by Katy Regnery
But even if she isn’t, I could use seeing her as a test. Even if I catch a glimpse of her out of the corner of my eye, I won’t allow my gaze to linger. No matter how drawn to her I feel, no matter how lovely her face and sad her eyes, I can fight against the temptation. I can force myself to look away, to stay away, to keep her safe from me, and then I’ll know that I am stronger than my father—that, given the opportunity, I won’t yield to weakness or temptation, that I won’t indulge even my longing to look.
A test. Yes.
And so I start loosely following the trail through the woods, not on it, but nearby, climbing through brambles and over rotting logs as the rain beats down on my bare head, bathing me in heaven’s tears.
Up and up. My breath is steady because I am accustomed to such exertion, my long legs carry me surely over the uneven forest floor, and I guess it’ll take another hour or so to reach the cloudy top. But I will make it. I will—
That’s when I hear it break through the thrumming of my heart, the crunching of my boots, over the roar of the wind and the rain . . .
A scream.
I stop in my tracks from the singular awfulness of it, frozen in place, waiting to hear it again.
A hawk, I try to convince myself, hoping against hope that it wasn’t a human sound. But rationally, I know that no bird of prey would be out in this rain. They’re waiting out the rain in their nests, beaks tucked under feathers.
Again I hear it.
And now I’m certain it wasn’t an animal screech; it was definitely a human scream. Piercing, tormented, and high-pitched over the wind, it is the sound of intense distress.
My feet move suddenly, racing toward the sound. They are stealthy over the brush, running fast. My calloused hands reach for thin tree trunks, and I use them to propel myself forward like slingshots. The rain bites at my face, but I run in spite of it, everything within me rising up against the genesis or provocation of this sound.
Again the piercing scream, closer now, but weaker, and I do something I’ve never done before: I leave the woods and allow my feet to touch down on the path. With my eyes closed and body still, I freeze on the path, waiting for the sound again, willing for it to find me and guide me.
Heeeeeeeelp!
Through the whipping wind, through the angry rain, I hear it, and my whole body jerks to the right as if obeying its command. Crossing back over the path, I run as fast as I can toward one of the brown-painted Appalachian Trail lean-tos set along the path.
I race to it, shocked by what I find.
A man squats in the left corner of the lean-to, hovering over something on the floor. Unaware of my presence, he lifts his arm, a bloody, dripping knife suspended over his head for a moment before he brings it down with the whole force of his body, the sound of a slice followed by the squish of blood as the knife is withdrawn and raised again. Dark red drops drip down onto the man’s head as he adjusts his grip and plans to lower the blade again.
Noooooooooo!
I am in motion, my body surging forward, up and onto the platform, my hands landing under his raised arms and yanking him back. His body, the first human form I’ve touched in the decade since Gramp’s passing, is easy to lift because I have surprised him. I throw him across the small space with all my might, into the wall to my left, his legs knocking into a bench as he flies through the air. I watch his head slam into the wall with a sickening thud. He falls to the floor, and I stand over his body, waiting for him to stir, but he is still, knocked unconscious.
Turning back to the corner, I recognize her hair and jacket immediately.
“No!” I cry, fisting my hands helplessly by my sides as I shake my head. “No, no, no!”
It’s Brynn—small, brave Brynn—curled up in fetal position, her face battered, her jacket ripped and bloody.
The instant, and almost blinding, mix of panic and rage should paralyze me, but it doesn’t. I reach down and scoop her small body into my arms without thinking, moving her away from the corner and onto my lap. Gingerly pushing up her jacket and shirt, I can see several stab wounds concentrated on her waist and hip. None are gushing blood, so it appears—by the grace of God—that her attacker didn’t hit a major artery.
She whimpers as I hold her, turning her head into my chest, and a slight scent of sweetness rises up between us. Vanilla. The beautiful, injured woman on my lap smells like sugar cookies, which makes me sob for no good reason, except that this shouldn’t have happened to her, and I am furious that it has.
