Murphy's Law (Roads Less Traveled Book 2) (33 page)

“Slow down, Michael! What’s going on?” Nancy said and grabbed the hysterical man by the shoulders to steady him.

Jake and Mia had dropped their roast beef sandwiches and were scrambling to get out of their chairs by the time John finally entered the scene.

“Kasey’s alive, we just heard from her,” he gasped, panting and bent over with his hands on his knees.

“Shit.” Jake nearly knocked his chair over in his haste to get away from the table.

“Go, go,” Mia said after him, her hand on his back, pushing him away as she tried to push her chair back.

“We’re not in shape for that shit, man,” John wheezed next to Michael.

He patted the big man’s broad back and helped him straighten up. Jake had already run from the room, with Mia right behind him, and Nancy was trying to herd him and John back towards the study.

Michael patted the radio on his side. “Hell with that, I’m using this,” he said and brought the radio up to his mouth. “Jonah, you there?”

“Yeah, go ahead.”

“Keep your eyes open, we just heard from Kasey.”

“I know, I was listening. Sounds like she’s in trouble, and not the dead kind,” Jonah said.

They were all aware of his keen observational skills, so no one doubted him when he said something didn’t sound or look right.

“We better get to the study,” Michael said, his breathing suddenly subdued as his nerves went back on high alert. John and Nancy followed him out, this time at a slow walk.

“Kasey, it’s Jake, can you hear me?” Jake’s voice came across over Michael’s walkie.

“He’s on the desktop,” John said. They listened as they walked, but heard no answer from Kasey.

“C’mon, Kasey, answer me,” Jake said again. His voice sounded gentle, like someone coaxing a kid to take their medicine, but Michael didn’t need Jonah’s spidey-sense to catch the edge of fear creeping into his voice.

Mia had her arm around Jake’s shoulders when the other three walked into the study a few moments later. He looked up at the sound of footsteps and dropped the desktop mic, then rushed around the edge of the desk and strode straight past Nancy.

“She’s not answerin’, somethin’s wrong. I’m gonna find her.” Then he snapped his fingers and barked over his shoulder. “Mia!”

“Go on, keep him from doing something stupid,” Nancy said when Mia made no move to follow him. She sighed and did as the older woman said, moving away from the radio and giving Michael his seat back.

John walked to the window and pulled the curtains back. He watched Mia run off the porch, grab Jake, and jerk him around to face her. It seemed to John she was scolding the guy, but he could only catch a few words of what she was saying. He pressed his lips together and let the curtains fall back.

“Kasey, this is Michael. Please respond.”

John walked up behind Nancy, who was standing in front of the desk with her hands folded in front of her mouth. He put his large hands on her shoulders and squeezed.

“Your girl’s alright,” he assured, while Michael continued calling for Kasey.

“Michael,” Jonah broke in, his voice disturbingly empty.

“Yeah, Jonah, go ahead.”

“There’s a rider coming down the road. Better get somebody out there, she’s about to fall out of the saddle.”

Michael’s head shot up and his eyes met Nancy and John’s. A second later they heard shouts coming from outside, first from Jake, and then from Mia. Michael dropped the mic and ran around the desk, bolting past John and out the door. John patted Nancy’s shoulder before letting go and guiding her outside.

“See, told you your girl was alright.” He smiled to cover his fear and hoped he was comforting the older woman.

“Stop bullshitting me, John, and stand with me on the porch. No sense in me walking all the way out there when that girl’s gonna need a nurse right here,” Nancy said.

John draped his arm around her shoulders. “You got it, darlin’.”

They stayed on the porch and watched the other three run down the gravel road, Jake and Mia yards ahead of Michael. They watched Kasey slide out of her saddle in slow motion and fall onto her back. Thankfully Daisy stopped walking the second her rider hit the gravel, waiting patiently for help. Kasey didn’t move, not an inch. That told Nancy she was unconscious, and deeply so, to not be jerked awake after slamming onto the gravel road. What Nancy was about to find out, was that the reason Kasey didn’t flinch when she hit the road wasn’t because she was passed out cold, but because she was suffering from hypothermia and couldn’t feel a damned thing.

