by Ciara Shayee
There was already too much blood. So much blood.
After shifting Indie as much as possible without jostling her too much, he loped through the open front door toward the barn. He glanced around when he got there, almost smiling when he realised Grace had listened.
“Grace! It’s me, Ryan! You can come down!” he whisper-yelled. A relieved sigh escaped him when she appeared a few seconds later, slowly climbing down the ladder with Marley wrapped around her back. Laying Indie on a hay bale, he grasped Grace around the waist and lifted her down, asking for the keys with as even a tone as he could manage. It was difficult for him to keep calm, rising panic and concern for the girls forcing him to try not to talk. He was increasingly afraid that if he opened his mouth he’d let loose the anger bubbling within him. None of the girls needed to see that.
Grace watched him with wide, wet eyes as he grabbed the bags and jogged outside. His gait faltered, pain lancing up his leg, but he pushed on without pause, not noticing Grace’s worried look at his back as he went. When he reappeared a minute or two later she was murmuring reassurances to Marley. The child’s little body was glued to Grace’s chest. His lips twitched up into a tiny smile when he set eyes on the bunny she was white-knuckling. He’d brought it back with him from a supply run shortly after her arrival at the ranch, and she’d never let it go since.
“You guys need to get going.”
Grace’s thoughts mirrored the pain on his face.
‘You guys’…not ‘we.’
“You’re not coming?” she whispered, already knowing the answer. It was in his eyes, on his face; he wasn’t going with them. And yet, if the boss did wake up—Grace wasn’t at all sure he would—Ryan would be the one in trouble. Grace couldn’t leave him behind knowing that.
Ryan tried and failed to hide his sadness. “I need to stay. Believe me, I wish I could come, but I’m more use to you if I stay and deal with this…” he paused, coughing to clear his throat. “I need you to go and never look back. I need you to promise me you won’t come back for me, either. Keep driving, don’t worry about me. I’ll be okay.”
He kept talking, but Grace tuned him out. She couldn’t concentrate past the image of the boss waking up and hurting Ryan. She knew he would, too.
Go…never look back…don’t worry about me…promise you won’t come back for me…
Shaking her head, she insisted, “We can’t leave you behind. You can’t stay here. I won’t let you get in trouble for this.”
Standing just feet apart, the pair stared at each other, angry, hurt tears pouring down Grace’s cheeks while Ryan battled tears of his own.
She couldn’t help but admit he made her feel safe, even if that in itself did unnerve her slightly.
Holding out a large hand, Ryan stilled halfway towards her face as though asking permission. Nodding after a brief moment of hesitation, Grace allowed him to wipe the moisture from her face with the end of his sleeve. It smelled like hay, horse feed, and wood, but felt perfectly soft on her tender, puffy skin.
Distracted by the sensation, she didn’t notice his other hand moving until it was encasing one of hers. She tensed, trembling all over at the unexpected contact. Gently tugging it back, Grace was relieved when he didn’t say anything about her rejection.
Ryan forced his tone to be as light as possible. “I’m a big boy, I can look after myself. I won’t be stuck here forever, and I’ll follow you as soon as I can, but for now, I need you out of here so I can sort this out, okay?”
Grace met his gaze, too-close but not close enough, and accepted that it was a fight she wasn’t going to win without time on her side. And she didn’t have time. Caving, she sighed and nodded.
Ryan harnessed every muscle in his body and tried to hide his misery. “Good.”
It took an immense amount of willpower, but somehow he managed to pull away from her, gently scooping Indie up before carrying her out of the barn towards the spare truck with Grace and Marley right behind them.
Inside, Garrett slowly regained consciousness.
He groaned as his eyes peeled open, just the weak light in the room sending his pounding head spinning. Without moving from his position on the floor, he slowly blinked his eyes into a blurry half-focus, only able to make out the bottom of the brown leather sofa from this angle. The patterned rug swam in front of his gaze, sending nausea swirling through his gut. Snippets of memories flitted through his mind, rekindling his ire.
