by Rena Marin
“But I didn’t,” he shoots back as he grips my arms tight. “Now, pull yourself together. I don’t need you falling apart right now. We need to make it out of this, okay.”
“Okay,” I agree. I’m not exactly sure how I feel, but I know why he needs me to pull things together.
He senses my distress and pulls me close. A soft kiss is planted on top of my head. “I’m sorry. I know this is hard on you, but this isn’t the same thing. I promise you, it’s not. And besides, I’m here with you. I’m not going to let anyone hurt you. Ever.”
“I know.”
“I need to get to that truck, though, so I’m going to need your help.”
I whip my head up, wishing I could see him better in the darkness. “You can’t go out there.”
“I can, if I have a distraction.”
My eyes widen and wish like hell he could see it. He seriously thinks he can trust me enough to provide him with a distraction for a gun run.
“I know you’re scared, but you’ll have the gun, so you’ll be just fine. All I need you to do is post up and fire a couple of shots out into the woods. While they’re scared shitless and, on the run, I’ll grab the shotgun and my flashlight. Then we’ll try to get the hell out of here.”
I know he has a point but I’m not sure about it. The idea of him sticking his neck out, for any reason whatsoever, scares the life completely out of me. I can’t lose him like I lost the girls. I just can’t. I won’t survive it.
“We’ve got this, Sissy. We didn’t grow up bad asses for nothing. We’re going to get the hell off this mountain or shoot those sons of a bitches, whichever comes first.”
Taking the gun he’s pressing into my hands, I inhale deeply and nod in answer to what he’s saying. It’s a good plan. I just don’t have the same confidence in myself that he does. If I can pull it off without a freak out, though, he’ll have plenty of time.
“Get ready,” I tell him.
I move through the house slowly, trying to avoid any of the windows. I’m not used to the woods out here. I have no clue how easily they can see inside. Trying to avoid giving them a shot at me just makes sense. Easing through the kitchen, I begin debating on which window to use. Down by the bathroom is the backdoor. Stepping out there doesn’t seem to be smart. I haven’t been out back yet, but it seems I would be completely exposed. Instead, I opt for the small window from the bathroom. It will make me a smaller target but give me plenty of room to shoot.
There’s no way Dean can see me in the dark, which means he won’t know when I’m in position. The only alert he’s going to have from me is the sound of my bullets blasting into the night. He’s quick though. The moment he hears the first one, he’ll take off like a bat out of hell.
I turn the lock on the window and carefully raise it. There’s a small screen covering the opening. When I’m ready to go, I’ll need to knock it out of my way. It looks old as shit, so that won’t be an issue.
Closing my eyes, I see Crystal and Jess’s faces looking at me. It’s not like I normally see them. They aren’t all bloody and tortured like my nightmares make them. No, this time they are just my girls. My friends that are watching out for me. Smiles are lighting their faces while Jess nods her head slowly to tell me I’ve got this. I return the action, then open my eyes and instantly knock the screen out of the window with my fist.
With the first shot, I hear the front door swing open. With the second, I hear an echo in the woods that sounds like some wild whooping, as if someone is enjoying the fact I fired. The third is followed by complete silence. My final shot, the fourth one, is met with a powerful boom of its own. A blast from out front that makes my entire body turn ice cold.
“Dean!” I scream as I rush out of the bathroom and bounce off the walls of the small hallway trying to make it to the front of the house.
“I’m good,” he calls out as the front door slams shut. “I spotted one of them and shot in their direction.”
“Did you hit him?”
“I didn’t wait around to find out.”
Thank God.
“Wait, you said you saw one of them. Do you think there’s more than one?”
He racks the shotgun, getting another shell ready, before he turns to face me. “I saw two when I got to the truck. I’m not sure if there’s more than that.” He seems far too calm for my liking. “Here, I grabbed my bag from under the seat. There should be a couple of flashlights and our hunting knives in there.”
I go for the bag, grabbing a light and my knife sheath. It’s been a couple of years since I’ve hit the woods to hunt, but Dean has been trying to get me to go with him for the past few months. The poor thing has been ready for me to say yes, and I’ve ignored his requests each time.
Strapping myself up, I toss him his blade and give him time to do the same.
“I have shotgun shells in that bag. Keep it with you.”
“Okay.”
“Grab the extra bullets for the pistol really quick too.”
“Okay, Dean, but what’s the plan here?”
“Shoot our way to the truck.”
I love this man with every fiber of my being, but something is telling me he’s liking this a bit too much. What does he think this is, the wild, wild, west or some shit?
“That’s fucking crazy,” I hiss at me.
Before he has a chance to answer me, the sound of breaking glass makes us both jump. I aim my gun toward the bedroom, waiting on someone to come rushing toward us when the window behind me erupts in the same way.
I drop to the ground, not sure if I’m being shot at, when I see the huge rock laying in the shards of broken glass. Instinctively, I glance up at the window in front of me. Standing there, not showing the least bit of fear, is the man we saw on the side of the road. The only difference is the smile that’s now on his face.
“You ready to play, bitch?” he asks before racing away from the window, his voice carrying as he hoops and hollers while he runs away.
