by James Hunt
Amy smiled. It was a start. “And Maisie? Can you help me bring Maisie back?”
Running Water glanced to Kara, frowning, and his granddaughter replied in their native tongue, to which he shook his head. “I did not foresee this.”
Amy grew worried. “What? Can’t you save her?” She glanced between Running Water and Kara, but neither offered her any hope. “There has to be something, some kind of—”
Running Water held up a hand. “It is your oldest daughter that is in the most pressing danger.” He stroked his chin absentmindedly and closed his eyes. “She will grow weaker and more ill the longer the miner has his claws in her.” He opened his eyes. “She no longer has the gold?”
“No,” Amy answered. “She doesn’t.” She tilted her head to the side. “This miner. I’ve seen him in my dreams for the past several months.”
Again, Running Water and Kara exchanged a glance, quick, fleeting, but knowing.
“I heard voices, his voice,” Amy said. “It drove me mad, and I—” She shut her eyes. “There was an accident.” She took a breath, and when she opened her eyes again she was calmer, more focused. “I don’t know how it happened, and I don’t know why, and I thought maybe if I did know, then it could help stop all of this.” She waited for either to respond, and when she was met with silence, she pushed further. “Do you know why?”
Running Water adjusted himself slightly in the bed, pulling the blanket closer to his waist, and then nodded, slowly, before he finally spoke. “The man who has haunted you is a cursed man. Cursed for his greed, and his violence against our people.”
“Why is this happening to me?” Amy asked, eyes watering and voice catching in her throat. “Why is this happening to my family?”
Running Water squeezed his hands nervously. “Our people have used the spirits to help us understand life, bring meaning and purpose to ourselves, and to help keep the world balanced.” He folded his hands together. “Nearly two hundred years ago, our people were shoved off our land when gold was discovered. We tried to fight for what was rightfully ours, and what no foreigner could claim, but we were beaten.” His face slackened, his shoulders slumping as though the story sucked the energy directly out of him. “So my ancestors turned to the spirits to help right the wrong.”
“We created the curse,” Kara said. “It was us.”
Running Water nodded. “And while it kept people off the land, we weren’t able to reclaim it. Through the years, several people have tried to extract gold from that place, and all of them have been met with calamity.”
“Mulaney won’t stop,” Kara said. “He has a new excavation technique that requires less people to physically handle the gold. But that won’t stop people from getting sick.”
“Like Liz,” Amy said.
“Yes,” Running Water replied. “My grandchildren had tried countless avenues to try and stop Mulaney from drilling, but we were met with failure.” He opened his mouth to continue but stopped as he scanned the blanket’s pattern, as if he could read it. “And so, like my ancestors, I called upon the spirit realm for help.” He looked at Amy. “And they sent us you.”
Amy remained motionless for a moment and then looked between Running Water and Kara, unsure if she was understanding what they were saying. But the longer she followed those threads, she finally understood. “You did this?”
“We had no other choice,” Running Water answered.
Amy stepped backward, aghast. “Do you have any idea what this has done to my family? What it’s still doing?” Her shock and indignation slowly gave way to anger. “My girls almost died! My husband has nearly lost his business, and my family is one step away from being put out on the streets!” She screamed at them, the blood rushing to her cheeks, which burned hot. “And now I have one daughter sick, and another missing, and you’re telling me you asked for this to happen?”
Kara stepped from the other side of the bed, her movement cautious. “Amy, I know how this looks—”
“Fuck you!” Amy screamed, fists clenched at her sides, every muscle within her body vibrating with rage. “How can you just do this to someone? How can you just hurt people like that?” She continued her retreat and then bumped into a body. She spun around to find Ben blocking her path, and her primal instincts kicked in. “Get off!”
Amy shoved him hard. He stepped out of the way to avoid the flurry of fists that she drove toward him, and then she sprinted out of the trailer and into the hot desert air.
Choking for breath, Amy reached into her pocket to grab her keys. She couldn’t believe all of this, she couldn’t believe that the people who said they could help her had put her in this position in the first place. She accidentally dropped the keys and bent to pick them from the sand.
“Amy, wait!” Kara stepped out of the trailer, hurrying down the ramp.
“Just leave me alone!” Amy missed inserting the key into the van’s driver side door, scratching the paint as she struggled to keep her hand still.
“Amy,” Kara grabbed Amy by the shoulder and spun her around, but Amy shoved back hard. Unlike her brother, Kara didn’t step aside. “Hey!” She lunged forward, pinning Amy against the side of the van, using her speed and strength to keep Amy still. “I know you’re angry.”
“You have no fucking idea what I am right now,” Amy said, teeth bared and squirming to free herself.
“I do,” Kara said. “I know what it’s like to lose your family, to have no one believe, to be an outcast, looked down upon. All of my people do.”
It was the fire in Kara’s dark eyes that finally prompted Amy to calm, and when she relaxed, Kara released her. Red-faced, her shirt and clothes dirty and worn, Amy was a ragged mess, a woman on the cusp of losing everything.
“And what else do you want?” Amy asked. “Mulaney is still planning to drill. I haven’t convinced Terry to believe me.”