Her injuries bleed slowly, in pools of crimson that slide in garish red streaks over her creamy skin and drip onto the floor. I need to stop the bleeding as best I can, so I reach for her backpack and open it. Inside, I find a T-shirt and a couple of pairs of thick, cotton socks, dry inside a Ziploc bag, and a first aid kit. I use her dry T-shirt to wipe at the stab wounds, counting six. Because they are close together, I am able to cover all of them with her clean socks, and then I use an Ace bandage from the first aid kit to affix them, wrapping the tan, stretchy bandage around her waist and hips and securing it with a double pin.
I can’t be sure that the wounds aren’t immediately life-threatening, but based on what I learned in the paramedic correspondence course that Gramp forced me to take, I don’t believe they are. Still, they need to be cleaned, sewed, and dressed as soon as possible.
I pull her shredded, bloody shirt and jacket back over the improvised dressings and gaze down at her face, gently pushing wet strings of hair from her forehead and trying to figure out what to do now.
Not that I am intimately familiar with the smell of alcohol, but Gramp indulged in bourbon now and then, and I can smell it strongly around me. Glancing around, I pause my eyes on the man’s still-unconscious body. Hmm. If he’d had enough liquor to make the whole lean-to smell, he’d probably be out for a while.
Perhaps I should leave her here, scramble down the mountain to a public telephone, and call the Chimney Pond ranger station to come and collect her?
I look over at her attacker again, feeling a storm of fury rise up, swirling within me. No. You can’t leave her with him. What if he wakes up and tries to finish the job he started?
You could tie him up, my brain reasons. But I rebel against this notion stubbornly. If he woke up before her, he could have a couple of hours to free himself and hurt her again before I am able to find a phone and make a call.
Besides, what if I am wrong about the severity of Brynn’s wounds? What if one of the stab wounds is fatal?
I can feel the weight of her body on my lap, and I know she doesn’t weigh much. I could easily carry her to the ranger’s station.
But . . .
Once there, I will have to give my name. They might even suspect that I am the one who hurt her. What if, in the time it took for me to take her to safety, her actual attacker woke up and ran away? I’m the son of a convicted serial killer. No way they’d believe I was innocent in all of this.
She mewls softly, and I scramble to come up with another plan.
I could . . . well, I could carry her a little ways down the trail, closer to Chimney Pond, and then prop her against a tree, hoping someone would find her.
But I glance out the open front of the lean-to at the dark sky, sheeting rain, and empty trail. She could end up sitting against that tree all afternoon and into the night. And if an animal didn’t get her, drawn to the smell of her blood, what if someone else—like the human animal lying to my right—tried to hurt her again?
My arms tense at the thought of her being hurt anymore, and I hold her closer, wincing at her faint moan as I shift her hip. She is in pain. Even unconscious, she is in pain.
I can’t leave her. I have to take her with me and get her to safety.
The incisions will need to be sewn shut once I get her home, but there I have antibiotic ointment and pills, plus a full stock of first aid items to tend to her. It’s still raining like hell, but I am young and strong, and she needs me. I can do this.
�
��I’m gonna get you down from here,” I say, looking around the lean-to as I figure out how to carry her.
I’ll have to leave her backpack here. She probably weighs a little over a hundred pounds, and it will already be slow going through the woods.
At least we’re going down, not up, I think, shifting her carefully to the floor.
She whimpers softly and murmurs, “Help me,” so quietly, I almost could have dreamed it.
I kneel down beside her, leaning my head close enough to smell sugar cookies again. I savor the sweetness of the smell as I whisper, “I’ll help you, Brynn.” I add, more out of hope than certainty, “You’re safe with me. You’re safe now. I won’t hurt you. I promise.”
Her furrowed brows relax, and I hear her sigh softly, which tugs at my thrumming heart. Though I would happily stare at her forever, I force myself into action. I have work to do.
