by Sarah Sutton
Tara’s heart thumped against her chest as she instinctually ran toward them. She didn’t even have a second to process the other bodies in the room. Some tossed in the corner, atop each other like piles of garbage, some beginning to decompose—the smell wafting into her nose.
Tara’s eyes were briefly drawn to an open box, just near the girls—the objects inside catching the light of day. She didn’t even need to fully peer inside to know what it was filled with. Compasses. She could already tell by the shape, by their color, and by the way they flickered in the light.
“I’m going to get you out of here,” she whispered to the girl sitting up, when close enough.
The girl nodded her head frantically as Tara reached for her wrists, pulling hard against the rope, trying her best to untie them. The rope was tight, and Tara suddenly wished she brought a knife, anything. But she knew if she just loosened it enough, if she could squeeze the girl’s hands out—
But all of a sudden, a muffled scream filled the air and Tara’s head jolted upward. The girl’s eyes were wide, looking ahead of her, as she painfully squealed. And within a split second, Tara knew why, because she could hear soft footsteps pick up into a run and she suddenly spun around as an arrow just missed her, piercing through the barn wall.
A large man stood in front of her. He tossed the crossbow to the side of the room, and reached down, grabbing hold of Tara’s hair. She tried to reach for her gun, which she had placed down next to her as she tried to wrestle the girl’s wrists free. But he was quicker, and as he dragged her across the floor by the hair, he kicked it away, sending it toward all the lifeless bodies on the other side of the barn.
The girl continued to thrash about and scream her muffled cry as she watched in horror as Tara’s body was thrown against the wall—her head slamming hard, a pain piercing through it as the room began to spin. The man reached for her again. He was going to slam her head into the wall once more, but Tara suddenly pulled away from him as hard as she could—her hair ripped forcefully from her head, an excruciating pain shooting through her. She whipped around, sending her foot into his gut. He stumbled backward, and she jumped to her feet. She was ready to race toward her gun. It was all she needed, but just as her feet hit the ground, she felt his hand clasp her ankle, pulling her feet out from under her. She thrashed again, this time sending her other foot straight into his face. And again, he stumbled backward as blood gushed out of his nose.
She jumped to her feet once more. She had a chance now, and she ran for it, but just as she approached her gun, the girls muffled warning filled the air once again, racing footsteps vibrated through the floor, and just as Tara spun around, she caught a glimpse of it all. The older woman, a shovel in her hand, as she sliced the air with it, whacking Tara right over the head.
Chapter Thirty Two
Tara’s eyes fluttered open as she tried to make sense of where she was. Her head was spinning. Her temple was wet and sticky with blood. She could feel a hand nudging her, and as she looked up, it all came flooded back. The girl was hunched over Tara, staring at her intently.
“You need to get up,” the girl whispered urgently.
Her hands were no longer tied. Her mouth was no longer taped. But as Tara tried to reach her own arm out, to push her body up, she quickly realized that her own wrists were now bound. The girl helped her sit up as she ripped the tape off her mouth. It stung.
“How are your hands untied?” Tara asked as the girl now worked on Tara’s wrists, trying to wrestle them free.
“You loosened the rope just enough. I was trying to pull my wrists free the whole time you were wrestling him, but I couldn’t quite get them out until after.”
“How long do you think we have?” It was all flooding back to her now, piece by piece and a jolt of adrenaline shot through her body.
“Hard to say. Probably not long.” The girl pulled at the rope hard, loosening it a bit, but Tara still couldn’t quite pull her hands through yet, and the girl wrestled with them a bit more. “So what are you, a cop?”
Tara nodded her head. “FBI,” she said as she suddenly remembered her gun and her phone. “My phone,” she uttered. “Grab it, it’s in my pocket.”
The girl shook her head. “He took it, I watched him.”
“And the gun?”
“He took that too.”
“And my keys?”
The girl nodded and Tara’s heart sank. They needed a plan.
“How’s your sister?” Tara asked.
She knew she and the girl could try and make a run for it, but it was the girl’s sister that wouldn’t be able to, and they couldn’t leave her to go get help. She would pay the price for it—once he knew.
Pain stroked the girl’s face. “I checked her pulse. She’s alive.”
Tara nodded. They needed to act quickly. She was alive, but for how long she would remain that way, Tara couldn’t be too sure. She needed to get her to a hospital. But without a phone, without her keys, and without her gun, they were sitting ducks. Suddenly, the rope around Tara’s wrists was loose enough and she pulled her hands free.
“Do you know where he might’ve put my things?” she asked as she rubbed her wrists.
“I saw him walk to that other building, after,” the girl replied, referring to the bed and breakfast.
If Tara could just get hold of her gun, if she could just call Warren, and if she could just get her keys to get them all out of here, then they had a good chance of leaving there alive. She knew she had to go find them—it was their only chance.
“I have a plan,” she whispered, before peeling the duct tape off of the floor that the girl had ripped from her mouth. “Put this back on,” she whispered.
The girl’s face contorted into confusion and fear. “What? No,” she replied. “I’m not putting that back on. Why?”