* * *

Are those lights, or am I dead?
I remembered thinking at some point as Daisy continued along the gravel road.

I had been fading in and out of consciousness since talking to the male voice on the radio, but so far had been able to force myself to stay at least partially awake by sheer will. Or dumb bull-headedness. Either way, I was still alive, still lucid-ish, and those definitely looked like lights earlier. I couldn’t sit up, couldn’t straighten up in the saddle, couldn’t move anything except my face. And how the hell was having the ability to make stupid faces going to help me out of this mess?

After coming to again, I opened my eyes and saw the lights once more. They were brighter and straight ahead of me. I blinked several times, still unable to pick my head up to get a better view.

I’m probably riding into a cannibal camp,
I thought, then promptly passed out again.

I woke up the next time by getting the air knocked out of my lungs.

“Shiiiit,” I hissed with the last bit of breath that escaped my chest, my lips barely moving. My eyes were still open, and I noticed I was seeing stars instead of the lights from earlier.

Okay, NOW I’m dead
.

I let my diaphragm relax and take its time expanding again, and when it finally did, I took a deep breath and closed my eyes. I wondered why I could hear shouts if I was, in fact, dead. I wondered if maybe I’d been infected and was in the process of turning into one of the things I’d been fighting against for the past five months. That’s irony for you.

“Kasey!” the same male voice from earlier shouted.

Okay, I definitely heard that
.

I tried to move. I was still numb from being soaked, then frozen like a popsicle in the cold night air, but I thought I could feel my muscles trying to respond. I tried turning my head to see where I was. Nothing. My body was out to lunch. I tried wiggling my fingers, but didn’t know if they moved because, you got it, they were numb. My mind was on its way out again as another wave of unconsciousness loomed, my eyes slowly closing, when the owner of the voice suddenly appeared in front of my face.

“Kasey…Kasey, you’re okay. Don’t move,” Jake said.

No shit, Sherlock
.

I tried to say it, but was so incredibly exhausted it hurt to even think about talking. So I blinked instead. He smiled, looked up at someone I couldn’t see, then looked back down at me.

“Yeah girl, you’re okay. Stay with me.”

I was lifted and carried down the road. At least, I assumed I was being carried. Either that, or I had suddenly acquired the ability to levitate. I chuckled at that thought, thinking I was laughing inside my own head again, soon realizing it must have been out loud because Mia answered me.

“I’m glad you think this is funny,” she said, lowering her face in front of mine.

She was walking beside whoever was carrying me. Apparently my head was flopped to the side because all I could see was the road in front of us and a humongous stone building.

I thought this was supposed to be a 4-H camp or something
, I thought, then passed out again.

* * *

“Someone get those blankets out of the oven, and put more wood on the fire,” Nancy was saying when I once again regained consciousness.

Everything was fuzzy, visually and audibly, yet my wits were starting to come back to me. Couldn’t feel a damned thing, but at least I could think straight again.

“Hey,” I croaked and blinked my eyes open. Nancy’s smiling face came into focus in front of mine.

“I’m really getting tired of nursing you back to health,” she said. “Got yourself a touch of hypothermia this time.” I closed my eyes again. “Kasey, stay with me. Open your eyes.” She rolled her knuckles over my breastbone.

“Ow, quit it,” I mumbled and rolled my shoulders inward. I opened my eyes again and noticed an orange glow behind Nancy’s head. And heat. Yes, it was definitely warmer. “Where am I?”

“You’re at the country club. You made it, Kasey. And you’re going to be fine, we just have to get you warmed up.” Nancy started rolling me around on the couch I was laying on, wrapping hot blankets around me, apparently the ones she’d asked for earlier. Fresh from the oven, nice and toasty.

