Page 76 of Survive the Night

It has to be.

This can’t be real.

Even though it looks that way. Blood has started to seep into Josh’s sweatshirt. A wet bloom around the knife that’s darker thanthe fake blood used in movies. Almost black. Like it’s not really blood at all but some kind of primordial ooze.

Seeing it makes Charlie back against the passenger door. She fumbles for the handle, finds it, pulls. The door swings open, and the Grand Am’s dome light flicks on, casting a brutal glow over the inside of the car. No longer dark, the blood now looks Technicolor bright in the dome light’s glare.

Charlie resumes blinking. Faster now. Her eyelids working in a way that makes everything flicker like a projector not running at full speed. She slides out of the car backward, dropping through the door, landing on the road with a burst of pain in her lower back.

She crawls away from the car, scuttling backward like a crab. She doesn’t want to be here. She wants to be anywhere else. Anytimeelse. She wants to wake and find herself in a whole other existence. One without Josh and that car and that blood.

When thinking about stabbing Josh, she didn’t know how she’d feel if she actually went through with it. Victorious, maybe. Or sated. Or proud.

Instead, she just feels scared.

But it’s a strange kind of fear.

She’s no longer scared about what might happen to her. She’s scared about what she’s done.

Charlie climbs to her feet.

She takes one last look at the Grand Am.

Then she begins to run.

INT. GRAND AM—NIGHT

He removes the knife from his gut in one quick yank. Better that than trying to pull it out little by little, which hurts more than helps. And there’s plenty of pain already. The moment air hits the stab wound, a fresh bolt of agony pulses through him and there’s nothing to do but yell.

When it’s over and the boiling pain lowers to a more manageable simmer, he takes a few deep breaths and checks the damage. The first thing he notices—because it’s impossible to miss—is the blood. The side where Charlie stabbed him is crimson from hip to armpit. He doesn’t know if it’s because his sweatshirt is extra absorbent or if he’s really lost that much blood. Either way, the sight of it makes him dizzy.

It takes some effort to lift the sweatshirt to see the actual knife wound. The blood-soaked fabric sticks to his skin like glue. He considers leaving it like that. A makeshift bandage. But he’s been stabbed before, and he knows that doing nothing will lead to more blood loss, then infection, then death.

Like it or not, this bitch needs to be stitched.

So he pulls up the sweatshirt the same way he pulled out the knife—in one swift motion. Riding out another blast of pain, he looks down and sees an inch-long slice on the left side of his abdomen.

It’s good that the knife was small.

It’s bad that it was long.

The wound it left behind is deep enough to make him worry that the knife could have hit a major organ or severed some nerves, although if that were the case, he thinks he’d be in more pain. Or dead. And since he’s alive and not paralyzed in agony, he assumes he got lucky.

He reaches under the driver’s seat, his left hand fumbling for the first-aid kit he keeps there in case of emergencies. Each movement prompts a fresh wave of pain that makes him curse everything about this night.

It was supposed to be easy. Now it’s just a shitshow. And he knows exactly who to blame.

Charlie.

He wasn’t lying when he said he liked talking to her. He can’t remember the last time he enjoyed being in someone’s company. People, generally speaking, suck. It’s why he does what he does. Most human beings can’t stop being selfish, greedy, piggish assholes. And it’s his job to make sure they pay for that.

But Charlie’s different. So weird and wounded and, as he now knows, secretly fierce. It made him lower his guard. He told her things he’d never told anyone else, ever. All it got him in return was a knife to the gut.

Beneath the seat, his fingers brush smooth plastic. The first-aid kit. Finally. He picks it up, drops it on the side of his stomach that doesn’t have a stab wound, and clicks it open. He rifles through it, finding a small bottle of rubbing alcohol, a gauze pad, some medical tape, a needle, and a tiny spool of thread. Everything he needs for a little amateur surgery.

Now comes the hard part. The thing he doesn’t want to do but knows he has to do if he’s going to catch up to Charlie. And he needs that to happen.

He’s not done with her just yet.

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