Miller stared at Josh and slowly nodded. “You and me both, man.” He shook his head. “You and me both.”
“Thank you for all of this,” I said, placing a kiss on Finn’s lips.
“Thank you,” Finn said. My heart fluttered.
“For what? I didn’t do anything.” I chuckled.
Finn placed his hand on my belly. “You’re doing everything.”
“What do you mean you only packed three cases of beer. It’s a hurricane! I don’t think I can ever forgive you!” Miller yelled at Wilfredo who remained calm and produced a bottle of vodka from his backpack.
“Shots?” Wilfredo asked, shaking the bottle.
Miller snatched it from his hands. “Forgiven.”
“Don’t forget I owe you an ass kicking for knocking up my daughter,” Critter said, narrowing his eyes at Finn.
“Oh, I didn’t forget,” Finn said. “I’d expect nothing less.”
Critter nodded. “Good. We’re on the same page then.”
Sometimes, I didn’t know whether they were joking or not. But I thought it best to stay out of it and let them do whatever it is they needed to do to prove who was manlier.
“I’m going to go check on my mother,” I said. Finn helped me to a standing position and I carefully stepped over the pillows on the floor and navigated around my friends and family, heading toward the back room.
Miller was chugging from the vodka bottle, clear liquid spilling down his chin onto his black t-shirt.
“I think I might want to try my chances with the hurricane,” Josh muttered as I passed her by.
I slowly opened the door to the back-storage area and went inside, shutting it behind me so that Miller’s loud voice wouldn’t wake my mother if she was sleeping. I tiptoed toward the cot only to find it empty.
I quickly scanned the rest of the room and I didn’t see her. Something felt off, like there was a shift in the air I couldn’t explain. It felt thicker. Heavier.
“Mother?” I looked into the dark corner where I was keeping some books that needed to be shipped off to have the spines repaired. I saw movement. “There you are,” I exhaled in relief. “You scared me. What are you doing back there? All the newer books are on the shelves in the main room. Anything in particular you’re looking for?” I kneeled down to tie my shoelace which I’d just notice had come undone when I heard footsteps.
Heavy footsteps.
Not my mother’s footsteps.
“Yes. YOU,” answered a deep throaty male voice.
I froze for a moment then realized if I was going to escape this time I was going to have to act fast. I made a leap toward the door but I wasn’t quick enough. A large hand came around my chest and another covered my nose and mouth to muffle my scream before it even had a chance to leave my lips.
“Shhhh, I have your whore of a mother, and it’s up to you whether she remains alive or not,” Richard whispered bitterly into my ear. He smelled just as I remembered. Like whiskey and arrogance. “I locked all of the doors of this building from the outside. If you so much as try and draw attention to yourself, even one little squeak of a noise, I’ll set this entire place ablaze with every single of those heathens trapped inside.” He showed me a metal lighter, flicking it open and setting the flame too high so I could see he was serious about carrying through with his threat.
I felt helpless. Panicked.
My heart was beating rapidly and all I could think about was protecting Finn and my baby.
There was nothing I could do but comply. And as he dragged me out into the night I thought he tripped over something but I was wrong. He’d kicked over something. That something was a gas can.
With a flick of his wrist, he sent the lighter and the tiny flame cascading into the gas can, causing it to immediately erupt in a fire ball which was anything but tiny.
I tried to get to them. To move my limbs but they wouldn’t cooperate. I was breathing erratically, taking in more and more of whatever he had pressed into his palm covering my nose and mouth.
I felt nauseated. The sound of Richard’s callous laugh surrounded me as he dragged me further and further away from the library. The storm hadn’t yet brought the rain but the wind spread the flames quickly and just as my vision started to blur I managed to make out the last sight I ever wanted to see.
The roof of the library caved in…and collapsed.
Chapter 24
Finn
It all happened so quickly. It sounded like an explosion then the roof of the storage room was collapsing.
Sawyer.
I raced toward the storage room with Critter while Miller attempted to open the front door which turned out to be locked from the outside. Together, Josh and Miller managed to ram through it just enough to get everyone out. The pouring rain had doused the fire.
Critter and I, with burning palms, had pushed aside the fallen roof, frantically searching for Sawyer and Caroline.
It wasn’t until we’d moved the last fallen beam we’d realized…they weren’t there. I breathed out a sigh of relief only to have a sharp stab of fear spike through me like a lightning bolt to the chest.
I glanced over to Critter who kicked over some debris with an angry roar. “No! Not again, no!” he yelled pulling at his hair.
I balled my fists and tried to breathe through my nose to calm my racing heart.
It looked as if Critter and I we were on the same page, and that page only had one word written on it.
Richard.
Chapter 25
Sawyer
All I heard was crickets. The wind slapped wet leaves and mud against my face. It was raining lightly but the wind was blowing so hard each drop of water stung against my skin. It smelled like sulfur and decay.
I tried to peel my eyes open, but they wouldn’t comply. I was sitting in a few inches of water. My shorts were completely soaked through.
Finn.
