by J. A. Huss
That’s three hits. I’m not sure how many more I can take.
He lifts me up over his shoulder again and stumbles forward. This time we do not go down. I kick my legs and flail my fists against his hard body. But he’s got me tight.
We go through the door and into a living room. There’s a small light on in the kitchen, so I can at least see where I am. But we walk past that and towards the back of the cabin.
I need to get away. If he puts me back in there—
He throws me down on the ground. The air rushes out of my lungs, knocking the breath out of me. I gasp, trying to make my lungs work. I feel like I’m drowning. Underwater choking. But I’m not. I just can’t seem to draw in enough oxygen to make up for the blow.
He fumbles with the door handle for a second, and I’m just about to start crawling away, hopeful that some of those drugs are gonna kick in, when he finally manages to pull it open and turn back to me. His eyes are filled with rage.
I don’t know Merric Case that well. Hardly at all, in fact. But I know the look of evil. I know the look of a monster. And he’s definitely one of them.
He takes a step and falls.
I crab-walk backwards just as he reaches out for my ankle. He gets a hold, but I kick him in the face and he lets go. I get to my feet as he starts to crawl after me. He’s so much faster than me, even drugged. Because he gets to his feet again before I can even turn.
He lunges at me, grabbing hold of my waist this time, and we go down together. He lands on top of me, and once again, I’m gasping for air.
And that’s when his hands find my throat.
“I’m just gonna kill you now, Syd.” He sneers the nickname he’s not allowed to call me, and squeezes.
Fight, Sydney!
I turn, my knees up, pushing him off me. And even though I get some space between us, his arms are so long it does nothing for the grip on my neck. I can feel the blackness coming. But I’m not done yet. His body wobbles a little, and I throw my whole body backwards, flex my legs and find my strength, just as his is starting to wane, and deliver a two-footed kick to his chest.
He flies backward, landing hard on the floor, and I take a moment to gasp for air. It rushes in, making the stars that signal the beginning of unconsciousness fade a little. I crawl backwards until I reach the front door.
And I wait.
He tries to get up a few times. The nasty words spill out of his mouth in a slur. But he never makes it. It takes long, endless minutes for his eyes to finally close.
And even though all I want to do is sit here and cry, I get to my feet. My legs are shaking so bad they almost give. But I steady myself against the front door and give myself a moment to cope.
Cope. I do that well. Coping with violence and terror is a gift from the man in my dreams.
My lungs suck in as much air as I can. I close my eyes. I count to ten. And when I open them, I move.
I run to his bedroom, fling open a door that has to be a closet and smile when I see clothes hanging. I grab a long-sleeved flannel shirt and shove my arms inside. I don’t even stop to button it up. I just grab the nearest pair of jeans. They are way too big and far too long, but fuck it. I roll them up and find a belt, and then go for the shoes. He’s got one pair of boots in the closet. Boots that are like a million sizes too big. But it’s the dead of winter and I can’t go outside unless I have something on my feet. I grab two pairs of socks and tug them on with shaking hands, then slip my feet into his boots.
When I go back out into the living room, I half expect him to be waiting with a shotgun trained on my face. But he’s not. He’s on the ground still. Breathing heavy and hard. I walk past him, and he reaches out and grabs my ankle, pulling me to the ground.
“No!” I scream it in a voice I’ve never heard before. I kick him in the face again, and the blood spills out of his lip. One more and he lets go.
I get to my feet, ready to pass out from the adrenaline and the fear. And then I force myself to move. I bolt for the door and throw it open. It’s snowing. And freezing-ass cold. There’s a snow machine parked in front of the cabin. But beyond that there is nothing. Nothing but trees and darkness.
The keys, Sydney. Find his keys.
Right. I calm myself and turn back to the cabin. They have to be here somewhere.
I rifle through the kitchen drawers, then the nightstand in his bedroom. I look through the closet and check the bathroom. But even before I finish all that I know where they must be.
