Pretty Misfortunes (Cruel Boys of Raven Oak Prep #2)

~Chapter XVIV~

~Madelyn~

"MADELYN!"

"Madelyn!"

"Come on. Wake up, Mads."

I woke the uncomfortable repetition of someone tapping my cheek. When I slowly raised my eyelids I felt pressure to stay asleep and the trickling wetness of droplets hitting me in the face. The rain cascaded in showers, completely drenching me and the boy hovering above. As I observed, we were stranded in the forest and night had fallen, crying a river of tears for our loneliness.

"What happened?" I licked my lips.

A stinging cut on the edge made me hiss, as did the bleeding slide of a gaping wound on my head from the impact of the crash.

Wait.

We crashed.

I sat up, but quickly dropped back down on Mako's lap when a rush of dizziness grabbed at my skull and squeezed into an iron fist.

"Whoa!" Mako was there to catch me, bringing me in to a sitting position up against his chest. "Do not move so fast. You might have a concussion."

"You definitely have a concussion." Blue squat beside me and pressed a finger to the side of my head, causing an involuntary complaint to slip from my lips.

"Ow." I glared at her through the pain. "Can you not make it worse."

"You will be grateful to know you do not need a hospital. But you require stitches."

"That gash on your head looks concerning." Pink tilted her head to the side, causing Moss to lean in the same direction.

"She's right, miss Madelyn. This weather will not help that wound if we stay here any longer."

"Where is the Sheriff?"

Mako continued to stare at me, a deep frown pulling at his lips. "The Sheriff is missing."

"What do you mean missing?" I forced myself to stand, taking a sweeping look at the smoking cruiser turned on its side, metal molded against metal in twisted lines that reminded me of a towel being wrung to extract the water.

"Sheriff Burke is not in the cruiser."

Then where the hell is he?

"Maybe he woke up first and went to go for help?" Moss suggested.

"Or maybe he was kidnapped." Mako stared at the open road void of passerby.

"What do you know?" I asked him.

"The car that hit us off the road must have stopped. When I came to a group of men were dragging the Sheriff in the back of a black SUV. Maybe they had something to ask him."

"Maybe?" I griped.

Mako threw me an exaggerated look. "You know what I mean, smartass."

I finally managed to stand on my own two feet. Though the spinning in my vision unbalanced me I put the pain aside to focus on my latest mystery I hoped wouldn't end in murder. But time could be misguiding in the face of unspoken certainty. As twilight rose on the horizon, and the crying heavens grew darker, I knew we won't get any closer to the truth of what happened tonight unless we wanted to catch the infecting illness of a common cold.

"We need to find shelter." Mako spluttered under the siege of rain. "This rain is coming down too hard, and there is nowhere for us to go for miles."

"We are in the middle of the woods. What shelter can there possibly be?" Blue glanced about.