My family. My friends.
The library. The roof collapsing.
It sobered me up and pulled me from the haze I was in. I jolted awake. My eyes sprung open, only to find myself bound at the wrists behind a tree at my back in the swamp.
I was terrified that I lost all the people that meant most me the world. The only thing that kept me from shaking uncontrollably with fear—the only thing that kept me sucking in my next breath, was the life growing inside of me.
I felt sick to my stomach. Everything ached. My body sat heavy upon my bones as if I were carrying around another pile of flesh and muscle on the outside of mine. Like gravity was working overtime to pull me into the center of the earth.
It was difficult to lift my arms. My eyes wouldn’t open fully and I was forced to peer out into the darkness of this world through tiny slits. It must have been the effects of whatever it was that Richard had sedated me with.
Everything hurt. My body, my heart, my spirit.
Then I heard a voice and at first, I thought I was imagining things, but her voice was not only clear, but it was also calm.
And it belonged to my mother.
“When you were growing up I saw so much of myself reflected in your eyes. It scared me. A part of me wished you were complacent. Obedient. A person who stood in line and waited their turn and did what they were told and were happy that way. But occasionally I caught a glimpse of fire in your eyes. I recognized the rebellion in you. I knew you had questions bigger than the answers the church would ever give you. Your eyes give you away, Sawyer. They always have. They told me you were no more meant for that life than I was. I was scared for you, but an even bigger part of me was proud, relieved.
I knew you couldn’t stay there. That fire in you along with Richard’s controlling and abusive ways…it was never going to end well.” She pressed her lips together and looked up at the sky. “I was always surprised you hadn’t run away earlier. And disappointed in a way.”
“I couldn’t leave you,” I argued. “I could never leave you.”
She shook her head. �
�Which makes it worse. You should have.”
“No. Besides, you said if I did that Richard threatened to kill you.”
My mother nodded. “He would have. But none of that mattered. You were all that mattered. You are all that matters now.”
I dropped my eyes to my stomach. “No. I’m not all that matters now.”
My chest tightened at the look of pain on my mother’s face. I resolved to stay strong for her. To push the turmoil inside of me down and be there for both my child and my mother.
“I failed you,” she said, the wind sent her words barreling toward me, hitting me right in the gut.
“You didn’t! You were put in a situation no one could ever imagine themselves in. I couldn’t begin to imagine having to make the choices you were faced with. I understand now. I understand why you did everything and I’m the one who’s sorry. For ever doubting you. And besides, you’re right. We are a lot alike.”
“Maybe. Did I ever tell you the story of how you got your name?” My mother asked. She was trying to distract me from the rising water. I needed it because the endless tugging on my restraints was getting me nowhere.
The water was rising quicker and quicker. It was only a matter of time before it was over our heads.
“No,” I said, shaking my head. “Tell me.” My blood was pumping furiously through me. I felt hyperaware of my surroundings. Of my body. I was tense like I’d never felt before.
In addition to being completely and utterly terrified.
My mother managed a strained chuckle. “Richard wanted to name you Mara. The biblical meaning being bitter or bitterness. It was like everything he did to you was a punishment for my sins against him and he wanted your name to be no different.”
“Sounds about right,” I muttered, rubbing whatever was tying my hands together and against the bark of the tree to try to slice the bindings apart.
My mother looked to the sky like she could see the story she was telling me unfolding above her. “When Critter and I first got together we would lay out in his sunflower fields for hours watching the sun set and just listening to the leaves rustle around us. We’d talk and drink wine and get sunburnt on our noses.” She sighed as she remembered happier times then broke out into a coughing fit.
“Mom! Mom, are you okay?” I called out, hating feeling so helpless.
She nodded. When she regained herself, I blew out a breath of relief.
She continued. “You already know part of the story. But one day there was this little towheaded boy. No more than six or seven years old. I watched him drive his big wheel into the field and with his little rusted pocket knife, he snipped off a flower, waved to Critter, and drove away.” She laughed softly. “When I asked Critter about it he told me that the boy did that almost every week. When I asked what he was doing with the flowers, Critter told me that he found the boy in his field one day and he was upset because he was in trouble with his mother for swearing.” She shook her head like she still couldn’t believe it herself.
“Critter snipped a flower and gave it to the boy. He told him to go and apologize to his mother and give her the flower. Well, it must have worked because every week after that Critter said the boy was there with his own knife snipping away. One for his teacher because he told her that math was for people who didn’t have calculators. Another for the lady at the bakery for knocking over her cake display in the window that had taken her all weekend to put together.”
“That’s kind of adorable,” I commented, my heart breaking as my mind replayed the roof collapsing in the library over and over again. Maybe we would have a boy who liked Finn. Maybe he’d never get to meet his father.
While I was breaking inside, Mother spoke as if we were on the porch drinking tea.
“It was adorable. Turns out, it happened so often that they came to deal where Critter roped off a patch of sunflowers just for the boy to take as he pleased.”
The rising water was now soaking my shorts up my thighs. I knew had to move faster if I any chance and cutting through my restraints.