“You two think you’re getting off this mountain?” Another voice calls out.
I turn my head toward Dean as he steps closer to the front door. I scurry to my feet and stumble to his side just as he turns on the flashlight he’s holding. “Who the fuck are you?”
Leaning against the truck is a man that makes everything inside me want to puke up my guts. He’s wearing a hat, overalls, and boots. It’s his face though. It’s his face that makes me want to drop to the ground and beg someone to get me out of the nightmare that is my life. He looks just like Cletus Fox, minus the huge scar.
“I’d put that gun down, boy. If you get a shot off, they’ll drop you before you take another breath.”
“I’ll take my chances,” Dean answers.
“Suit yourself. I mean, you don’t have a dog in this race. You could walk away from this right now and nothing would ever happen to you. You haven’t hurt anyone. It’s the girl we want.”
“Fuck you.”
“She’s going to pay, boy. That’s a fact. She killed my baby brother. That doesn’t sit well with me and the family.”
“He was trying to kill me,” I finally speak. “I didn’t have a choice.”
“Wrong!”
“He was out of his goddamn mind. He tortured her and killed her friends. He deserved what he got.”
The man’s hand whips up, and he points a finger at Dean. “Right now, you’re not in any trouble boy. If you keep running that mouth and speaking ill of my murdered brother, you’re not going to like how your night ends.”
I squeeze Dean’s arm to get him to shut his mouth.
“Please don’t hurt him,” I practically beg.
“That all depends on you, little lady. Well, and on Momma.”
“Momma?”
“Yeah, do you think we’re going to kill you and leave you laying on this mountain? How long do you think it would take for them to trace it back to us? It’s not like we haven’t talked shit to people about how bad we wanted to stomp your m
iserable face out of existence. They’d be knocking on Momma’s door within days.”
“What are you going to do?”
“We’re going to take you home. You know, back to our land, where you roamed around, broke shit, and killed Cletus.”
My head starts shaking. It’s like an automatic response. “No. No. I’ll not go back there,” I mumble as my whole body joins in. “You aren’t taking me there. Do you hear me?”
“Oh, you’ll go back, whore. That’s a promise. But if you want to go about that the hard way, that works for me. Me and the boys like having a little fun.”
Before Dean or I can say another word, he takes his fist and slams it against the side of the truck. Almost instantly, a skinnier version of himself hops up from his hiding spot inside the truck bed and strikes a lighter. I can barely make out what he’s holding in his other hand until it ignites. It’s a makeshift Molotov.
“Dean!” I yell grabbing his arm and pulling him backward as my foot kicks the door shut. We’re barely away when the explosion happens and the door protecting us from them splinters from the force.
“Run! Sissy, run!”
I struggle to my feet and race toward the backdoor. Swinging it open, I race off the small porch and instantly feel dirt on my feet. I glance back to see Dean moving through the house on his way to follow me. Our little getaway has just become another night of my trying my damn best to survive.
Chapter Seven
I don’t know how long I’ve been running but my shortness of breath tells me it’s been a bit. Slowing just a bit, I grab hold of the nearest tree and lean over slightly. Each breath is burning my lungs.
The crunching of leaves behind me brings me back up to my full height, and I lift the pistol in the direction. I suspect it’s Dean, but in the off chance I’m wrong, someone is getting their ass shot.
“It’s me.”
Hearing his voice, I lower the weapon and lean against the tree as he jogs the rest of the distance between us.
“You alright?” he asks as his hands grip the sides of my face. “You aren’t hurt?”
“No. Just winded a bit.”
“Good. I didn’t know if anything from that door hurt you or not.”
“The police will come, right? I mean, they blew up your fucking truck. People had to hear that.”
“Exactly. Helps on its way. We just have to hideout until they get here.”
“Do you know how many of them there were?”
“I know of three now. The one we saw on the road, the talker, and the one in the back of the truck.”
“We need to get off this mountain. That’s our best shot,” I tell him. “If they get their hands on us, there’s no telling where we’ll end up. No one will even know where to look.”
“Oh, they’d know where to look. We’d just be dead before they got there.”
He has a point. My dad would instantly think of the Fox family. By the time he convinced anyone else though, we’d be chopped up and buried somewhere in the backwoods never to be seen again.
“We’re at a disadvantage,” he continues. “We don’t know this area. We don’t know these woods.”
“Yeah, I didn’t know those woods that night, but I made it. Luckily though,” I start then glance around me. “This isn’t their neck of the woods either. They may have a hard time too.”
“How the hell did they know?”
“We can figure that out when we get off this mountain.”
I watch as he runs his hands through his hair, then takes the bag I’ve been clutching out of my hands. He swings it over his shoulder as he turns in all directions, taking in our surroundings.
“We know the road is down below the cabin’s driveway. Most likely, they’ll be watching that though. We need to stay out of sight. That means we need to go that way and pass around on the other side of the cabin. If we do that, we can cross the road farther up and hopefully avoid them.”
He’s good. I get it though. He grew up the same way I did.
“Let’s move, then. I don’t want to be standing here when they find us.”
