Karin Slaughter - A Faint Cold Fear

Sara cried, “No . . . Tess . . . no . . . !” putting her hand to Tessa’s cheek, trying to make her open her eyes. “Tessie?” she said. “Oh, God, what happened?”

Tessa did not respond. She was slack and unresisting as Sara pressed her torn scalp into place and forced open Tessa’s eyelids, trying to see the pupils. Sara tried to check for a carotid pulse, but her hand was shaking so much all she managed to do was smear blood in a macabre finger painting on Tessa’s neck. She pressed her ear to Tessa’s chest, the wet dress sticking to her cheek as she tried to find signs of life.

Listening, Sara looked down at the stomach, at the baby. Blood and amniotic fluid oozed from the lower incisions like a dribbling faucet. A piece of intestine pushed out through a wide tear in the purple jumper, and Sara closed her eyes to the sight, holding her breath until she heard the faint beat of Tessa’s heart and felt the almost imperceptible rise and fall of Tessa’s chest as she took breath into her lungs.

“Tess?” Sara asked, sitting up, wiping blood from her face with the back of her arm. “Tessie, please wake up.”

Someone stepped on a twig behind Sara, and she turned at the loud snap, her heart in her throat. Brad Stephens stood there, his mouth open in shock. They stared at each other, both speechless for several seconds.

“Dr. Linton?” he finally asked, his voice small in the large clearing. He had the same startled expression as the raccoon back up the trail.

Sara could do nothing more than stare at him. In her mind she was yelling at him to go get Jeffrey, to do something, but in reality the words would not come out.

“I’ll get help,” he said, his shoes clomping on the ground as he turned and ran back up the trail.

Sara watched Brad until he disappeared around the bend before she let herself look back at Tessa. This was not happening. They were both trapped in some horrible nightmare, and soon Sara would wake up and it would be over. This was not Tessa—not her baby sister who had insisted on tagging along like she used to when they were little. Tessa had just gone for a walk, gone to find a place to relieve her bladder. She wasn’t lying here on the ground bleeding out while Sara could think of nothing to do but hold her hand and cry.

“It’s going to be okay,” she told her sister, reaching over to take Tessa’s other hand. She felt something sticking between their skin, and when she looked in Tessa’s right hand, there was a piece of white plastic stuck to her palm.

“What’s this?” she asked. Tessa’s fist clenched, and she groaned.

“Tessa?” Sara said, forgetting the plastic. “Tessa, look at me.”

Her eyelids fluttered but did not open.

“Tess?” Sara said. “Tess, stay with me. Look at me.”

Slowly Tessa opened her eyes and breathed, “Sara . . .” before her eyelids started to flutter closed.

“Tessa, don’t close your eyes!” Sara ordered, squeezing Tessa’s hand, asking, “Can you feel that? Talk to me. Can you feel me squeezing your hand?”

Tessa nodded, her eyes opening wide as if she had just been startled out of a deep sleep.

“Can you breathe okay?” Sara asked, aware of the shrill panic in her voice. She tried to take the edge off, knowing she was only making things worse. “Are you having trouble breathing?”

Tessa mouthed a no, her lips trembling from the effort.

“Tess?” Sara said. “Where’s the pain? Where does it hurt most?”

Tessa did not answer. Hesitantly her hand moved up to her head, fingers hovering over the torn scalp. Her voice was barely more than a whisper when she asked, “What happened?”

“I don’t know,” Sara told her, not sure of anything but the need to keep Tessa awake.

Tessa’s fingers found her scalp, the skin moving underneath until Sara took her hand away. Tessa said, “What . . . ?” her voice trailing off with the word.

There was a large rock near her head, blood and hair scraped onto the surface of the stone. “Did you hit your head when you fell?” Sara asked, thinking she must have. “Is that what you did?”

“I don’t . . .”

“Did someone stab you, Tess?” Sara asked. “Do you remember what happened?”

Tessa’s face contorted with fear as her hand reached down to her stomach.

“No,” Sara said, taking Tessa’s hand, stopping her from feeling the damage.

More branches snapped as Jeffrey ran toward them. He dropped down to his knees opposite Sara, demanding, “What happened?”

At the sight of him, Sara burst into tears.

“Sara?” he asked, but she was crying too hard to answer. “Sara,” Jeffrey repeated. He grabbed her by the shoulders, ordering, “Sara, focus. Did you see who did this?”

She looked around, just now realizing that the person who stabbed Tessa might still be here.

“Sara?”

She shook her head. “I don’t . . . I didn’t . . .”

Jeffrey patted her front pockets, finding her stethoscope and putting it into her limp hand. When he said “Frank is calling an ambulance,” his voice sounded so far away that Sara felt as if she were reading his lips instead of hearing his words.

“Sara?”

She was paralyzed by her emotions and could not think what to do. Her vision tunneled, and all she could see was Tessa, bloodied, terrified, her eyes wide with shock. Something passed between them: abject horror, pain, blinding fear. Sara was utterly helpless.

Jeffrey repeated, “Sara?,” putting his hand on her arm. Her hearing came back in a sudden rush, like water sluicing through a dam.

He squeezed her arm hard enough to cause pain. “Tell me what to do.”

Somehow his words brought her back to the moment. Still, her voice caught when she said, “Take off your shirt. We need to control the bleeding.”

Sara watched as Jeffrey pulled off his jacket and tie, then ripped through the buttons of his shirt. Gradually she felt her mind start to work. She could do this. She knew what to do.

He asked, “How bad is it?”

Sara did not answer, because she knew that voicing the harm done would give it more power. Instead she pressed his shirt to Tessa’s belly, then put Jeffrey’s hand over it, saying, “Like this,” so he would know how much pressure to exert.

“Tess?” Sara asked, trying to be strong for her sister. “I want you to look at me, okay, sweetie? Just look at me and let me know if anything changes, all right?”

Tessa nodded, her eyes darting to the side as Frank made his way toward them.

Frank dropped down beside Jeffrey. “They’ve got Life Flight less than ten minutes away.” He started to unbutton his shirt just as Lena Adams came into the clearing. Matt Hogan was behind her, his hands clenched at his sides.

“He must have gone that way,” Jeffrey told them, indicating the path that led deeper into the forest. The two ran off without another word.

“Tess,” Sara said, pressing open the chest wound to see how deep it went. The trajectory of the knife would have put the blade dangerously close to the heart. “I know this hurts, but just hang on. Okay? Can you hang on for me?”

Tessa gave a tight nod, her eyes still darting around.

Sara used the stethoscope to listen to Tessa’s chest, her heartbeat like a fast drum, her breathing a sharp staccato. Sara’s hand began to shake again as she pressed the bell of the stethoscope against Tessa’s abdomen, checking for a fetal heart rate. A stab to the belly was a stab to the fetus, and Sara was not surprised when she could not find a second heartbeat. Amniotic fluid had gushed from the wound, destroying the baby’s protective environment. If the knife blade had not damaged the fetus, the loss of blood and fluid certainly would.

Sara could feel Tessa’s eyes boring into her, asking a question Sara could not bring herself to answer. If Tessa went into shock, or her adrenaline surged, her heart would pump blood more quickly out of the body.