“Jonas?” Liz cried.
The boy winked. “We’re here to rescue you.”
The plane was small, but we all fit—even if just barely.
“Hang on,” Grant told us as he turned the plane on the ice and started building up steam. We bounced and rocked. The wind shifted, and it felt like we were going to topple over before we even took flight.
“It’s going to be close!” Jonas yelled when we finally left the ground and headed for the trees.
I could hear the skis scraping against the icy branches. The engines whined and the plane shook, but we kept climbing, rising steadily into the night.
And then the silence came.
We were officially off the grid and in the middle of nowhere. Avalanche or not, the prison guards were going to have a hard time finding us there, and I finally felt myself exhale.
“It’s good to see you, buddy.” Grant held out a hand, and Zach took it.
“Thanks for coming,” Zach told him. He slapped Jonas on the back. And I felt like I’d fallen into an alternate universe. One where Zach had…friends.
Neither Grant nor Jonas asked why we were in the middle of nowhere, desperate for a ride. They didn’t inquire as to why we had to fly low across the mountains, out of radar range. This was need-to-know at its finest. We weren’t going to lie to Grant and Jonas, and they weren’t going to lie to us; and we were all perfectly fine with that arrangement.
“Grant?” Bex asked after the plane leveled off. “Does this thing come with a first aid kit?” Her voice was softer than it should have been. Her eyes were glassy, and her skin was sallow.
“Why?” I looked at Bex just as she unzipped her heavy down jacket. Blood stained her shirt, spreading across her shoulder and dripping down her side.
“Sorry, Cam,” my best friend whispered. And then her eyelids fluttered and closed, and I felt my whole world descend into black.
Chapter Twenty-seven
You never know how you’re going to react to something. To anything. Tragedy, joy, heartache. They affect us all in different ways in different times and different places. There, a thousand feet in the air, I squinted against the dark stain that was spreading across my best friend’s body. I felt the sticky dampness of the blood and watched the way she crumpled, sliding off the plane’s narrow seat and onto the floor.
I think I might have yelled.
I think I might have screamed.
I think I might have cried.
But to tell you the truth, I’m not exactly sure what I did. I remember ripping off her shirt and staring at the blood.
“Light!” someone yelled, and soon there was a flashlight shining down on the small hole in Bex’s shoulder.
“Bex!” Zach yelled and dove for her. He held her head. “Wake up, Bex. Wake up. Wake up. Wake—”
Someone was crying. It might have been Liz. Or it might have been me. All I know is that Macey was beside me, a first aid kit in her hands. And I was reaching around Bex’s back, feeling the gooey wetness. A gaping hole.
“Exit wound,” I said. Zach pulled Bex into his arms and turned her around and I saw blood. So much blood. “That’s good. Isn’t that good?” I asked but no one really answered.
“We’ve got to stop the bleeding,” Liz was saying, rattling off facts. “Stop the bleeding. Clean the wound.”
I’d heard the words in every lecture on emergency medical procedures that the school doctor and Mr. Solomon had ever given, and yet, I didn’t really think about them. My hands were flying, moving, absent from my mind as I took the alcohol from Macey’s hand and poured it onto Bex’s shoulder. I was glad she was unconscious and didn’t have to feel the pain.
The gauze bandages were too small—nothing more than glorified Band-Aids—so I stuck them to the entry and exit wounds and unwound my scarf from around my neck, wrapping her body over and over.
“Don’t die, Bex,” Liz was chanting. “Don’t die. Don’t die.”
“She’s not going to die,” I said. “Bex won’t die,” I snapped, knowing that Bex herself would never allow it.
“Bex, wake up!” Zach yelled one more time.