Indie. Grace.
Shakily, he lifted a hand towards his head, pressing a fingertip against the warm, wet spot that the sharp stabbing sensations radiated from. When he put them back in his line of vision he choked on air. Dark crimson blood coated his skin. A single drop fell to the floor.
Fighting against sickness and excruciating pain, he managed to get himself onto all-fours, then his knees, then up to two feet. Even that small movement made his whole body wobble precariously from side-to-side.
“Ahhh…” he groaned, hanging onto the edge of the sofa in an effort to keep upright. Every second was a struggle, especially with fury tightening his spine. Somehow he found the strength to turn, heading in the direction of the door. It was only when he reached the threshold that he concluded it was probably too late. A quick glance back into the room revealed the absence of both girls, the house around him oddly silent beneath the roar in his ears. Despite his unsound mind, Garrett had the sense to know it was over, he was done, so he rigidly took a box of matches from a cabinet drawer before setting fire to all the wooden furniture nearby. If he could, he would’ve moved into the room to empty the underfloor safe. As it was, he struggled to stand, so it wasn’t even a remote possibility.
Hot, dancing flames licked up the walls. Within seconds, they’d engulfed the room.
Large wooden cases filled with aged, worn books went up in seconds, the dry conditions aiding the task. As the last of the bookcases started to burn, Garrett hobbled down the hall, bouncing from wall to wall with a grimace on his face and blood staining the shoulder of his blue and white gingham dress shirt a reddish-purple.
By the time he reached the front door, Grace, Indie, Marley, and Ryan were at the truck. He staggered onto the grass outside the ranch house, his mind whirring, cold heart thudding, head plagued by a dull ache that rapidly depleted his energy. All-too-aware of the inevitable explosion on its way—the spare oil canisters were kept in the room next door to his study—Garrett stumbled as far from the house as he could.
Grace spotted him just a second before the building exploded.
The enormous orange-red fireball that shot up into the sky sent out waves of heat that almost burned, Grace’s shrill scream like flames in her throat as she clutched Marley tighter and turned away from the fire.
Garrett’s eyes burned, a result of the acrid smoke, his back hot facing the inferno swallowing his house as he tripped away into exile.
The girls hated the ranch, always had, but it was all they’d known for more than half their lives. Seeing the evidence of its demise was more than Grace could deal with. She wished for Indie’s ability to go numb.
Ryan shifted his form protectively in front of her. “You need to get Marley and Indie out of here. Now.”
After a short stand-off, Grace knew she was beaten. Ryan wasn’t coming. He was determined to stay.
“One day I’ll follow you, but it’s your turn now,” he pleaded in the softest tone he could manage, torn between wanting to run with them, and wanting to make sure they could never be hurt again.
Grace nodded in answer to the promise he asked her to give—to not look back. “We’ll see you again though, won’t we?”
At the sight of even a sliver of the grin she’d grown to adore, she couldn’t help but try to push everything else around her to the back of her mind.
“This isn’t the last you’ll see of me, for sure, Missy. I promise.”
Grace’s heart pounded like never before as she held out a trembling hand, extending her pinky finger. It was
a ritual her mother and Indie’s had started with them as young girls, and a tradition they’d shared with Ryan. It seemed fitting to use it now.
Ryan smiled shakily, twining his pinky with hers, whispering, “I pinky promise.”
Checking on Indie one last time, making sure she was comfortable on the back seat of the truck, and Marley, who was belted in on the front bench beside Grace, Ryan delivered a solid thump to the roof with his open palm. Forcing a small smile onto his face, he held his tears back and tossed the bags into the bed of the truck, closing the door after Grace. Even with the added worry she’d never driven before, he couldn’t help but hope they’d get far away before they needed to stop. The track on the way out of the property would give her time to get her footing.
“This one is the accelerator, and this one’s the clutch. It’s an automatic so it’s like driving a go-kart.”
Grace’s blank expression made him bark an unamused laugh. “You’ve never driven a go-kart. Of course. Just push the accelerator to go and the brake to slow down. You should be fine, just be careful and go slow.”
