. It didn’t lead up into the mountain but winded between the peaks instead. Snow coated the pavement in thick sheets, meaning no car had driven it in a while, but Bel refused to acknowledge that. It was a road, and a road meant help. It had to mean help.

Bel dragged Annalise onto the asphalt and started limping down the center line, praying a driver out there was brave enough to face this weather. Someone had to come for them. They’d run this far. They’d left Charles behind in the storm, and a car had to come. They’d survived too much to die this close to civilization, but the stillness held. No matter how far they stumbled, the stillness held, and the only sound besides the falling snow was their struggling breath.

A horn honked, and Bel’s head jerked up. She’d almost fallen asleep standing up, and the obnoxious sound startled Annalise. She collapsed, dragging Bel down with her, and on their knees, they came face to face with blinding white headlights.

“Oh my god!” A burly truck driver flung open the door of his semi and hung out of his cabin to stare at them. His shocked eyes warned he wasn’t entirely certain he should help them, and if Bel had been in his shoes, she would’ve reacted the same. They were barely dressed women wandering a snowstorm, and her chin and throat were blood-stained from when she bit Charles. They were a terrifying sightto behold, unlike the truck driver, who inspired hope in Bel for the first time since she woke on that gurney.

“Are you girls okay?” the man asked as he hesitantly jumped down.

“911!” she shouted as loud as her weak voice allowed. “Call 911 and tell them they need to give FBI Agent Jameson Barry a message. Tell them Detective Emerson is alive.”

“What are you still doing here?”Agent Jameson Barry asked as he jumped into the ambulance and captured her in his arms. Bel stiffened for a second before relaxing into his embrace. They were colleagues, but it seemed coming back from the dead erased professionalism, and she returned the agent’s hug.

“I needed to stay,” she answered as he settled beside her. After recovering from his shock at finding two bloody women in the snow, the truck driver loaded them into the heated cab before calling 911. Within the hour, the mountainside was crawling with police, followed shortly by the FBI, and Agent Barry had flown in on a helicopter himself to confirm Detective Isobel Emerson was, in fact, alive even if she wasn’t entirely well. The EMTs had confirmed Annalise was in rough shape, andthey’d immediately left for the hospital, but Bel had refused to leave. She was stable enough, even if her body ached, but she needed to stay.

“I can’t leave yet,” she explained. “He killed me, to the world, at least. He made my father grieve my death. He planned to destroy my face, and when I escaped, he tried to gun me down. I can’t leave until he’s in handcuffs.”

“I don’t think we’re going to find him.” Barry reached out and rested his palm on her bandaged hands. “His helicopter is gone. There are no signs of him, either. The entire nation is on alert, but we’ve yet to locate him.”

Bel turned to watch the flashing police lights dance with the falling snow. She didn’t want to cry. Not in front of an FBI agent, but she couldn’t stop the tears.

“Did you find the cabin?” she asked as she tried to wipe her face, but her bandages made it difficult.

“We did.” Barry wiped her tears for her, which only made her cry harder. “We found all the Annes too. There’s enough evidence there to convict him one hundred times over.” He located some gauze and dabbed it against her cheeks until her tears slowed. “We also uncovered proof that Blaubart is Hyde. If we… no, when we find him, there’ll be no escaping justice. We have him.”

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