Tricked

across some of the broken glass as she left the vehicle. She couldn’t cry out if she got cut, because the phone call was still live, the 911 operator distantly calling out for her to respond.
    She held the blood bag up near her right cheek, sort of like a squishy red shot put. I grabbed her left arm with mine and pulled. Then, as she went horizontal, I supported her rib cage with my right. Granuaile let the hole in the blood bag point down and she squeezed gently to create a trail out of the car. She kept her legs limp and did get lacerated through the denim on her left calf as she got dragged out, but that would just add verisimilitude at this point. With Granuaile now on her back in the dirt outside the car, I began to drag her by her left arm along the ground. She moved the blood bag just over her right shoulder and continued to let it flow out slowly. If she was being dragged, unconscious, by the left arm and had suffered a hit to the face, her head would loll to the right and bleed on that side. Once around the rear of the car, I pulled her downhill toward Shultz Tank. It was extremely uncomfortable for her, but the best way to accurately simulate dragging a body on the ground is to actually drag a body on the ground. Besides, we wanted stray threads and hairs and other trace evidence to be left behind in the path she was making through the pine needles.
    Speaking of needles, I had to ditch the one I’d been carrying between my lips. Halfway down the hill and well outside the range of her cell phone’s microphone, I took it out of my mouth and said quietly, » You’re doing great. How you holding up? «
    » Promise me I’ll get to do this to you someday? « she asked, her voice all sweet and sugary.
    » Sure, except maybe what’s coming up next. I think that’s really going to suck. The water looks foul. «
    » Great. Well, can you at least heal up my cuts before I go in? No telling what kind of bacteria are growing in there. «
    » Yeah, I can close up the skin, no problem. We’ll get you on antibiotics as a precaution anyway. Hold on a sec. « I knelt quickly and asked the earth to hold on to this needle for me. It accepted it, closed back up, and now the police would never find it—and even if they did, it was unlikely they’d connect it to the assault on the road when there was a giant bloody bough sitting next to the car.
    › Hey, Atticus, I think I hear sirens on their way, ‹ Oberon said. › You should hear them when your human ears get around to it. ‹
    Okay, thanks for the heads-up , I told him, continuing to drag Granuaile downhill. » Oberon says the police are coming. We need to hurry. «
    A few yards from the waterline of Shultz Tank, I stopped and let Granuaile’s arm go. She allowed it to flop down in the dirt. I walked around to her legs and looked for the cuts. The tiny punctures on her thighs were not much to worry about; the piece of glass that had dragged down her calf and shredded the denim had left a much more significant wound. Removing my gloves, I stuffed them in the pocket of my jeans and put a gentle hand on her leg. I usually don’t like to do direct healing on other people, because the risk of screwing something up is too high, but convincing the skin to grow back quickly is harmless.
    » Go ahead and continue to squeeze some blood out here to reflect a pause, « I said, » and then empty the rest out when you’re facedown and then in the water. «
    » Okay, « she replied.
    » All right, done here. You’re closed up. « I stood, gathered her feet in my hands, and pivoted her around so that she was lying parallel to the waterline. » Ready? «
    » Let’s get it over with, « she said.
    » Remember not to drop your feet once you’re in. Dead people don’t stand up in the shallows. «
    » I’ll remember. Just get me out fast. « We could both hear the sirens now. We needed to get out of sight before the police spotted us.
    » All right. Here we go. « I knelt down next to her torso and began to roll her down into the tank. Every time she was facedown, she squeezed out more blood into the earth. And then she took a breath as I rolled her into the scummy, stagnant water. I kept pushing her out so she’d be able to float freely, and I waded in up to my hips, careful not to soak the backpack.
    I tapped her on the shoulder and shouted, » You can do a shallow tread, « so she’d be able to hear through any water in her ears. Her head came up and she gasped,