by JA Huss
She walks over towards the three-story-tall windows. The jeans I got for her are too long and they scuff on the polished hardwood floors with each step. Her arms cross, a defensive position, trying to ward away this conversation. But this all needs to be said and it needs to be said right now. I’m sure this is very uncomfortable for her, not being in her own house. Not having a place of her own to retreat to.
“Just take me to the truck.”
I walk up behind her and grab her left forearm, bringing her bandaged fingers up so I can look at her hand. “How’s it feel?”
I expect a snarky remark. Maybe something along the lines of, Like you care. Or, None of your business. But she just shrugs. “I have a high tolerance for pain. And I can’t do anything about it. It will heal.”
“I can try to make up for it, Syd. But I can’t take it back.” I repeat what I said last night in her sleep, but it makes me feel like I’m going too far. I don’t want to get attached to this girl. I don’t want to make all this shit more compacted than it already is. “All I can do is try to help you now.”
“I don’t believe you,” she says in a sad, soft whisper. “You never wanted to save me. You wanted to make money that night. I was nothing but a job. And now I’m just some kind of solution you have to tolerate.”
“I don’t need money, Sydney. I haven’t needed money in a very long time. Not that night, not that year, not that decade. I made so much money over the course of my adult life, it’s meaningless.”
“That makes it even worse.” She turns to me, her mouth drawn into a straight line. No hint of what she’s feeling. Does she feel? Can she feel? I’m not really sure of that. She’s been mindfucked for so long, she might not have much of her real self left. “Take me to the truck or just get it over with.”
I shake my head at her. “I’m not taking you back to the truck yet. And I’m not sure what you think I’m doing here.”
“Killing me, right? You brought me out here to kill me.”
I stare at her, wondering how much I should say right now. That is the reason I brought her here. And the last time I checked, it was still my goal. But it’s not going the way I planned.
“Will I die like him?”
“Who?”
“My father. You killed him back in that room? On that table?”
“He deserved it.”
“And I do too?”
It’s a loaded question. In so many ways. One I can’t answer right now. So I change the subject. “Did you love him? Your father?”
She takes a deep breath and turns back to the window. I see her crack a small smile in the reflection as she gazes out over the river. “This is the Yellowstone River?”
“Yup.”
“I did love him. He used to bring me to this river when I was very small.”
“How old were you?”
“Small. Before I ever went to school. He showed me how to hold a fishing pole once.” The hint of a smile disappears. “He’s the one who taught me how to hunt. Ducks, back then. I never shot any with him. I was too little. But he told me what to do. Explained it to me.”
Hunt. In my world it has so many meanings. But what does it mean to her?
“Who taught you how to hunt, Case?”
“The television.”
This makes her chuckle, and I get a little satisfaction from my off-the-cuff remark. “How did the TV teach you to hunt?”
“Survival Channel. Don’t leave home without it. I started watching that shit when I was a kid. It fascinated me. I grew up in Boston, one hundred percent city boy. But I never belonged there and as soon as I turned eighteen I moved west.”
“I thought you joined the army when you turned eighteen?”
“I did. But I didn’t want to be known as the guy from Boston. So I moved to Wyoming, set up camp in Cheyenne, got a month-to-month lease and an address. And once I settled in, I enlisted.”
“Why bother?” She turns to me, genuinely interested in my story. “What difference does it make? You still grew up in Boston.”
I tap a finger on her head. “It makes all the difference in the world in here, Sydney. It changed everything. Inner-city kids from a broken Boston home are a dime a dozen. I didn’t want to be that guy anymore. So I made myself into someone else.” She squints her eyes at this, like she’s thinking. That’s good. I want her to think about this stuff. I want her to think about all of it. “And it’s that easy, ya know? New town. New clothes. New music. New truck. New address. And bam, just like that I went from being Merric Case to Merc.”
She blinks up at me a few times.