Reaching back into her pack, I find a ten-foot rope and double it, tying a secure knot at the end to create a large double loop. I hoist her on my back, one loop of the rope holding her against my back, and the other acting as a sling for her butt. I reach for her legs, putting my arms under her knees to carry her piggyback-style.
With one last look at the piece of human excrement who hurt her, I turn from the lean-to, into the pouring rain, and start back down Katahdin.
I don’t know if I’m doing the right thing.
I hope to God, praying with every heavy step I take, that any evil that lived within my father doesn’t live within me . . . but there is no way to be certain.
The only thing I know with any certainty is that I couldn’t leave her.
So I carry her.
Seven miles on my back.
All evening and into the night. Rain pelts me from every direction. Wind whips my hair into my face and debris into my eyes. More than once I lose my footing and stumble, my sheer desperation to bring Brynn to safety the only thing that rights our bodies before a dozen disastrous falls.
My back feels, at times, like it will break.
My legs ache. My arms burn.
And still I carry her.
All the way home.
Brynn
I don’t know why-y-y nobody told you . . .
Pretty.
So pretty.
I try to open my eyes, but they are heavy and sluggish so I stop trying, concentrating on the soft music that is coming from somewhere nearby. A clear male voice sings the old Beatles ballad. The gentle strains of a guitar are so ethereal, I don’t know if I am awake or dreaming.
Dreaming, I decide, drifting back into a deep sleep.
I’m only dreaming.
***
“I don’t want to hurt you, but I need to put a little more ointment on here, okay, Brynn?”
Okay, I think, whimpering when I feel the pressure of a finger tracing a painful line on my hip. There is a moment of relief, and then the pressure resumes in another spot. Groaning in pain, I force my eyes open. They don’t want to focus, but it appears that I am lying down, staring up at a ceiling made of wooden beams. I clench my eyes shut as the pressure returns, but hot tears escape, slipping from the wells of my eyes, scorching a trail down my cheeks.
“I know it hurts,” he says, his deep voice thick with regret. “I promise I wouldn’t do it if I had another choice.”
I close my eyes, sinking into his voice and anchoring myself to it at the same time. Though the voice is intimately familiar to me, I can find no face in my mind with which to identify it. Had it not been for a sixth sense telling me that I am in a safe place, I might become panicked . . . because how can his voice be familiar when I have no idea what he looks like?
“You’re okay now,” he whispers close to my ear, the warmth in his voice like a lullaby. “Sleep, Brynn. Heal. I’ll be here when you wake up.”
Who? I want to ask. Who will be here when I wake up? Who are you?
But sleep is already pulling me under.
And I don’t fight it.
***
My eyes open to a dimly lit room, my ears aware of someone singing softly to a guitar. I know this song. I’ve heard it before. Closing my eyes again, I listen for a moment, licking my lips and finding them dry and painful.
“Water?” I manage to croak.
The guitar stops instantly.
My eyes flutter open to find someone walking toward me, his form tall but hazy as he comes closer, finally standing over my bed.
Do I know you? How do I know you?
“Brynn? Did you say something?”
His voice is familiar—deeply familiar—though it is not my father, and it is not Jem.
“Did you say ‘water’?”
“Please,” I murmur, my throat so dry and scratchy, the single word hurts.
The mattress beneath my body depresses a little as he sits next to me. Placing his hand behind my skull, he lifts it, and I find cool glass pressed against my lower lip. I drink greedily as he tips the glass. Some of the water dribbles down my chin in my haste to hydrate.
Where am I? And . . . .who . . . ?
The glass is removed, and a moment later, a washcloth wipes the drizzle from my chin and neck.
“Who are you?” I ask, my voice soft and raspy. “Where am I?”
“I’m Cassidy,” he says, shifting his body from the bed to kneel beside it. His eyes are now level with mine.
I don’t know him.
If I had ever met him before, I wouldn’t have forgotten him. Why? Because his eyes are unforgettable, otherworldly. Surrounded by long, thick lashes that curl up at the ends, his left eye is green and his right eye is blue.