In his fucking pocket.
I walk back to his body, keeping more than an arm’s length of distance between us. His head is tilted to the side and his eyes are open.
“You’renotgonnagetaway,” he says, his words slurring so bad I almost don’t understand him.
“Fuck you.” I walk behind him and bend down, reaching into his pocket. His hand comes up, reaching for me, but he misses. The drugs are working now. He might not be out, but he’s down.
Down enough for me to shove my hand in and pull out what I need, anyway. I spit on him as I walk by. And then I grab a coat that’s lying across the couch, find gloves in the pocket, open the door, and walk out.
The snow machine is covered in snow, and there are no tracks, so it’s been sitting for a little while at least. But I’m a country girl. A backcountry girl. I’ve been riding snow machines all my life. I brush off as much snow as I can, find the ignition, and shove the key in. I turn it to the on position and then pump the primer a few times before releasing the choke.
“You’re not gonna get away, bitch.”
I look up and see Case standing in the doorway, holding onto it like his life depends on it. He smiles. “You cunt. There’s no gas.”
“Fuck you,” I say, pulling on the starter cord as I do it. Nothing. “Not even you are stupid enough to ride up into the wilderness on empty.”
Case takes a step forward, stumbling up to the porch railing. He’s less than twenty feet away. But he’s slow.
I’m slow too, but my drugs have worn off and his are just kicking in. On the fourth pull the engine roars to life. I twist the throttle a little and then put her in gear. I lurch forward, make a wide turn not ten feet away from him now, and then gun it.
There’s no path in the woods. But he got up here somehow, so I find a clearing in the trees and assume that’s the trail.
I give the machine some gas and take off into the dark, navigating by the single headlight. I go fast at first, but I hit a few bumps, get some air, and then calm myself. Go slow, Sydney. If you crash, you’re dead.
I have no idea where I’m at, but trails are here for a reason. They lead places. And right now I don’t care where this one leads, I’m on my way.
It twists and turns, making me go even slower. So slow sometimes, I could probably get farther by walking.
I’m freezing. I have no scarf and no hat. But I keep going. I come upon a hill of snow and gun the machine to get over it. It chokes and stalls out on the other side.
But there’s something else on the other side too. A light. Just up ahead through the trees. A house!
I pull the cord to start the machine again, and that’s when I hear it. The whine of another engine from behind me.
Holy fuck. He has two of them!
I get off the machine and start to run through the deep snow. My boots are way too big to run in, and I lose one when I fall into a drift that comes up to my knees.
The engine from behind is getting louder now, but I can’t risk frostbite by leaving that boot. I scramble back and shove it on my foot and then plunge ahead, trying my best to make progress in the deep snow.
The light is getting brighter now, so I force myself to keep going. My foot is freezing, even through the boot, because both pairs of socks are soaked.
The engine cuts off in the distance, and I know he’s found my machine in the middle of the trail. He has to come on foot now too.
I go faster. I have no idea where I find my energy, but I find it. I pl
ow through the snow, falling and getting back up so many times I lose count. And there’s a path. The snow has been cleared. A two-foot-wide area that leads up to my salvation and allows me to ask my muscles for one more burst of energy. I pump my arms and I’m almost to the house when something snags my ankle.
I fall into the snow face first and realize he’s got me again.
“Scream,” he says, his whole body falling on top of me. “Scream, Sydney. No one’s gonna hear you.”
I open my mouth—
But he’s right. No one hears me because he punches me in the head so hard I have no chance. I black out from the pain.
“Always know when to give in.”
– Sydney
I come to hog-tied. Hands and feet bound together. Some kind of tape over my mouth. He’s got me positioned in front of him on the other snow machine, and the wind and snow is whipping against my face.
I struggle enough to make him swerve and angry at the same time. He stops the machine and grabs my shoulders, pulling my face in close to his.
