Page 59 of Rogue

16

Shelby

Isprint through the forest outcrop to the familiar dirt roadway leading away from the compound. Yet instead of slowing my pace, I push harder.

Make arrangements. You need to make arrangements.

My lungs burn and my thighs ache but I can’t stop. I can’t give into the pain, my anguish. I’ve got to keep going or there’ll be no hope at all.

“I’m sorry, Kylie. There’s little more we can do,” Dr. Walker had informed me yesterday when I stopped by the clinic.

“What about mebendazole? We haven’t tried that yet?”

He’d shaken his head. “It’s a long shot at best. There are no guarantees.”

I’d flipped through my loose-leaf notebook to the page where I’d recorded all of the Johns Hopkins clinical trials Mama is qualified to participate in. Azacitidine with romidepsin, carboplatin and paclitaxel, mebendazole. The first isn’t working. But we have other choices, more trials to try. Whatever it takes to improve Mama’s prognosis . . .

“Kylie?” He’d sat down next to me and taken a deep breath. Bad signs both. “Additional trials can run anywhere from five thousand dollars and upward, depending on the services provided like urine analysis, serum chemistry, biopsies. And National Healthcare—”

“—won’t provide coverage,” I’d snapped, finishing for him. “What else is new?”

“My advice is . . . to make arrangements . . .”

Make arrangements? The only arrangements that followed that bit of advice were the good doctor giving into my rather forceful request—which culminated with his calling to make the necessary arrangements with his colleagues at Johns Hopkins—and Sheriff Rush agreeing not to haul my ass off to his office for disorderly conduct. Haven’t I learned that sometimes in life, you’re forced to put your foot down, no matter the cost?

That was yesterday.

I managed to keep my emotional breakdown at bay until today on my way back from a morning spying on the Pricks. Controlling whatever I can in my life right now, though my revenge on these murderers is going to taste bittersweet if Mama . . .

I can’t go there. No, I have to keep trying.

Except . . . thousands of dollars? It’s not like I can pick up a kick-ass waitressing shift at the Pitt, Shelby’s local trucker watering hole, and in a snap of my fingers, earn that kind of dough.

I slow to a walk, my breath coming out in pants.

There is another way.

Damn it. What choice do I have?

Off in the distance, the growl of a motorcycle fills the quiet Saturday-morning air. Drowning out the crickets chirps and . . . what the hell . . . sobs?

Once I recognize the sound, I can’t seem to stop it. Out it comes, my anguish. Sorrow. Panic. Fear. Oh my God, how could fate be so damn cruel? I crouch over, place my hands on my knees, and allow the damn to crack. My chest heaves, my thoughts overwrought with emotion. I think about my loving papa dying in my arms. I think about my mama’s brave struggle to fight this horrible disease. I think about my sister with so much life ahead of her, how she’s far too young to be stricken with so much pain and sorrow.

And I think about Jaxson. What Hayden did to him, tous. How I haven’t seen him in a few days yet it feels like a lifetime.

If I return to the Ranch . . .

The rumble of a motorcycle engine grows closer. For I second, I get a wicked sense of déjà vu. No. Hayden isn’t expecting me for two more days. Besides, he’s clueless to the fact that because of yesterday’s news and up until this moment, I was never going back. It’s just a coincidence. A random stranger. Still, I ball up my fists, ready for the first signs of trouble.

The motorcycle slows to a stop. The rider takes off his helmet. And the last person I want to see right now grins madly at me.

“Climb on.”

I take off running, hearing his surprised exclamation of “shit,” which seems to follow on the breeze behind me. My heart pumps furiously. Dr. Walker’s advice has ripped it to shreds. Seeing Jaxson . . . No. No. No. I can’t get let myself get involved with him. Not with Hayden’s threat hanging over us. Not with my mama battling a disease that no one except her, Madelyn, and I seem concerned about curing. I can’t be responsible for Jaxson being hurt. I can’t do this.

Just let me go. Just forget about me.

I listen for any sign he’s followed, but all I hear is my desperate gasps for air.