- Part 1 -
Arrhythmia
I walk through my days like a ghost in a dream,
But the field carries on and my past follows me.
It's hard moving on from the things you done wrong,
When they play in your head like an old fashioned song.
But when you're wearing on your sleeve all the things you regret,
You can only remember what you want to forget.
-Brandi Carlile
You had one warning, Aubrey. Stay on the path.
Your father always said, 'It doesn't mean a damn thing to respect authority if you don't pay attention to it as well. One day, you may be in a position of authority and you're not going to give a rat's ass if people respect you if they're not following your orders to a T.'
Screw up.
She doesn't know exactly how or when she managed to slip off the trail in her rather shameful (but also well-warranted, mind you) bout of anger, but, at some point, the dirt floor turned into fallen leaves and pine needles. The air is thick and smells of moss and rotting wood, and she thinks that maybe if she can just get a whiff of the briny ocean, she'll be able to find her way to a clearing. The island is not that big, and she figures that if worse comes to worse, she'll just end up back at the cliffs with Beca again. (She considers that maybe she would actually rather be lost for the entire day than have to deal with that.) But she has walked past the same bush five times. Or maybe she hasn't. She glares at the familiar stump of waxy leaves. Everything around her looks exactly the same. She can't really comprehend how she managed to get herself lost, but this island is bringing out the worst in her, and she can physically feel her frustration with herself just churning inside of her. Can nothing this week just go right? She has to be able to do something correctly. Her head hurts worse from all the thoughts that won't stop repeating.
The air is gradually getting warmer to a point where her t-shirt is beginning to stick to her skin. She stops for a moment to take off her jacket and to try to regain her bearings. If she can figure out the direction she took to get to where she is now, she can trace her steps back. The distinct sound of her jacket zipper being undone is out of place against the chirping birds and buzzing insects. She doesn't know why (and doesn't bother to put pointless thought into it), but she feels less claustrophobic and not as trapped with her stupid mistakes as she removes the article of clothing and ties it around her waist. The cool breeze against her bare arms is a welcome relief from the stuffy heat she was feeling moments ago. She draws in a confident, deep breath and turns to face the direction she was walking in. If she can find her way out of the woods in a collected manner, that will (at least slightly) make up for her reckless start to the morning. She wants to believe that incompetency can always be fixed. Or at least be atoned for with effort.
Dried up pine needles and twigs crackle underneath the soles of her sneakers as she tries to track her way back to the path. Her father once taught her how to track game, but he never told her what to do if she became lost. He always stressed not getting lost in the first place. And if she had been thinking rationally, also something he always stressed, she wouldn't have gotten lost. She keeps telling herself that she still has time to fix everything that has happened so far this week. It's only day one out of seven. At the same time, she can't help but think that she doesn't even want to know what other dilemmas she's going to get herself into during the next six days if this is already where she is after one. But she's not going to make this week worse. She's going to make her father proud (and, just as important, she's going to make Chloe proud) by proving she can get through this wedding without ruining it for everyone else. She starts by heeding the sheriff's other warning and keeping a look out for hunting traps.
xxxxx
She should have grabbed a map before leaving The Candlewick. That would have been the intelligent thing to do. The sheriff probably even had one sitting around in his truck or could have directed her to the local convenience store where she could buy one. But most people don't need a map for a straight trail. She must have merged off onto a deer path, because that's the only explanation she can think of for how she managed to make a turn. They should really have those orange ribbons tied to their trees so no one else makes the same mistake. Maybe she'll approach the mayor about that whenever she gets back to town. If she ever gets back to town. She's convinced that even though she hasn't made any turns in a while that she's just wandering in circles. There is a bush with waxy leaves beside her again.
Aubrey sighs and stops in front of the bush. She lifts a hand and presses her palm against her damp forehead as she looks around. A twinge of nervousness temporarily overpowers her determination. It's quickly followed by a blow of defeat. She lowers her hand and reaches behind her then pulls the card that the sheriff gave her out of her pocket. She can't call Chloe for help. Chloe would just get herself lost trying to find her. And she sure as hell isn't going to call Beca. She could try calling Amy, but she can't imagine a positive outcome from that either. She stares at Charlie's phone number on the card. He called her a 'good egg'. What is he going to think if she calls him explaining that she couldn't even follow his instructions to stay on the path? She pulls out her phone and just stares at it, debating whether or not she really needs to ask for directions.
Her ringtone goes off before she has enough time to come to a definite conclusion. She takes it as a sign that she doesn't need help and presses the phone to her ear without looking at the number. "This is Aub-"
Static nearly deafens her. Aubrey pulls the phone back and glares at it in disgust. The screen reads Unknown Caller again. She's about to snap it shut when Wedding of the Winds begins to float softly among the trees. It doesn't come from her phone's earpiece. She shuts her phone and lifts her head, looking to the left. She can't tell how far away the music is. "This isn't funny, Beca!" she snaps loudly and takes a step back. She takes into account what Beca said about someone leaving a picture of her and Chloe in her room as well, but she can't help but feel like this is just Beca tormenting her. The music increases in volume and apprehension makes Aubrey's stomach turn. "For serious! Stop!" The music comes from her right as well. She swallows and takes another step. "You're going to regret this, Beca!"