Kara nodded. “I know. But we’ll worry about that after we help Liz. We don’t have much time.”
Amy waited for the but and the additional request, but Kara remained silent. She suspected it was a show of good faith and judging by the way the pair had reacted inside, they hadn’t expected Maisie to be taken.
Once again, Amy had shit options. Either find a solution herself or choose to trust the people who’d brought her here and torn her family apart in the first place. Plus, there was the police to deal with once she left the reservation.
Amy stepped close to Kara. “I don’t get both my girls back, I will take all of you down with me.”
Kara nodded. “I know.” She stepped back. “It’s one of the reasons you were chosen.”
52
Terry stood next to Liz, the pair back in the room where the nurses had taken her once the MRI had finished. He kept hold of her hand in a protective gesture, staring at the doctor who flipped through the chart in his hands.
“The MRI results came back inconclusive, which could be a good thing. It’s all about narrowing down the process and determining what happened and how…”
Terry was listening but looked to Liz, remembering how when she was six and they chased hummingbirds in the garden. She was fascinated with them, and Terry built her a hummingbird house for her birthday that year. He’d never seen her so happy.
Liz would sit outside and watch the hummingbirds, and he would watch her from the back window. Never in his life had he seen a more perfect picture than those summer afternoons.
“Mr. Holloway?” the doctor asked, pulling Terry away from the memory. “Do you have any questions for me?”
“What other tests are you going to run?” Terry asked, his voice catching in his throat.
“Nothing too invasive, at least at first,” the doctor answered. “We’ll draw some more blood, see if anything gets flagged in the system.” He closed the folder. “All of her vitals are still holding strong, and aside from her comatose state, we can’t find anything else medically wrong with her.” In Terry’s silence, the doctor cleared his throat. “If you hav
e any questions, just flag down one of the staff.”
Terry did have questions, but they couldn’t be answered by anyone in this building. He couldn’t understand how this was happening to his family. Again. It was all a bad dream. One that he had lived through before.
When Terry received the call about Amy’s accident, the cop had to repeat himself four times before the news finally sank in, and Terry dropped the phone and collapsed back into his chair. Never in his life had he felt so numb, so detached. It was like his brain was filled with lead, and it trickled down through his veins all the way to his toes.
He couldn’t remember how long he sat there, but when he picked the phone back up, the officer was still on the line. He only heard every other word, but he was still able to pick out enough to know that his family was alive albeit in critical condition.
Sitting there in the hospital, Terry wasn’t sure if his family ever really escaped. Sure, they were released, and Liz got her cast off, and Amy started taking medications, and Maisie was fine, but there were some injuries that doctors just couldn’t heal.
“Terry Holloway?”
Terry turned, finding a mountain of a man filling the doorway to Liz’s room. He wore a suit despite the heat and barely squeezed through the doorway as he handed Terry his laptop. Terry recognized him. He had been the driver who picked him up for his first meeting with Mr. Mulaney. He was head of security.
“Mr. Mulaney would like you to complete his request immediately.” He spoke with no emotion and remained towering above him. When he reached into his jacket pocket, Terry saw the pistol rig in a shoulder holster, but it was only a flash before it was gone and the brute extended a phone.
Terry took the phone from the big man and then placed it to his ear. “Hello?”
“Terry, I have good news,” Mulaney answered. “One of the resort workers saw your daughter head into the mine.”
Terry stood. “Oh my god.”
“We checked inside and found that there was a collapse.”
The blood drained from Terry’s face, his stomach twisting into a sour knot.
“But my crew heard a little girl’s voice through the rocks, and I have a team working on clearing the rubble now.”
Terry collapsed into a chair with relief. “Mr. Mulaney, I don’t know how—” He sobbed silently into his palm, and then cleared his throat. “Thank you. Thank you so much.”
“Of course,” Mulaney said. “You already have a lot on your plate, and I need you focused on finishing that report. Once we have that out of the way, it’s smooth sailing.”
Terry nodded, opening the laptop. “Of course, I’ll get that to you right away.”
“I knew you would,” Mulaney said, a smile in his voice. “Once you’ve finished, my associate will stick around and provide any assistance you might need.”
“I should be there,” Terry said. “When the rubble gets cleared. I need to see my daughter.”
“Of course,” Mulaney said. “Bishop will bring you over when it’s time.”
“Thank you, Mr. Mulaney. For everything.”
The call ended, and Terry stared happily down at the phone. He handed it back to Bishop, who returned it to his jacket pocket. “I’ll, um, finish this up, and let you know when I’m done.”
Bishop said nothing and walked out of the door, stationing himself in the hallway like a guard. Terry went to work, putting together the necessary reports, and when he finished, he clicked send. And while he should have been relieved for finishing it and being able to focus on his girls, Amy’s suspicions about Mulaney’s ulterior motives suddenly crept into his head.
But it was only nonsense. And that nonsense had nearly gotten both of his girls killed.
“Mr. Holloway?”
Terry looked up from his laptop to find a police officer in the room, and that sense of dread immediately returned as he stood. “Yes?”
“My name is Officer Callahan, I was sent over by the department to offer any assistance I could with your wife.” He glanced back to Bishop, who had joined them in the room.