There was no way Tara was going to allow this girl to follow her. She had to stay where they were. It’s where she would be safest. Tara would go after him, go after them both, as soon as she could find her weapon, and then her keys. The girl would just have to stay in the barn, her hands untied behind her back, her mouth taped shut. That way, if he came back in, he wouldn’t suspect anything from her, but if needed, she could still defend herself. However, Tara suspected and hoped that she wouldn’t even need to because he would notice Tara was gone and go look for her. She told the girl all of this and she nodded reluctantly. The girl understood, but she didn’t want to be left alone either. It was written all over her face.
“I won’t let him come back in here and hurt you,” Tara reassured her. “I’ll be watching him.”
The girl nodded again and took a deep breath before placing the tape back over her mouth. She was trusting Tara completely. And after she sat back down against the wall, her hands hidden behind her back, Tara gave her a quick squeeze. She was going to do whatever it took to save the girl and her sister. After Tara let go, she turned around toward the barn doors and quietly crept across the floor.
***
Tara crouched down on the side of the house. She could hear them, their voices floating through the crack in the window above her. They were in the kitchen. Tara knew, because she had peeked ever so slightly—lifting her eyes just over the windowsill. They hadn’t seen her. They were too deep in conversation. But Tara saw them—the man and the older woman—standing there by an island counter.
Tara’s gun, phone, and keys were placed in front of them. Everything she needed was right there, but getting to them would be the biggest obstacle. She needed for them to leave the room, and then she would push the window fully open, crawl through, and retrieve them. But for now, all she could do was sit and listen.
The man had just told the older woman that Tara was an FBI agent, and it suddenly made Tara feel oddly exposed, as if they could see her.
“You’re sure?” the old woman spoke with a taste of fear in her words.
The man let out a long frustrated sigh. “She had a badge! She’s an FBI agen
t.”
The old woman cursed under her breath and Tara could hear her pacing throughout the kitchen. They knew about her now. They knew who she was, and for the first time Tara noticed that her badge was gone. She had it in her pocket, but now she knew that he had taken it, along with everything else.
“I’ll take care of it,” he finally said.
It was clear what he meant. He was going to kill her, and her mind suddenly swirled to the barn, to the girls left alone, and she knew she didn’t have much time because he was going to head there next.
The woman started whimpering. “Why do you make it so hard to protect you? You don’t need to be doing this.”
Her crying grew louder until a slap sounded the air and the woman cried out in pain.
“Go in the other room!” he screamed at her.
She sniffled back her tears as her feet shuffled across the floor.
Tara lifted her eyes again, peering in just over the windowsill. The woman was moving into another room, but then she stopped in the doorframe and Tara darted her head down.
“What were we fighting about again?” the woman asked.
The man sighed. “Just get in the other room and put the TV on,” he replied through gritted teeth.
She hesitated, afraid to ask more. But then her footsteps were heard leaving the room.
It was strange, Tara thought. Through just a few short moments, the woman had shown a wide range of emotions. Her memory was clearly starting to go, but she had a warped perception of judgment. She did know what her son was up to. And while she didn’t like it, she wasn’t going to let him get caught either, and her son was taking full advantage of it.
Tara looked up again. The man was the only person in the room, his back facing Tara’s vision. He was transfixed on the island counter as if in deep thought. But then he reached for Tara’s gun, holding it in his hand until he brought it to eye level and took aim in front of him.
It was as if he were in target practice, but he never pulled the trigger. Instead, he just took aim at different objects throughout the room, until he let out a sinister laugh and placed the gun back down where it was.
Seconds later he walked out of the room, leaving Tara’s gun behind. She waited until she could hear him speaking with his mother in the front end of the house, before ascending the stairs.
Tara knew she didn’t have much time. It was risky, but she had no other choice, so she slid the window open as quietly as possible. The window was old, and had clearly not been opened that wide in quite some time—the edges glued shut by layers of paint that flaked and peeled. She forced it open. It creaked in return and Tara jolted down again beneath the window. She waited, and after no one came, she slowly slid her body into the house, careful not to make a sound.
She stood on the tiled floor—her gun, keys, and phone feet away from her. Her heart pounded against her chest as she took her first soft step toward them. But just as her foot hit the ground, she heard something—footsteps quickly descending the stairs, hitting the bottom floor and moving into a dining room, right off of the room she now stood in.
She scanned the room quickly. There were two entranceways to the kitchen, so she quickly trod to the one opposite of where the footsteps were coming from and hid behind the doorframe. She stood in a mudroom, the smell of muddied boots floating through the air, the back door inches from her. There was a large bench underneath a rack of coats. It will conceal me, she thought, as she quickly crawled underneath it—her body now fully shielded from sight.
She heard the footsteps reach the kitchen. She was sure they were the man’s because they were heavy, hitting the ground hard upon each step. They moved swiftly until they stopped short and Tara heard something clank on the island counter. It was her gun, she was sure of it. She had picked it up and placed it down so many times before that she could almost identify her gun by the way it touched a surface, by the weight of it. She could hear it sliding toward him, and then the room fell silent.