“You can do it too, ya know. Just walk away. Stop being Sydney Channing and be someone else.”
“Who?”
“You.”
She shakes her head at that, not quite ready to put all the pieces together. So I turn away and walk over to the coffee table and pick up the remote. Her arms are crossed over her chest and she’s hunched into herself a little, like she’s frightened about what I might do.
I flick the TV on and punch in the number for the Survival Channel. There’s a guy talking about hunting snowshoe hares. He’s middle-age, weathered, and looks like he can kill anything that comes at him with his bare hands.
Sydney wrings her hands as she watches from across the room. “I know how to hunt rabbits, thanks.”
“It’s a metaphor, Sydney. If you don’t want to live in Boston anymore, all you gotta do is teach yourself how to survive. And then just walk away.”
Chapter Twenty-Eight - Sydney
“See yourself as someone who survives.” – Sydney
I feel like we’re talking in code. “It’s not even remotely similar.”
Case takes a seat on his white cotton couch and kicks his feet up on the coffee table. He watches the big screen that hangs over a large stone fireplace. I tip my gaze up as well. The guy on the Survival Channel is digging a pit trap. “What kind of skills do I need?”
Case looks up at me. “You could try…” He stops to think. Because he knows I’m right. It’s not the same. Leaving civilization and coming to the west is easy. But leaving the wild and becoming civilized is not as clear-cut.
“And I already was living in the city. I had a boyfriend, a bar, an apartment. I don’t even know what you’re talking about.”
“Going to school.” He shrugs. “Taking some college classes in… whatever.”
I huff out a small breath at that notion. “History of Western Civilization and English Lit is gonna erase my life and make a new one?”
“Do you think I became Merc by watching one guy catch rabbits on TV? I joined the army.”
“You did terrible things.”
“That was my plan. Become Merc. The army was a way to do that. But before I left for the army, those little steps made it real. I lost the accent. I lost the tough-guy attitude. I mean, almost everyone out here can survive. They might not be geniuses, but they know how to survive. So I became the guy out here. It’s just a first step.”
My gaze wanders back to the man on the TV. He’s tying a snare made out of thin copper wire.
“Look at me, Sydney.” Garrett’s eyes are blazing with anger as he fists my hair and makes me look up at him. But as soon as he lets go, my head rolls back to its original position. An electric current in my collar shocks me awake again. But only just. “You need to pay attention.”
“You have to understand who you are and then decide what you want.”
I look over at Case, oblivious to what I am.
The man on the screen says, “There, all ready to go,” and then walks away from the trap he set.
“We’re on a tight timeline here. You need to do your job and I need to do mine. I won’t always be here to help you.”
“Help me,” I whisper as my whole body begins to tremble.
“What?” Case sits up, his feet hitting the floor. I look back up at the screen and now there’s a rabbit hopping down a bunny trail. “Sydney?”
G
arrett has the rabbit in the live trap. Not a snare. He likes them alive. He told me before we came out here in the woods. He likes them alive for training purposes. I’m gonna learn how to skin a rabbit today. He walks out towards the wire cage and picks it up by the handle. Like he’s carrying luggage at the airport and not bringing some small animal to its death.
Case shakes me by the shoulders. “Syd,” he says, his face right down into mine. “What’s happening?”
“Have you ever heard a rabbit scream, Sydney?”
I look up at the rabbit on the screen again. It’s getting closer and closer to the snare. A little hop this way or that way, and it might go around it. But its nose is pointed in the direction of the bait.
“Have you ever heard a rabbit scream, Sydney?” Garrett laughs as he sets the cage down on the wooden table he has set up for butchering in the back of the cabin. “You’re about to.” He hands me a knife.
The bunny has no chance once it moves into the snare. The loop of wire slides along its thick, white fur. One more hop and he’s caught. The wire tightens…
“What am I supposed to do with that?” The knife is long. And sharp. “That’s not how you kill a rabbit.”