Now, she was on her own. He quickly reached into to turn the key in the ignition and start the rumbling engine.
Before Grace could say or do anything to make him leave with them, he took a big, painful step backwards on his bad leg, grey-blue eyes following the rust-bucket truck as she threw it forward and hightailed it away from the fast-burning house of torment.
Grace watched Ryan shrink in the rear-view mirror. He was blurred by her heartbroken tears and remained standing on the track exactly where she left him. The morning sun had appeared and hovered over the horizon, bathing the entire ranch in burnt oranges and fiery reds to match the inferno tearing its way through all evidence of Indie and Grace’s torture at the hand of their evil abductor. As Ryan became a speck in the distance, Grace found herself clinging to his promise that they’d see each other again, praying to a God she was desperate to believe in that he’d be okay.
He had to be. There wasn’t another outcome she was willing to accept.
And besides, wasn’t it common knowledge you couldn’t break a pinky promise once you’d made it?
~ oOo ~
Pale eyelids fluttered, strawberry-blonde lashes fanning across ashen cheeks. A soft groan spilled from dry lips as they parted just enough to let air in. Grace’s eyes flew away from the road. As soon as she realised what was happening, she pulled clumsily to one side of the dirt road, sending a cloud of dust and dirt up into the humid air before jamming the truck to a standstill.
“Marley, I think Indie’s waking up. Come look.”
Marley scrambled over, the first time she’d dragged herself away from the window since they rumbled away from the flaming ranch. The hope on her face made Grace choke up. “Indie? Can you hear me?”
Bloodshot azure eyes flickered open once, twice, three times. Then they opened up fully, blinking away the grogginess of unconsciousness. The smell of oil, leather, and something inherently manly filtered through her nose and stung her sore throat.
The fear that Indie wouldn’t wake up had been plaguing Grace for the past hour as she taught herself to drive down mostly-deserted roads, so to see those familiar eyes was a huge relief. “Are you okay?”
Indie exhaled shakily, her eyes narrowed but fixed to the expanse of clear blue sky through the bug-splattered windshield. Her mind was lost in a fog of mismatched thoughts…or they could have been memories, she wasn’t sure. Furrowing her brow slightly, she cocked her head at Grace. It was a gesture Marley made many times each day; it brought a teary grin to Grace’s face.
“We’re somewhere near Helena, I think…there was a sign back there, anyway.” Grace’s eyes filled rapidly with tears and met Indie’s gaze. “We’re free, Indie. We’ve been driving for over an hour. It’s over.”
The words flew around the cab, embedding themselves into the girls’ heads while they tried to get used to their new state of being.
Free.
For the first time in over a decade, they had nowhere to be except away, nothing to do except go. When the fuel tank began to empty Grace knew there was extra fuel stored in the bed for long supply runs, so they didn’t need to worry about that. And they’d managed to smuggle some food from the kitchen over time—so they had food, too.
Indie tried to talk and push herself upright. It was only then she spotted Marley, leaning over the back of the seats with wide, nervous eyes. As soon as she opened her arms, the little girl scrambled into the back with her, burrowing into the older girl’s body as tears leaked over their cheeks. “It’s okay, baby girl, it’s okay,” Indie rasped, smothering Marley’s hair with kisses tinged with both desperation and relief.
Marley pulled back, cradling Indie’s cheek with one tiny hand. She may not have spoken, but her face said more than she’d ever know how to verbalise.
“I’m okay, Marley.”
Indie shivered at the featherlight touch Marley used to highlight how not okay she was, brushing her fingertips over the darkening handprints around her slender neck.
“Marley, scoot back a second, please. I’ll help Indie up.”
Marley was hesitant, but she eyed Grace as she stretched over the seats to help Indie sit upright and get comfortable on the worn leather seats. Tears poured freely as the pair stared out of the windshield.
