Page 8 of Caution to the Wind

The men had gone.

Only imprints in the dirt and blood splatter remained.

And Kate, head dropped like a wilted flower over her bloodied torso. The blades her attackers had used to slice her up now protruded from her body like macabre needles from a red pin cushion.

“Kate?” I whispered, my own pain forgotten, my eyes so round in my face they burned the surrounding skin. “Kate?”

Somehow, she managed to lift her head woozily and attempt a smile, a tremulous thing that barely moved her lips. “Rocky,” she breathed, the sound gurgled as blood seeped from the edge of her mouth. “Rocky girl, I-I-I’m so sorry.”

“Kate,” I said. “Kate, Kate, what’s happening?” I couldn’t stop saying her name. As if saying it would break this horrible scene in the House of Horrors. As if saying it would wake us both up from this nightmare. “H-how can I help?”

I was close enough to see she trembled violently. The chains rattled with her movement, masking the frequent drip of blood to the floor as it sluiced down her body and pooled beneath her feet. The force of her shivering made the blades wobble precariously. One slid out of her body with a smooth, slick sound that made bile rise to the back of my throat. It clanged against the bloody ground as it fell out of her followed by a gushing torrent of red down her left side.

“Oh my God,” I whispered as my fingertips met cool, viscous red pooling in an ever-increasing puddle around her. “Kate! Who did this to you?”

Her lids fluttered, eyes rolling and black with pain. “I did it to myself.”

She was clearly delirious and speaking nonsense. I opened my mouth to ask her again, but a drop of her blood fell warmly against my cheek and shocked me into silence.

“Can you get help, baby?” she asked, still shaking, eyes drooping.

Blood dripped from her steadily.

Splat, splat, splat.

I reached up gingerly, grasping the handle of a sword.

“No!” she whisper-yelled, then groaned in immeasurable pain. “No, Rocky, please. Get Henning.”

“I don’t want to leave you.” I didn’t have the courage to even consciously think it, but I knew deep down in the well of my gut that these were the last minutes Kate Axelsen would remain on this earth, and I couldn’t bear the thought of leaving her alone in them.

“I don’t want to leave,” she echoed, her lids dropping closed, her lips moving thickly as if they were numb. “My sweet Cleo. My baby girl.”

My chest seized at the thought of Cleo without her mum. My fragile friend, so beautiful and kind with a heart as tender as a budded rose, would not survive this death. Which meant if Kate died, I’d lose them both.

“Just wait,” I pled to her, unleashing my grip on the sword so I could carefully reach up to take her hand.

She was too weak to squeeze me back, but I saw the way her lashes trembled around a tear slinking through her closed lids and knew she appreciated the contact.

“Promise,” she whispered, barely audible. Blood leaked from the side of her mouth, so dark it was almost black. “Promise you’ll take care of them. ’S not fair to ask you. B-but please.”

“Always.” The word was harsh with severity.

I wrote it in the air between us like a contract signed in our shared spilled blood.

It was the moment I shed my girlhood forever.

A thud drew my attention to the dark hole at the top of the stairs. Fear skittered through me, momentarily erasing the sorrow eating at my heart. I got to my feet, whimpering at the sharp agony in my foot, struggling to find my balance as my head ached and roiled. I bent to grasp the bloody handle of the curved sword that had fallen out of Kate’s torso.

My hands trembled as I raised it in front of me, but I refused to let anyone come back and hurt Kate further.

I refused to die alongside her in a fake dungeon at a Calgarian fairground.

Another series of thuds at the door. Obviously, whoever had pushed me down the stairs had barricaded the entrance afterward. It explained why no one had wandered down and found us yet.

Another thud and then a crashing, ear-splitting roar as the door caved in and sailed into the wall before falling loudly down the stairs the same way I had.

“Kate?” a familiar voice boomed through the room. “Mei?”