My mother looked over at me. She raised her voice above the wind which had picked up. “You were named Sawyer because of Finn.” She sighed happily as if we are about to go pick out bridesmaid’s dresses and weren’t about to meet our ends in a murky swamp.
My stomach felt rock hard. I wanted to flee from this nightmare. I held back the scream that threatened to tear from my throat. “Mother, why aren’t you panicking?” I managed to ask, swallowing down my fear in one hard gulp.
She smiled over at me. “I’m terrified for you and the life you and your child may never get to live. But me? I came to terms with my own death years ago.”
My mother kept talking. I kept trying to free myself. “Critter and I even joked how if we ever had a girl that she could marry Finn because he already knew what most men would never learn, how to apologize.”
Now it was my eyes tearing up as I imagined a little version of Finn causing problems all around Outskirts and fixing them with a flower and a sly dimpled smile. “How did you get Richard to ever agree to the name?”
She looks almost proud when she gave me her answer. “Sawyer means woodcutter in Celtic. All I did was stretch the truth a little. And since I couldn’t flat out recommend the name to him because he’d just swat it down, I told some of the ladies in church, but I told them that Sawyer meant carpenter, like the occupation of Jesus himself. Sure enough, before I was about to give birth to you, the name had made its way to Richard. One day he announced to me that your name was going to be Sawyer, like it had been handed down to him in a vision from God himself.” She began to laugh hysterically.
“That was very sneaky of you, Mother. I didn’t know you had it in you.”
She sighed heavily. “I did.” Her eyes became unfocused and suddenly it was like she was staring through me and not seeing me. Her head began to make an orbiting motion, small circles.
“Mom?” I yelled.
No response.
“Mom!” I called out louder.
Her eyes closed and she blinked rapidly like she was trying to clear her mind. “Sawyer?” she asked, and then her eyes closed and her chin fell to her chest revealing an angry looking bloody wound on the top of her head. She needed help.
Soon.
“Stay with me, Mom,” I called over to her. The water was now above our waists and still rising.
Her eyes remained closed, but she spoke again, only she sounded like she was far away instead of right in front of me. “Mom,” she said. “I… I like it when you call me that. It’s much better than Mother.”
Then silence.
“Mom, Mom!” I yelled. Hoping for at the very least another incoherent answer.
Still no answer.
“Moooooom!” I groaned as the water rose and was now at chest level. If my mother stayed in her current position, she’d be breathing in the murky water within the next few minutes. “You need to pick your head up, Mom. Pick it up!” My yells turn into screams.
I pulled at the restraints tying my hands together and growled when they didn’t give yet again.
I needed to stay calm. Think. Clear my mind.
With the water rising all around us and the fear of losing my mother and my unborn child’s lives, I harnessed my panic and attempted to find some clarity amongst the chaos.
I’d grown up in a home where the religion was strict and the enforcement of both God and my father’s laws were even stricter. I’d bowed my head thousands of times and recited words of faith because I was told they needed to be said. But I’d never truly prayed. I never put any meaning behind the words I was saying. I never believed them enough to be true or had the kind of faith that others found easy to trust in blindly.
Dear God, Universe, Ma’am, Sir, Flying Spaghetti Monster,
I don’t know how to pray anymore. Actually, I don’t think I ever did. I was taught to always give you thanks and never ask for anything because you would provide me with everything I needed
and to ask for more would be questioning your will.
A sin.
But since so much has been a lie, I’m going to go out on a limb and assume that asking you for something I need, not want, is okay. Maybe just this once.
I’d start by saying thank you for all you’ve given me but there isn’t any time. I’m going to jump right in and offer you a bargain. Maybe it’s wrong, but I don’t want to ask you for something so big without offering you something in return.
But I have to try because I don’t just have something to lose.
I have everything to lose.
Please, I beg you, spare my mother, she’s been through so much. She’s endured the unthinkable. She deserves a chance to live her bliss. To be happy. I want her to know how it feels to live without fear and be loved unconditionally by someone who doesn’t expect anything in return. And for your generosity in sparing her, I offer you me. But only after the baby is born and safe in her father’s arms. Then I’ll go with you. Willingly and happily the second I know they are all safe and together.
Please let my family live and I’ll do anything you want.
Anything at all.
I repeated my prayer over and over again and at some point, I must have drifted off to sleep because I was dreaming of a blonde woman with a bright smile and a purple silk scarf wrapped around her neck walking toward me. But her feet weren’t touching the water, she was walking on top of it. Maybe I was just hallucinating. Or maybe I was already dead. I felt the panic. The very real panic shoot through my veins like a jolt of adrenaline.
If I was dead. It meant the baby was dead too.
“No! I can’t be dead. I can’t be dead.”
The woman crouched before me and smiled. Her white pants and blouse were unwrinkled, unstained. She smelled like fresh linen. She looked familiar, but I couldn’t place her. “Don’t you worry. You’re not dead. Not yet anyway. Your baby is safe, but you have to listen to me very carefully.”
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