Chapter 36: Chapter 36

I sat up and gave him a stern look. “Kevin.”

“Bethany, honestly it doesn’t matter,” he told me in a matching firm tone.

“It does to me,” I insisted.

“Why?”

“It just does.”

With a heavy sigh, he pulled me back down on his shoulder. “The man you hit with the branch… he died as well.”

The memory of the sickening crunch of that man’s nose rose unbidden. My stomach tossed and turned like a typhoon had stirred up. I closed my eyes and focused on my breathing as well as keeping everything down.

This was for the best, I told myself reassuringly. Those men were there to kill me, and I needed to remember that whenever this feeling came back. It was the only way my mind was going to survive with what I had done.

A gentle hand brushed across my cheek prompting me to open my eyes. Kevin’s face was filled with concern and a disconcerting amount of fear that I wanted to wipe off it immediately.

“Good,” I stated with as much confidence as I could.