“He’s with me,” Terry said, unsure of how else he could explain Bishop’s presence. “What’s going on?”
“There’s been an update in your wife’s case,” he said. “She was spotted outside a local precinct and led five officers on a high-speed chase, refusing to pull over and cooperate.”
Terry’s first instinct was relief that Amy was alone, knowing that she couldn’t hurt their girls if they weren’t around, but his relief was quickly replaced with guilt at the sudden dismissal of his own wife’s safety. But she had caused those feelings. Not him.
“She fled onto the reservation, and our officers weren’t able to follow them,” Officer Callahan said. “We believe she’s with a,” Callahan retrieved his notepad and flipped through the pages, “Kara O-Cha, who was released from the precinct earlier today. Do you know Ms. O-Cha?”
“She contacted me,” Terry answered. “Tried to tell me that my boss was forging documents, that they shouldn’t be allowed to open the new mine.”
Callahan nodded, still taking notes. “We’re familiar with some of the problems the protestors have caused. Do you know Ms. O-Cha’s relationship with your wife?”
Terry shrugged. “I don’t know. But my wife, she’s… sick. She’s off her medication and I’m worried what she might do.”
Officer Callahan flipped his notepad closed. “Well, we’ll do what we can, but if she isn’t willing to cooperate, then that’s going to make it difficult for us to resolve this peacefully.”
Terry frowned. “She’s not dangerous. Not a killer.”
“Thank you for your time, Mr. Holloway, and if you hear from your wife, please let us know.” Officer Callahan walked toward the door. “I’ll be in the waiting area if you need anything.”
Once the officer was out of earshot, Mulaney’s head of security stepped back into the room. “You should keep your comments to the police to a minimum.”
“Why?”
“It’s best to use discretion when dealing with these types of situations,” he answered.
Terry nodded, unsure of what the big man was talking about, but unwilling to test him on the matter. “Thanks.”
Terry returned to Liz’s bedside and gently massaged her arm, hoping that she would magically awake, but she remained lost in her catatonic state. His lower lip quivered, and he placed his hand on the top of her head and smoothed out her hair. “Don’t give up, Lizzy.” He kissed her forehead, remembering the little girl who loved the hummingbirds. “Just keep fighting.”
53
Liz Holloway didn’t know what to make of the long hallway with lockers on each side. It looked like her high school back in Colorado, but there were details that just didn’t quite fit.
The black and white checkered tile was too shiny. The lockers too neat and clean. But the most jarring difference was the lack of students.
She was alone. And as she passed the classrooms, peering into the narrow glass windows in the doors, all the desks were empty.
Liz walked all the way to the exit doors and then held up her hands to block out the sunlight blasting her senses.
She stepped down the short staircase and walked out to the parking lot, finding it as empty as the classroom. She frowned, walking around in a daze, shaking her head. “This isn’t possible.”
The journey here had been erased. She didn’t remember waking up, she didn’t remember breakfast, nothing. She took quick breaths as her heartrate skyrocketed, and it didn’t take long until she was hyperventilating.
Liz dropped to her knees, clawing at her throat as she gasped for air. Dizzy, she shut her eyes, letting the black canvas of her eyelids block out the implausibility of her situation.
“Breathe,” Liz said, her voice raspy and excited between each breath. “Just fucking breathe.”
Slowly, she regained control of her breathing, but her heart continued to pound hard and deep, like a bass drum in a club. Shaking, sh
e stood and glanced back out into the parking lot, surprise spreading across her face.
Outside the fence of the school and parked on the street was her mother’s Jeep. She took a step toward it, slowly. Then another, and another, and another. By the time she was on the parking lot’s asphalt, she had broken out into a sprint.
“Mom!” Liz screamed. “Mom!”
The fence forced Liz to veer right toward the pick-up lane exit. Liz slowed when she reached the Jeep and sidled up along the passenger side, peering through the window.
Her mother had both hands on the steering wheel, her body as still as water on a lake.
Liz pulled the door handle, but it was locked. She pounded the glass with her fists. But despite the commotion, her mother wouldn’t turn. She just kept both hands on the wheel, staring straight ahead. “Mom, what—”
And that’s when she noticed the half-empty bottle of liquor in the center console cupholder. Liz glanced into the back seat and saw Maisie strapped in her seatbelt, her head lolled to the side, asleep.
“No.” Liz tried the other door handles, working her way around to the driver’s side, where she pounded on the window. “Mom! Mom, look at me!”
But Amy Holloway only reached for the shifter, placing the vehicle from park into drive.
Panic rose in the back of Liz’s throat. “Mom, no, stop! Get out of the car.” She looked at Maisie in the back seat, oblivious to what was happening to her.
Finally, Amy slowly turned her face toward Liz, revealing a pair of eyes that were open but void of consciousness.
Liz cried and clasped her hands together. She pressed her head against the window. “Mom, please.” She sobbed, her breathing irregular from the grief and exhaustion. “You don’t have to do this. You don’t want to do this.”
“Then why don’t you stop me?” Amy asked.
Liz lifted her head from the glass. She furrowed her brow. “What?”