Secrets to the Grave

62

Halfway up the ladder the world went silent. Gina had no idea how much time it had taken her to get this far. It seemed like days must have passed. Each step up was more difficult than the last, her body was more exhausted, her mind drifting in and out of reality. With each step she had to rest longer, and with each rest she felt more inclined to just go to sleep and fall into the next dimension.

She thought she might be crying, but it was as if all aspects of her—body, mind, spirit—were drifting apart and losing the connection to one another. Marissa had stopped talking to her. Silence rang in her ears.

She was close to giving up. The little bit of rotten food she had eaten had come back up from the pain and the effort of moving. What adrenaline she had used to start the climb was spent.

Starving and dehydrated, she had no energy reserves to draw on. Unknown to her, the concentrated acid in her empty stomach had begun to eat through the stomach lining. She was aware of that pain because it was new and sharp. The pain in her broken ankle was so enormous and had been so continuous that in a weird way it had become like deafening white noise in her head. The pain in her shoulder where she had been shot throbbed now like a bass drum. Infection had begun to set in.

I just want to lie down.

No one told her not to.

She couldn’t remember how long she had been standing on this rung. She had hooked her good arm through the iron loop and put her head against the dirty concrete wall to rest. Just for a minute ... and then another ... and another ...

In one tiny corner of her mind she was very afraid, but that little voice wasn’t strong enough to wake her. It tried to shout, but seemed so far away.

I don’t want to die!

Her pulse was shallow and quick. She wondered dimly if that meant not enough blood was getting to her brain.

If she could just lie down and rest. If the pain would stop for just a while ...

If she could just let go ...

Then she did let go, and her body felt weightless, and it seemed to take forever just falling and falling.

NO!!!

“No!”

And BANG! Like that, all the disparate parts of her being slammed back together, and her body jerked as if she had been given an electrical shock. She grabbed tight to the iron rung as her good foot started to slip.

Climb! Marissa’s voice shouted. Damn it, G., climb!

Dry wracking sobs shaking her, Gina forced herself to reach up for the next rung.

Even as she did it, she was thinking, I can’t do it. I can’t make it. I’m so tired. I feel so weak.

You can do it, Gina! You have to. Do it for me. Do it for Haley. One more. Come on. Come on!

One more.

And then one more.

Her head hit the rotten door. She pushed it open.

And then she was lying on the ground, in the mud, the steady cold rain drenching her to the bone.