Page 4 of Ugly Truths
When I’m nearly through, there’s a sharp tug somewhere in the middle of my body. I turn my head just enough to see the backpack snagging on the fence, the fabric wrapped tightly around a piece of twisted metal.
Panic flares in my chest, and I try to rip it free by continuing my crawl.
Once, twice, but it doesn’t budge.
I must say something out loud because Luis tells me to leave it. The metal ends bite against my fingertips when I try to reach around my back to work it loose, making it almost impossible to focus.
“Elena!” Luis’s voice is a sharp command. “Leave it. Move! Now!”
Tears sting my eyes, but I know he’s right. The equipment can't be traced. Trembling, I work my arms free of the straps and finish pushing myself through the gap, refusing to look back at the bag.
“Keep going,” Luis urges, his typing becoming more audible the longer I’m awake. “I have Ben keeping tabs on Peter. He’s gone, but I don’t know if he’ll circle back.” There’s a pause while I sway on my feet. “I’m tracking your phone now and cutting the cameras like we planned. Go straight and then right at the end of the firstwarehouse.”
I don’t know how long I’m moving. Minutes? Hours? Time feels warped, stretched thin by the pulsing of my tight skin against the summer air and my singed clothes. The fire eventually fades into the distance and the streets become more residential.
With each step, my legs shake. Every inch of me screams in protest. It only worsens when I stop to wait in a dark corner for Luis’s next instruction or potential witnesses to pass. At one point, I hold myself against a brick wall and silently cry while a slew of fire trucks cruise by.
“Left,” Luis breathes. “Keep going straight after that.”
There’s no room for thought. My skin feels like it’s seconds from peeling away from the rest of me. The only other thing I’m aware of is the slow, steady melting of night into dawn, the sky turning the softest shades of blue, then purple, and then pink.
“There,” Luis exhales, his voice quieter after sending me through a series of turns. “You’re almost there. The house is coming up on your right. Two hundred feet.”
A small South Side craftsman comes into view. The porch light is a faint glow in the early morning light.
A beacon calling me home.
It takes every ounce of my remaining strength not to release the most pathetic sob at the sight.
My feet drag against the cement stairs to the front porch. My hand slaps once against the door in a knock. It sounds so weak and hollow against the wood. The door swings open almost instantly, as if he’d been waiting for my arrival.
Jeff’s broad frame fills the doorway. He takes me in–my destroyed clothes, my blistering skin, the dried blood that seeped out of the shallow cuts on my arms–before taking a step forward, arms outstretched.
“Scarlett,” he rasps, horror painted across every inch of his stern face.
I don’t even have the strength to respond. My knees buckle, the world tilting as I collapse into him. The last thing I feel is the searing sting of his steady grip as he pulls me inside. He murmurs something I can’t quitemake out.
And then everything goes dark.
Jeff once told me that when it was the end of the line, he’d help me in any way he could. I just never imagined I’d actually take him up on that offer. It feels surreal now, thinking about the last time I saw him at the gym. I’d been desperate when I arrived with the duffle bag I bought online, stuffed with my personal laptop, IDs, and whatever clothes I could fit. I passed it off as a gym bag, hoping it wouldn’t draw Cillian’s attention. He was more concerned with keeping guard over me and not the details of what I was doing, anyway.
Between drills, I quietly asked Jeff if he could take the bag home and hold onto it for me until early Saturday morning when I'd come to retrieve it. His brows furrowed and, in true Jeff fashion, the only question he asked is if I knew his address.
Even with our scheming, neither of us anticipated I’d show up at his door looking likethat.
I stayed with Jeff and his wife, Lauren, for three weeks. They kept the televisions off and didn’t address the fires they could see the smoke from—the ones that happened the same night I stumbled into their home looking like a burnt mess.
Lauren, sweet but sharp-tongued, is a nurse. She works in cardiology, but has extensive experience in emergency care. She took one look at my injuries and declared it was a miracle I wasn’t dead or more badly burned, though she never expanded on why she believed that to be true when I refused to tell them where they came from.
The backpack I wore that night absorbed most of the blast’s heat, shielding me from far worse damage, but many areas it didn’t cover hadn’t been spared, especially my lower half. Second-degree burns, Lauren told me, while carefully cleaning and dressing each wound across my ass, thighs, and the curves of my hips. I was lucky to have ducked my head and tucked my arms in time to prevent damage there, but the ends of my hair and the back of my neck were a different story.
It took a few days for me to be conscious enough for Lauren to show me the seared strands, melted and jagged. We watched enough videos to correct it with a pair of kitchen scissors. All things considered, it’s a nice shoulder-length cut now, though I do miss the length.
The burns took time, however. Some healed completely, the skin smoothing over. Others haven’t, pale and puckered, though I still see improvements with the ointments and lotions Lauren suggested I use.
I can’t look at them. Every line and mark reminds me of the pain and my failure. Nights spent shivering in the throes of a fever, Lauren or Jeff petting my hair while I cried, both for how I felt inside and out.
Peter got away, and worse than that, I left behind two people who now think I’m dead, a liar, or both.