“Your eyes . . .,” I murmur.
“It’s heterochromia,” he says, blinking self-consciously. His lips flinch slightly, like he wants to smile but doesn’t. “Weird, but not contagious.”
I let my eyes skim over the rest of his face.
His skin is clear, though deeply tanned, and he has three moles—beauty marks—on his left cheek: a tiny one under his eye, a larger one in the middle of his cheek, and the largest of the three a bit lower, covered by the dirty-blond scruff of his beard.
His hair is unkempt, as though it hasn’t been cut professionally in a while, standing up at odd angles, a combination of bed head and owner apathy. It is a dark blond with copper highlights, the ends almost flaxen, and curled at his neck. Like his eyelashes, it gives him a youthful, disarming look.
“How do I know you?” I ask.
“You don’t, really.”
I stare into his eyes, the different colors slightly jarring. “Where am I?”
“My home.”
“Umm . . .” My heart starts beating faster because I know I am forgetting something—something very important that would explain why I am here. “Why . . . What . . . what happened to me?”
“Breathe in,” says Cassidy, his voice firm but gentle.
I take a breath.
“Deeper.”
I inhale enough breath to fill my lungs but cry out in agony as they expand. Sharp, shooting pains from my hip and side force me to exhale slowly. Blinking at Cassidy, I see him wince in sympathy before nodding.
“Do you remember?”
“I hurt,” I moan, my eyes shuttering closed from the pain.
“Brynn,” he says, his voice farther away now, like he is calling my name down a well. “Brynn, stay with me . . .”
“I hurt,” I whisper again, surrendering to darkness.
***
The next time I wake up, I remember things right away:
I am in Cassidy’s house.
Cassidy’s eyes are different colors.
I don’t know how I know Cassidy.
Cassidy doesn’t want to hurt me.
My body hurts.
Don’t breathe too deep.
I am lying on my back but turn my head to the side, finding a man—the same Cassidy that my brain remembers—asleep in a rocking chair beside my bed.
I recognize his face from before (min
utes ago? hours ago? yesterday? last week?), but I still study it for a few minutes.
His lips are parted and slack, full and pink, and I have a sudden image of kissing them, which shocks the hell out of me since I haven’t had a hot thought about a man since losing Jem. Tugging my bottom lip between my teeth, I find it tender to the touch. Reaching up to finger it, I find a scab on the upper right lip and another on the lower, as though both were split. Touching the rest of my face gingerly, I find a Band-Aid on my forehead and wince when I press down on it. Another anonymous wound.
I remember Cassidy telling me to breathe deeply the last time I woke up, and I slowly move my fingers down my body, grateful to discover I am clothed, wearing a T-shirt and underwear. As my fingers near my waist, I feel the pain of my touch. And when I try to move, to test the soundness of the area by shifting my body, I feel it even more sharply.
Sucking in a breath, I cease my crude examination, removing my fingers and flattening them on the sheets by my hips as tears fill my eyes.
I am hurt on my face and my body. Someone has hurt me.
You’re just tourists in my dreams.
I look over at Cassidy, who snores lightly in his sleep, but instinctively I know it wasn’t him. I don’t know how I know this so certainly, but I do. I know that I am safe with him.
“Cassidy?” I whisper.
I have so many questions, and I am too awake to go back to sleep.
His eyes flinch, and he changes his body position just slightly, but otherwise he remains asleep.
“Cassidy?” I say a little louder.
“Mama?” He grunts softly, his eyes blinking open.
“Brynn,” I say, watching him reach up and rub his eyes.
“Hey.” He leans forward. “You’re awake.”
“How long have I been here?” I ask, trying to sit up, but the pain in my side reminds me that I need to move slowly.
A crease appears in his forehead. “Three days, I guess.”
“I’ve been asleep for three days?”
“You’ve been in and out,” he says, resting his elbows on his knees as he looks back at me with one green eye and one blue.