Breathing is difficult. For the life of me, I cannot get enough air into my lungs, but I’m trying my best. I wheeze with each intake, the tape against my mouth giving way just the slightest bit as I try to gulp oxygen. It’s a trick though. Everything is always a trick. Because whatever slight bit of air getting through is just enough to suck the tape against my mouth even more when I try to inhale.
“Look,” Case says in my ear. “If I don’t get us home, we’re gonna freeze to death. You get that?” He pulls my hair, yanking my head back. “You drugged me. I’m half asleep right now so our chances are not looking good. And now I’m stopped, trying to keep your bitch ass from making me ram this four-hundred-and-fifty-pound machine into a goddamned tree. So how do you want this to go? Freeze to death? Crash first and then freeze to death? Or make it home in one piece, alive?”
I can only suck on my tape in response, but that must be all he’s looking for, because he straightens out my body a little, and then we lurch forward.
He weaves in the tracks we made coming out this way, not on course at all. And this is when the panic hits home. He really could crash. Or fall asleep. And we really will freeze to death out here.
My eyes close, looking for a way to escape my terror. I hold very still as we start and stop. His coordination is getting worse by the second. And after what seems like hours, we pull up to the cabin. He stands up, hauls me up over his shoulder, then drops to his knees in the snow, spilling me face first as he does it. The snow blocks my nostrils, making me panic and wiggle. Noise is coming out of my mouth, but the screams for help are mistaken for resistance. And so he handles it. The hard whack against my head makes the whole world spin and while that is happening, he gets back on his feet and drags me by the arms, my body finally limp.
I am pulled inside and left near the kitchen table as he falls to his knees beside me.
Oh, God. If he dies, I will be left here in the middle of nowhere, tied up and helpless.
I start shivering uncontrollably. My teeth want to chatter very badly, but the damn gag stops them. My body convulses to make up for it.
Case turns his head so I can see his face. His eyes are very heavy, like he’s about to pass out. But he reaches for my arm and slides me over next to him, embracing me with his body heat. I tip my chin up and find we are face to face. Very close together. He reaches up and pulls on the tape over my mouth. It takes him several tries to get a good grip, and then he rips it off.
I sob after that. It’s all too much.
“Look at me, Sydney.”
How he can be so commanding when he’s about to fall unconscious, I have no idea. I look at him. He’s my whole world right now. This cold, heartless killing machine who has no aversion to violence against women. He’s all I have. So I look up at him.
He’s barely there. His eyes are tiny slits, his mouth going slack from the drugs. But then he opens his lids once more and says, “If we’re going down, we’re going down together.” And then he has another syringe in his hand. He stabs me in the arm. The needle goes through the coat and pierces my skin. I watch the burning anger in his eyes as he presses the plunger.
I just watch helplessly as his eyes close, his grip on me weakens, and his breathing becomes heavy.
I try to push him off me, but he’s too big.
It’s cold in here. The fire is very low. With no one to feed it, it will probably go out before he wakes up. And when he does wake up, he’s gonna kill me anyway.
So I stop struggling and just enjoy the warmth from his body instead. Thankful I have clothes on. Thankful I’m not outside. Thankful he’s asleep. For now.
My eyes get heavier and heavier as the minutes tick off, and just as I’m about to close them and give in, he whispers, “You know why I hate you, Syd?”
I force myself to wake a little. Make my lids open.
His eyes are open too. Just barely.
“Why?” I slur back.
“Because you love him.”
I know he’s talking about Garrett, but why does he care?
“And it kills me.” His eyes close, flutter, and then open again. “It kills me that you fall for it. You’re in the dark about everything. Why can’t you fucking see it? Why can’t you see through it?”
“Maybe I don’t want to.”
I wait for another response, but it never comes. He’s out.
“Or maybe you’re the one in the dark and not me.”
“Pick and choose your battles, Syd.”
I look up at Garrett and smile. “I always do.”