“You’re a fucking genius, I guess, huh?” The electrical shock stuns me silent as it jolts the skin on my neck. It’s so tender from all the training, I double over and push my head into the ground.
Garrett hands me the knife and I take it. I have no choice but to take it. And then he pulls me up by my hair until I’m standing.
“You have thirty seconds, Sydney. And then we’re gonna call this test a failure.”
The snare tightens around the rabbit’s neck on the screen.
I reach into the rabbit’s cage.
I scream, just like the rabbit on the TV.
I grab the rabbit by the fur, roughly, so it can’t slip away. I look up at Garrett, and he’s smiling, pleased that I’m finally doing as I’m told. And then I pull the rabbit out of the cage and fling it across the yard. It hits the snow with a thump, and then it’s off, those large feet acting like snowshoes as it makes its escape.
Be the rabbit, Sydney.
But I am not the rabbit. I am not getting away. My neck is burning with electrical shocks as Garrett pulls me back into the cabin by my feet.
Chapter Twenty-Nine - Sydney
“Answers come to those who seek them.” – Sydney
I think this is it for me.
“What?” Case is next to me. I’m in bed with him. I can feel his bare chest up against my feverish back. His arms tighten around me as he repositions. I want to open my eyes and see if we’re in the crow’s nest room or some other room, but I can’t quite do that yet.
“Sydney?”
I hope we’re in the crow’s nest. And it’s daylight still, so maybe I only lost a few hours? I really like it up here. It feels good to be tall, looking down on things, instead of small, always looking up. It feels like a watchtower. A place where you can see the bad shit coming from a distance and prepare.
“Syd,” he says, a little softer now. “I didn’t want to drug you again, but you were hysterical. It was the only way I could calm you down. I won’t do it again, but I need you to help me out here. OK? Can you do that?”
Help him out. I bet. I tuck my head into the soft pillow and will myself not to cry. “Just be someone else, you say?” I croak out the words. My mouth feels like it’s filled with cotton. How many times have I been drugged since he’s had me? “But all I’ve ever done is be someone else. I don’t even live in the real world anymore. I can’t imagine any more versions of myself, Case. I have tried so many times. I have lived in my head for days on end. I have refused to see the truth in hopes those memories would just fade away. I have been the good girl, the bad girl, the defiant girl, the sexy girl, the compliant girl. And it gets me nowhere.”
I turn my body so I can see his face when I open my eyes. We are in the crow’s nest, and that just makes me sad. Because no matter how nice this place is, he’s still the guy who left me to die. And I don’t know what he’s doing right now. Or why he’s being nice. Or why I’m even still alive.
But I know none of that is because he sees me. He doesn’t see me. He says I need to change into someone else. And that’s all they’ve ever told me. Change into someone else. Split me in half, that’s what they’ve done. But maybe it’s not just half. Maybe I’ve been quartered, like an elk when we hunt it down and kill it and then have to carry it back to camp in pieces.
“I am not the rabbit.”
He swipes a finger down my cheek and I realize he’s wiping away tears. I look up into his eyes. How many times have I wished I could be this close to those eyes? They are bright, like the room. Not brown, not green, not blue. Hazel. With specks of yellow in them that make them that amber color when he’s standing in just the right haze between dark and light.
I take a deep breath and let it out.
“I don’t know what that means, Sydney. The rabbit thing. It was a trigger for you? You saw the rabbit on the TV and it triggered something?”
“Yeah,” I say softly, wishing I could just curl up and die. But what’s the point of fighting him anymore? What is the point? Who do I want to protect here? I run the list of names in my head and only come up with one.
But it’s not fair. It’s so not fair that I will be fucked when this is all over. So I opt for answers before I give in. Maybe I can die peacefully if I at least get some answers. “Did you turn that show on to trigger me?”