“Lead the way,” he tells me before gripping the shotgun with both hands.
As we walk, I think back on the news coverage the Fox’s got while I was in the hospital. I didn’t want to watch them talk about how great the madman that killed my friends was, but I did it. I guess something inside me wanted to know about them. Maybe I hoped it would give me insight into why he was so cruel. Now, I see it runs in the family.
Numbers don’t come to mind when I think about the brothers and sisters. I know they talked to a couple. The reporters mentioned it being a large family. My damn luck they have all the nieces, nephews, cousins, and distant relations up here trying to get their hands on me.
I want to use the flashlight in my hand. It would make life easier, but it would also give away our location. I’m pissed right now, but I don’t know if I’m pissed off enough to take on these assholes if they find us. I just want off this mountain.
The smell of smoke from the truck is starting to overtake the air even more. I feel the burning in my lungs threatening to make me cough. I cover my mouth to stifle it, then wipe the tears from me eyes where they are beginning to water. With the amount of smoke billowing around, I’m beginning to wonder if the truck explosion caught the woods on fire too.
Everything inside me is hoping to hear sirens on their way. It wouldn’t matter if it was firefighters or the police. I’d take off running to just about anyone at this point. Maybe we’ll even see another cabin up here. If so, that would make life a lot easier. I’m sure anyone up on this mountain would have a phone in case of emergencies.
The real question that keeps eating at me is how did they know where we’d be? Have they been watching the farm? I’m sure they couldn’t have gotten the name of the cabin and stuff from that. Hell, it’s not like Dean was announcing it to the world. No, there had to be another way. The bearded man was on the road before us. They were waiting.
I turn, ready to ask Dean who all he told about us coming up here, again, when a snap echoes in the night and pain rips through my body. Instinctively, I scream out as I drop to my knees and begin tugging at the contraption buried in my ankle.
“What the fuck?” Dean cries out as he rushes to my side to help me. “A fucking bear trap. Really?”
I can’t think or say anything to him. All I can do is throw my hands over my mouth and pray no one heard me as I fall backward.
“I’m trying baby,” he tells me as he works quickly to get the trap off my ankle. “They took the release off. I need to pry it open.”
I nod my head as my fingernails bury into my own hair. I want to rip it out at the roots to try and help me forget the pain in my ankle. Just when I think I’m going to pass out from the pain, I feel the pressure release. My body reacts automatically. In a swift motion, I whip myself upward and grab the ankle, trying to assess the damage in the dark.
“Hold on,” Dean instructs then pulls the bag off his shoulder. “I don’t have a first aid kit in here, it was in the truck, but I have a couple of bandanas I can wrap it with.” He digs for just a second, then leans toward my leg. “This is going to hurt.”
“I know.”
“Don’t scream.”
I close my eyes and grit my teeth as he wraps the first one around my ankle then pulls it tight. The act of tying it sends the same piercing pain through me as the original hit. The second one is even worse.
“There,” he whispers. “That’ll help stop the bleeding. Can you walk?”
“I need a minute.”
“Okay,” he answers but I hear the worry in his voice. My scream has us in danger.
Instead of waiting like I claimed, I grab his shoulders. “Help me up.”
He holds tight to me as I teeter on my good leg, afraid to put weight on the other. Slowly, I lower my foot and groan at the pain of putting my weight on it.
“I’ll carry you.”
“No, you
won’t. You need that gun in your hand. I’ll walk it off. It’ll just take some time.”
Even in the dark I see the look he’s giving me. Dean has always been the first one to call me on my bull shit. It’s one of the things I love most about him. He doesn’t argue with me though. Instead, he keeps his arm around me and lets me take a few slow, tender steps, to regain a bit of my footing.
“Hold on,” he announces one he sees I’m stable enough to stand on my own.
He vanishes into the darkness. The instant he’s out of my sight, my heart begins to race, and my mind starts reeling. I can imagine him dying in so many ways it’s pathetic. It’s only a few minutes, but in my mind, he’s gone for hours.
“Here, this should help.” I hear him call out as he reappears with a giant stick in his hand. “You can use it to help you walk.”
I take the stick and thank my lucky stars when I feel some of the weight shift off my ankle.
“I know it hurts baby, but we gotta keep going.”
I want to cuss him like a dog but keep my mouth shut. I take a couple of steps to get the hang of walking with the stick then take off at a slow pace.
“I know it’s dark but try to keep your eyes open for anymore,” he tells me.
“If they’re anything like him, they’ll be more traps. Trust me.”
The silence hangs around us after I say the words. It’s an indication to both of us facing the fact that we’ve been setup. This was their plan, and we fell right into it.
Chapter Eight
Over the past two years, I’ve tried not to think back on the pain I felt during that hellacious ordeal. The barbed wire, the damage to my feet, being stabbed, all of it stayed in the back of my mind. Now, with my leg threatening to keep me from walking off this mountain, I’m remembering every ache and pain.
I’m also noticing that it’s hard to walk quietly with a walking stick and limp. Before the trap, we were barely making any noise. Now, everything in the woods can hear me. I hate to admit it, but I’m a liability.