This is about the time Beca should step out from behind the trees and laugh about how Aubrey should have seen the look on her own face or something. She briefly considers that it may be the Trebles tormenting her because they're still bitter about their loss at the ICCAs, but even they would eventually show themselves to laugh at her and mock her. Nothing around her moves. The sound of her too-loud breathing and thumping heart blend in with the song.
Then the music stops.
Aubrey slowly slips her phone and Charlie's card into her pocket and glances around. She swallows despite that her throat feels like it's constricting and turns to try to relocate the path again – which she is more eager to get to than ever now. She's about to move forward when a branch cracks somewhere behind her. She parts her lips to breathe easier and slowly turns her head, but no one is visible. Okay, Beca, I'm scared. You can stop now. She doesn't say the words out loud. She's not sure she could make her voice work if she tried. She's tempted to turn back around, straighten her posture, and face whoever is doing this to her with the courage that every Posen should display. She can picture herself doing it. She sees the motions she should be making clearly in her head. But the moment another branch cracks, Aubrey goes against everything. She does what her gut instinct suddenly tells her to do, and she bolts.
xxxxx
Aubrey should have known that the self-loathing for running would be worse than the fear of not running, but she doesn't stop. The trees pass by her as nothing more than green and brown blurs and she tries to avoid their roots – nearly tripping on more than one occasion. Something doesn't feel right. If there is one positive trait she picked up from her father (and there are multiple positive traits, actually), it's his ability to judge a situation. (It's usually her reaction to that judgment that needs a little work, according to her father.) She can't pinpoint exactly what it is, but something about being at this wedding unnerves her – something beyond assholes with creepy music making her paranoid. She bursts out onto the path and trips over something hard in a pile of leaves that sends her crashing to the ground. She immediately stretches her hands out in front of her to break her fall and pain shoots up through her elbows as she hits the damp foliage.
Being out of the woods is like climbing out of a cramped, locked box. She can breathe when she's out in the open. She sucks in the metallic-scented air then immediately chokes it back out and lifts her head. The stench makes her a kind of nauseated that isn't just from anxiety. She swallows the bile that rises up in her throat and looks up and down the path, trying to determine how far she is from the town. She doesn't know, but she's distracted from that thought when she realizes that the entire path is covered in leaves. It looks like a windstorm hit, and it explains how she managed to veer off the trail. She slowly pushes herself up onto her knees and takes a few slow but shallow breaths. She would have felt the kind of wind it would have taken to blow all of these leaves onto the path like this. She furrows her brows and looks down at her wet hands.
Her skin is smeared with crimson.
Aubrey suddenly feels numb. She breathes out and turns her head to look at what she tripped over. It's mostly covered in leaves, but the sunlight that's shining down through the spaces between the trees reflects off of something silver. She glances around then slowly moves the leaves to uncover a metal hunting trap. Stuck between its sharp teeth is the foot of a deer, cut clean off. The bitter taste of vomit becomes more prominent and she presses her arm to her mouth, holding it back. Still, despite the gruesome sight in front of her, it's better than what she imagines the blood could have come from. Her eyes follow the trail of red that leads off somewhere back into the woods.
"Hey!" Jesse's voice cuts through the silence, laced with concern. "Are you okay?"
Aubrey looks up to see him jogging over to her. She lowers her arm away from her mouth and glares up at him as he reaches down a hand to help her up. "Don't touch me," she warns him and moves away. She can get up herself. She doesn't need the help of Beca's fiancé to do so. She scowls and slowly pushes herself to her feet.
"I saw you walking over there," he nods in the direction of the path, "and you fell." He looks down at the trap and grimaces. "The sheriff here mentioned those."
Aubrey frowns and looks in the direction he said she came from. "I came from that way," she corrects him and looks in the direction of the woods. And she thought she had problems with directions.
"You were just over there." Jesse points in the other direction and gives her a perplexed look that appears annoyingly caring.
Aubrey scoffs and thrusts an arm in the direction of the woods. Is he dense? "I came from…" She stops abruptly, because she doesn't want to be standing there talking to him. "I'm not arguing with you," she announces with a hint of disdain. Now that she's on the path, there is no reason that she has to remain stuck in these woods. She shakes her head and looks in disgust at the blood on her hands as she walks away from him, back toward town.
"I was looking for my uncle and Beca," Jesse calls after her. "Have you seen them?" He tacks on, "Are you sure you're okay? You took a pretty bad spill."
Aubrey almost wants to call out Beca's whereabouts just because she knows it will piss her off if she's trying to avoid Jesse by being out near the cliffs. But, at this point, she wants to stop thinking about Beca altogether. As for Jesse's uncle, she doesn't even care where he is. She cranes her neck to look at him. "I'm not Beca's keeper," she snaps and walks away. She can feel him staring at her back and she leaves.
"Aubrey..."
She blocks out the rest.
She knows which damn direction she came from.