“Ca—” Indie’s throat closed up, making her breaths scrape through her throat as she coughed. Grace hurried to grab the half-empty bottle of warm water from the foot-well.
“Here, drink this. It’s gross, but it’ll help your throat.”
Nodding her thanks, Indie accepted the lukewarm drink. After guzzling a few mouthfuls she exhaled tiredly, her mouth soothed at least enough for her to talk a little. There were so many things she wanted to ask, so many things she needed to know, but the pain in her throat was acute.
“There’s a map on the seat next to you. Shall we pick somewhere small to stay for a bit ‘til we know what we’re doing?”
A few minutes later, they’d chosen Lewistown, which was roughly north-west from where they estimated they were sitting. According to the map it was a relatively small city, so it should have somewhere for them to remain inconspicuous while they gathered supplies with their limited funds, which was all they were looking for. Indie settled herself sideways on the bench with Marley in her lap. She faced Grace as she punched the sticky accelerator until the rust-bucket lurched forward. During the last hour or so she’d managed to get the hang of making the aged vehicle move, but it was still difficult and somewhat intimidating. She apologised for the jumpy start before switching on the radio to fill the silence.
~ oOo ~
The sun shone high over Montana as the girls drove cross-country. They stopped briefly a couple of times to stretch their legs and eat some of the tinned food they’d managed to sneak away. With fruit salad lining their stomachs, they headed off again, typical country music playing through the single working speaker.
Marley, having never been off the ranch, was a bundle of nerves. She’d never been in a car, let alone an ancient, rickety truck, but she was enjoying being able to watch a whole new world pass by the window. She alternated between staring out and pointing to things until Indie or Grace appeased her by looking. For both older girls, it was magical to see Marley’s excitement. To see the world through a child’s eyes was always a great experience, but to see it through the eyes of a child who’d never had the chance to be free? Never had a chance to see the world beyond the only house she’d ever known?
It was truly enchanting.
By eleven a.m., the girls were parked beneath a large tree, sitting back in the grass against the trunk with the map spread across their laps. Well, Indie’s and Grace’s laps. Marley was far too busy exploring the long grass between the tree and the truck—the area she’d been told to stick to. Picking a random route that avoided all kinds of civilisation was their goal because they didn’t want to chance passing anybody who might recog
nise the truck. For all they knew, Smith could have been calling associates as soon as he walked away from the burning house, putting out the word that they’d run off. It wasn’t a chance they felt comfortable taking.
Wind ruffled Indie’s hair as she soaked up the sun and let the warmth of their newly gained freedom relax her, the sunlight reflecting from the small square of bandage Grace managed to tape to her head to protect the gash above her eyebrow. It throbbed dully, but there wasn’t too much blood so Indie wasn’t too worried. She hadn’t even known it was there until Grace pointed it out and demanded she let her cover it. They figured it had happened when she fell to the floor, but everything had all been a whirlwind…
While Indie rested, Grace topped up the gas tank and took the opportunity to change clothes, tossing her jeans and cardigan into the truck after changing into a pair of denim shorts. It was surprisingly warm for an April morning, and soon Marley wanted out of her hoodie too, though she immediately resumed her exploration dressed only in a pair of rolled-up tracksuit bottoms and a grey t-shirt. They took advantage of the rays and moved away from the shade of the tree, stretching out in the sun. With Indie’s yoga pants rolled up to her knees, their faces tipped back to the sun while Marley marvelled over her new world, they’d have looked like two ordinary young women with their sister or daughter, simply enjoying the weather.
As much as they were enjoying themselves, there was still the lingering, nagging voices in the back of their heads, muttering that he would find them, that they’d never really be free even if they felt like it right now. When a lone deer wandered close enough for its hoof to snap a twig, Indie gasped in fright, scrambling to her feet only to sink back to her knees when it made her dizzy. In the split seconds to follow, it became painfully obvious that although they were physically further away from him, he wasn’t far from their thoughts. It was a slap in the face for them both, one which ruined the tranquillity and forced them back into the truck to resume their roundabout journey towards Lewistown.