She listened uneasily, unsure of what he was doing, until the footsteps picked up again, moving briskly. The sound grew closer, moving toward the room she now hid in.
Tara’s heart pounded against her chest as she checked her feet, pulling them fully under the bench, double-checking that she was fully out of vision. He had a gun now, and while the bench provided some concealment, she knew all he would have to do to see her would be to step in front of it. Each end of the bench was fully covered, but the length of it was fully exposed. It was pushed up against the wall between the two rooms, so Tara pressed as close as possible to that wall as the footsteps entered the room.
Tara braced herself. All it would take would be for him to see her and she would have nowhere to go. She would have nothing to defend herself. She would be an easy target. She would have to act quickly if he was moving too close, because once he noticed her, it would be too late.
I’ll kick his legs out, she told herself. It was her only possible defense to knock him off his feet, and she would have to do it as soon as she had a chance. Maybe then she could get her gun back.
But as Tara prepared herself for what was next to come, the footsteps did not move closer. Instead, she heard the jostle of the door handle to the back door, then it swiftly open, and the footsteps continuing through the threshold before the door quickly slammed shut behind them.
A temporary moment of relief washed over her. But the moment was fleeting as the sudden realization of what it all meant pushed its way forward in Tara’s mind.
“Shit,” she said under her breath.
He had a gun, he had gone outside with purpose. It could only mean one thing—that he was headed to the barn.
Tara jumped to her feet. She had to do something and she had very little time. She watched from the window as he crept across the lawn. He held her gun. It was just a dark object clenched in his hand, but as she turned her eyes toward the kitchen, she could see it was nowhere to be found. All that was left were her keys and her phone.
Tara needed to act now, before he even reached the barn. I need to distract him, she said to herself as she frantically surveyed the kitchen. She assumed he wouldn’t shoot them right away. He wanted Tara because he knew keeping her alive was risky and the moment he realized she was gone, she assumed he would search for her. But she couldn’t take any chances.
All of a sudden, an idea sparked in her mind. All she needed were her keys. She didn’t have time to call anyone. She didn’t have time to wait for help, but she could start the car with her automatic start. It would cause him to stop in his tracks, to check the car, and then head back to the house because Tara was sure he knew where he left the keys last.
She treaded carefully across the kitchen floor. She could hear the television blaring in another room, reminding Tara that the woman lurked not too far from where she stood. Tara reached the island and grabbed hold of her keys, but she waited to press the automatic start as she scanned the room once more. She needed a weapon. She needed something to defend herself once he veered off course, once he headed back to where Tara was.
A knife block quickly caught Tara’s eye and she slinked toward it, reaching for the largest knife and sliding it out slowly. She then grabbed her phone. I should alert Warren, she thought. Where the hell is he? But as she looked down at her phone, the screen was shattered, and her heart sank.
She turned toward the window. He was almost at the barn now, and Tara’s heart thumped in her chest because she didn’t have a second to waste. She pressed down hard on the button of her keys.
She heard the car beep in the distance before rumbling to a start. From the window, she could see him, as his feet stopped short. His head spun to the car in the distance and then shot back to the barn, where he stared longingly for a moment until it all registered in his mind.
He moved closer to the barn, peering into it. But then he suddenly spun around, as he picked up into a run toward the car. He had noticed Tara was gone from where he left her, and once he rea
ched the vehicle, he thrust open the driver’s door with full force, took a quick glance inside, and then abruptly turned his gaze back to the bed and breakfast, to the door he had exited moments ago.
Tara darted from the window. She successfully avoided his gaze, but she knew he was now heading to where she stood, and she needed to conceal herself. She suddenly pressed her body up against the wall in the kitchen—standing inches away from the door frame, the knife held tightly in her grip, close to her chest.
She listened for his movement as her eyes cautiously watched the other doorframe on the opposite end of the kitchen. The woman was still nearby. She hadn’t heard Tara moving around, nor the car stutter to a start, but Tara was certain she would hear her anger-fueled son entering the house, and the struggle that was about to ensue.
She waited, his footsteps growing louder as they trekked across the lawn, and then as they hit the hard surface of the stone steps, ascending one by one, until his hand turned the doorknob. The door flung open.
Tara tightened her grip on the knife as her heart pounded against her chest, and just as he took his first step into the kitchen, she spun around, without a second to aim, sending her knife straight into him.
He cried out in pain and surprise as he dropped the gun. She had stabbed him in the arm and he stumbled backward, looking down at his wound in confusion. Tara had saw an opportunity and she threw herself toward the gun, but just as her fingertips grazed the metal, he kicked out his foot, sending it straight under Tara’s chin.
Her head shot backward as blood gushed from her mouth. She had bitten her tongue and her ears rang as she watched him quickly reach for the gun. But she was faster—she kicked it, sending it skidding across the floor.
He grabbed the knife in his arm, pulling it out in one swift movement as he grunted with pain. Tara tried to jump to her feet. She was going to make a run for it—for the gun. But just as Tara tried to stand, he kicked her again in the face, and she plummeted to the floor once more. The pain shot through her head as it swirled in a moment of disorientation. He kicked her again before sitting on top of her, the knife now in his hand.