“That’s nice,” I whispered.

Feeling was gradually starting to come back to my extremities, and it did feel nice at first. Cozy. Until that warm fuzzy feeling was suddenly replaced by unbearable pain. Something like that feeling you get after your leg has fallen asleep, then you move around a bit, and it starts waking up. Except on a much broader and insanely slower scale.

I groaned and tried to pull my knees up towards my chest. The hairs on the back of my neck stood up, and tears rolled down my cheeks.

“I know, but it’ll pass,” she said, wiping my tears and doing what she could to comfort me.

The fireplace snapped and crackled in the background while Nancy finished tucking me in, then with a pat on my shoulder she stood to check on the tea. Her knees popped when she straightened, her hands went to her lower back for support. The blaze of the fire blinded me for a moment when Nancy stepped away, but I couldn’t shade my eyes because it seemed my hands were still on strike.

“Daisy is in one of the outbuildings. I’ll move some junk out of there tomorrow, it’ll make a nice little barn for her,” John said.

He and Michael were standing with their heads together somewhere behind me, talking in low voices. Jake was perched on the end of the couch, by my feet, and Gus had trotted over from wherever he had been sleeping and was thankfully blocking the light from the fire. Two big, blurry dog eyes stared into mine as he shoved his nose in my face and sniffed several times.

“Hey,” I croaked.

He started licking my face, which made me smile no matter how gross it was, then he hopped up next to me and snuggled up against my blanketed chest. Which I’m sure he just loved. Hell, I would have too, if it weren’t for the pins and needles that still throbbed throughout my body. I crooked my neck and nuzzled his face.

Why does his breath smell like chocolate?
I was very irritated at the possibility that someone would dare give a dog chocolate. Like that’s what I should’ve been worried about. But cut me some slack, hypothermia and all.

“You’re crazy, you know?” Mia said. Her voice startled me; I’d closed my eyes again and didn’t know it.

“Tell me something I don’t know.” I blinked a few times and drifted off again.

The pain was easing up in my limbs and was being replaced by sensation again. Which was great, don’t get me wrong. It also sucked because I could finally feel how badly I had to use the bathroom. I think I could have slept for days if it hadn’t been for that. I finally felt safe and warm, I knew my friends were here and okay, but I couldn’t rest because I had to pee. It’s always something.

“I need you to drink this, Kasey,” Nancy was saying while I tried to ignore the protests coming from my bladder. She had kneeled down in front of me again and was holding a cup of hot tea. I think I must have made a face, because she laughed and looked towards the end of the couch. “Does she not like tea?”

“Yeah, she always used to,” Mia answered from somewhere in the vicinity of my feet.

I shook my head a little and made a face again. “No, I have to pee.” My throat was still dry and screaming for something to drink while at the same time my bladder was screaming the opposite, which caused my kidney to start aching again. What a strange sensation.

“Oh…oh!” Nancy said. “Uh, Michael? Where is the closest bathroom? And I do mean the closest.”

I heard footsteps behind me again, the sound of pant leg brushing against the arm of the couch next to my head, then I saw Nancy stand and move aside to make room for Michael. Gus opened his eyes and looked up, then lifted his head and licked his lips, beating his tail against my leg. Michael stroked the dog’s head before brushing him off the couch, then very carefully slid his arms under the blankets and underneath me.

“Easy does it, just roll into me,” he said, lifting me up in a pile of warm blankets and slowly swinging me around.

I did as he instructed, tucking myself in towards him and pressing my face against his chest. It felt like I was in a cocoon, and as a matter of fact, the only thing that kept me from falling into a dead sleep right then and there was the imminent danger of pissing all over him and the faint discomfort of the stitches still above and below my lips. I couldn’t see where we were going, but I could hear another set of footsteps besides Michael’s. Hopefully Nancy or Mia was accompanying me to the shitter, because I seriously doubted I’d be able to take care of business on my own.