“No,” he laughs. “You’ve got a little too much fight in you.”
I shake my head and cast out my fishing line. “How do you figure that?”
“You want to stay when you should go. You want to go when you should stay. You want to fight when you should yield and yield when you should fight. You’ve got it all backwards, Syd.”
I draw in a breath of fresh mountain air. “Says you.”
He chuckles with me. “When someone has the upper hand, you let them keep it.”
I give him a sideways glance. “That sounds a lot like giving up.”
“Nope,” he says, reeling in his line. I wait for him to check the bait—gone—and then change to a lure before casting out again. He looks over at me then, his eyes gold in the sun, his body tanned and muscular. He’s shirtless, because it’s very warm today. “It’s not giving up, Syd. It’s strategy. You gotta let them think they’re winning when they get the upper hand. But you never stop fighting. Even if it’s only on the inside.”
I wake up blind. My bindings are gone, my clothes are gone, my body is freezing. I crawl over to the fireplace but when I touch the metal, there’s no warmth.
He died.
“Don’t be stupid,” I say out loud. He drugged me again, untied me, took off my clothes, and dumped me into this room.
Why didn’t he light a fire? He must be cold.
But I can already hear water running. For half a second this makes my heart stop. He’s coming with the hose!
But then I realize that’s not what’s happening. He’s in the shower, I bet. Basking underneath hot water.
I tremble, cold. And I hate him. I hate that man so bad. Why is he doing this to me? Why?
“You are stupid,” Case says off to my left.
I sit up and look around in the dark.
“I mean…” He laughs a little. He sounds like he’s sitting down on the floor only a few feet away. “If it had worked it might’ve been a great plan. But I told you that machine had no gas. It’s twenty below outside and snowing. And that house you thought was your salvation? Is empty.”
“You’re lying.”
“Really? Which part of that is unbelievable?”
“I think there’s people in that house. I saw lights.”
“There’s no light out there, Sydney. It’s winter in Montana. People who own big log cabin homes like that don’t come here for t
he winter, cowgirl. You know better. You were cold and delirious from too many drugs. There was no light on in that house. You saw the moon reflecting off the windows, that’s all.”
Montana. But he’s right. Rich people who buy big homes out here come for the summers. For fishing, and hunting, and rafting. All things you don’t generally do in January.
“I know you dream about him. So that’s where this is gonna start.”
A chill runs up my spine and manifests as the hair at the nape of my neck standing on end.
“Oh,” Case says, getting to his feet with a shuffle. “You didn’t think this was over, did you?”
He pulls me to my feet by my hair and then half drags me, half walks me, over to the door. When he opens it, the light blinds me for a moment and I have to close my eyes. He doesn’t stop, just pulls me along a hallway until we get to the bathroom where warm steam rushes out in a mist. I inhale, enjoying every bit of warmth, and when I crack open my eyes, taking care not to look up into the light, I see the feet of an old white cast-iron tub.
I force myself to look up now. Right at his face.
“You smell,” he says, reading my mind. “You shit yourself. Which is why I took off your clothes.”
I look away, embarrassed, of all things. I shake my head a little to make that go away. Of all the things I should be ashamed of, shitting myself isn’t even in the top one hundred.
“And you’re covered in blood. I’m sick of looking at you like this. So wash. And be quick because you don’t deserve it.”
“Then why not hose me down?” I cringe as soon as the words come out. Shut up, Syd!
“I’m a little bit tired,” he says, ignoring my sarcasm. “And holding a hose filled with freezing water isn’t on my list of things to do right now. You have two minutes. And if you don’t get yourself clean in that time, I will get the hose.”
I take a deep breath and step towards the tub, then look over my shoulder to see if he will leave me alone.
“In your dreams.”
I step in and lower myself down into the hot water. It stings bad, since my body is so cold. But it feels way too good to stop, so I sink all the way in and allow a sigh to escape.