Made for You
Page 52

“Okay.” Nate doesn’t look away. “How does it work?”
“It only happens when people touch my bare skin. If I touch you, it doesn’t happen.” I pause. Telling someone feels weird, like speaking it makes it somehow more real. “It has to be bare skin, and it doesn’t happen every time . . . I don’t know why. I didn’t even think it was real. I thought I was just hallucinating, but . . . I don’t know. . . It feels like it’s real, some sort of curse or gift.”
Nate listens, but instead of telling me I’m crazy, he says, “So I’m going to touch your arm now.”
He extends his hand, and I drop my gaze to it. I watch as his fingertips get closer, and then they graze my skin. That’s all it takes.
The car swerves toward me, and I have to go off the road to avoid impact. I feel the truck dip and jerk as the front wheel hits the ditch. I’m braking, hoping the brakes don’t lock up, praying I don’t go into a spin, and regretting the lack of airbags. My brain is racing, rolling into thoughts that seem out of place. I wasn’t going fast enough that the accident will be fatal, but I don’t have time to be without wheels.
It’s dark out, and there are no street lights on Old Salem Road, but I know the area well enough after driving it every day the past year and a half. It’s wooded along the road, but not thick. The front of the truck clips a tree, but it’s only a sapling. I start to swerve farther only to jolt to a stop as I smash into a much larger tree.
The truck gives one last shudder as it comes to a stop at the tree, and I shakily cut off the engine. I know there’s no real danger of explosion. This isn’t a movie, where cars explode constantly.
I unfasten my seat belt and push the door open. It creaks in a new way, and I wonder how much damage there is to the frame.
I wince as I slide out of the truck. I must have hit my knee because there’s a sharp pain when I put weight on my left leg. Tentatively, I take another step. Nothing seems to be broken, but I suspect that I’ll be limping for a couple days.
After a moment, I pat my jeans pockets and find my phone.
My face feels wet, and I realize that blood is dripping from a gash above my eye.
A car pulls up in front of me, and I wonder if it’s the car that ran me off the road or someone who saw the accident. The headlights shine in my face so I can’t see who’s inside the car. There aren’t a lot of people who drive along Old Salem Road, but there are a few houses and the reservoir.
The lights make the person getting out of the car look like a silhouette. He’s not a huge man. I can tell that. I concentrate on details, size, height, clothes. It’s too dark to make out anything about the clothes beyond trousers and a sweatshirt with the hood pulled up. The height makes me think “man.” Although he could be a bigger woman. . . . I watch the person walk up to my truck. Something seems wrong. I realize that he’s holding his arm straight down, motionless and tight against his body. It seems awkward because his other arm swings as he walks toward me.
He—or she—isn’t speaking. I can see the shape of a person, and I’m almost certain it’s a man, but I still can’t see a face. It’s there, but I can’t focus on any details. His hair that I can see sticking out from under his hood looks brown. The shape of the body, the hair cut—short—makes me pretty sure this is a man.
I’m shaking, and I think back to what Eva said. This is the accident she warned me about; this is the person who attacked her. This is the man who killed Amy. I wish I could remember the details about this attack, the things that she said I did, so I could change them all right now when it’s happening.
I fumble with my phone, tapping the button for my mother, and then look around for some sort of weapon. He already has one; that’s why he kept his arm close to his body.
He swings his arm out and up, and I realize that he has a crowbar in his hand.
I try to dodge him, with some success, but in the next moment, the crowbar hits my shoulder. My phone falls as I duck and grab the Maglite under the seat of the truck. It’s not as long as a crowbar, but it’s heavy and extends my reach. I just need to get away from him, hopefully knock him down long enough for help to arrive.
The passenger window shatters as my attacker begins swinging wildly.
I twist my body, putting more of my weight on my uninjured leg. I swing blindly with my flashlight, cursing the lack of streetlights and the blood dripping from my forehead.
“You’re not worthy,” he says.
I feel bones shatter. He hits my cheek, my nose, and my mouth; the pain is excruciating. I can taste blood.
The added pain from the blow to my face makes me a lot less than steady.
“You’re complicating the message,” he says.
I hit the ground, and try to struggle to my feet, but I’m trapped between him and the truck. I roll to the side, as he swings again. I try to block it and feel the heavy metal bar hit my forearm, breaking it. I notice gloves on his hands, covering his skin.
A moment later, I feel it hit my head.
The vision recedes. It’s not because I pulled away from Nate, but because he died. Again. I know that the killer is a man, that his skin was hidden under gloves, that his hair is brown. I try to concentrate on that instead of the feeling of dying, of Nate dying. This time was different from the others. I didn’t feel the same sense of being two people at once that I did the first few times. I’m not sure if it’s because I chose to do it or the trauma is somewhat lessened by the frequency with which I’ve been in Nate’s death. Either way, I was only-Nate in this one, as opposed to earlier visions where I kept separating myself from the person who was dying.