“No,” he says. No hesitation. “I do not know Garrett’s triggers, Sydney. If I did, this would be a whole lot easier. I could help you. If I did. I could try to set this shit right. Do you know the triggers?”
“Bobcat.”
“I don’t think that’s it.” Case lets me go, pulling his arms away, and stands up. “I don’t think that’s it. If bobcat or wildcat were triggers and releases, we’d be making progress. Climbing out of that dark hole. But we’re not climbing out. You’re still falling in, cowgirl.”
“Jesus Christ,” I mumble into the pillow. “How much farther can I possibly fall?”
He sits down on the edge of the half-moon bed, leaning his elbows on his knees and then his face in his hands. I guess he has no clue. And neither do I. “More drugs,” I say. “Just give me more. Give me so much I never wake up.”
He doesn’t even answer me. Just walks away. I listen to each step as it creaks on his way downstairs. And then I listen to noises that have no meaning to me. Finally, after about twenty minutes of this, the door slams.
He walked out.
Isn’t that what he does? He says he’ll save me, but then he walks out.
I close my eyes and go back to sleep. This room is too bright. I need the dark.
When I wake, it’s twilight, which isn’t quite as good as dark, but I can’t make myself go back to sleep. So I sit up and look outside. It’s snowing again. But there’s a trail from a snow machine still a little bit visible.
I kick the covers off and then make my way to the edge of the bed and swing my feet over. I’m not dizzy. Whatever he gave me, it was a small dose. Just enough to calm me down, like he said.
I am hungry and thirsty. So I make my way down to the second floor and stop off at the first bathroom I see, relieve myself, and then gulp water from the faucet.
I pull back, wiping my mouth, and look at myself in the mirror. My hair is long and dark and it hangs down my front in tousled waves. It’s messy, but cute. That makes me smile for a second. That I can be here, looking at my hair at a time like this. My face is marred with scratches, a bruise that is one of the remnants of the many head punches Case delivered. And my eyes are tired, but bright.
I wouldn’t say I feel bright. But I do feel better than I have in days. Weeks, I guess. Since he took me weeks ago now.
I touch the bruise and wince. But the hatred I feel for Garrett each time he made one of these appear doesn’t manifest for Case like it should.
I should hate him. But I don’t.
I should want to plot revenge. But I don’t.
And it’s not some sick Stockholm syndrome thing, either. I tried to love Garrett. I tried out that Stockholm shit on him. Thought it might make it easier if the man who was beating me was sexy and liked to fuck me.
But it never worked with Garrett. So I think I’m immune to Stockholm syndrome.
Besides, I have loved Case for years in my head. Long before this. He was my savior. So fuck it. I’m allowed to love him now too. He has no idea what’s happening. He’s just doing his best to figure it out. And if I wanted to make him stop hurting me, I could just tell him.
But I’m not some magnanimous do-gooder. Like it or not, I’m just as ruthless as him. And I want what I want.
I want him to like me. I want him to say, I’m so sorry for leaving you behind. I fucked up. I want him to want me the way I want him. I want him to love me. I want to be loved so badly.
I flick the light out and see a large bedroom through a pair of open double doors. I step forward into the room. I know he’s gone. And I’ll hear the snow machine if he comes back.
Oh, God. What if he doesn’t come back? What if I go downstairs and there’s a pile of clothes and a note telling me to get lost? He’s moved on and so should I?
Instead of dwelling on that, I start looking around the room. He’s got a connecting bathroom in here. All his shaving stuff is out on the counter. A cup to hold soap. I pick up the cup and smell it—sandalwood. And a nice brush to lather up his face. I swipe my fingers along the soft bristles and picture what it would be like to watch him do that.
Nope. No Stockholm syndrome for me.
I flip the lights off and go back to the bedroom, taking a seat on the edge of his bed. There are nightstands on either side made out of a highly polished wood that is so dark it almost looks black. His house is not decorated like you might expect a huge luxury log cabin to be. Most of the elements are contemporary and new.