I sit down on the rock to make sure I’m ready for the strike that will come. The strikes always come at night.
I hold my legs to my chest, trying to warm myself, but I just shiver in the coldness. “Fight, baby girl." I hear my mother’s voice, and I get up.
“Grandma,” I call her name, the tears running down my face.
"You need to fight with everything you have." Her voice comes stronger. “You are the strongest girl I know."
I look around the darkness as I try to walk to where the voice is coming from, but every time I step forward, I sink into the black earth. "She’s flatlining."
“Grandma!” I call her name again. “Come back for me!" I cry out. “Don’t leave me again." The ache in my chest feels stronger than it has since she left me. "I can’t do it without you."
"You can,” she says, and I feel heat all over my body, almost as if she is giving me a hug. "You have to." The pressure on my chest gets stronger and stronger as my grandmother’s voice gets farther and farther away from me. "You are so brave" is the last thing I hear from her before the beeping starts up again, this time getting louder and louder in my ears.
I hold my hands up to my ears to block it out. “That was close," someone says.
"We aren’t out of the woods yet," the man’s voice says, and I lie down in the darkness of the forest. My legs bend, and my arms are stretched out as the pain in my body comes back to me.
He’s hit me before, but nothing like the last time. My arm snapped back so hard I knew my shoulder was dislocated as he hit me over and over again. The rage in him because I wouldn’t do what he asked me to do. I wouldn’t be a pawn in his game. The burning in my head returns, and I close my eyes just so I can fade to the blackness.
Chapter 3
Quinn
"It’s been eight hours." I look over at the nurse who just stares at me. I’ve been coming to the desk every thirty minutes, and they’ve said the same thing over and over again. Two other nurses avoid my eyes as I stand here.
"And like I told you before,” she says, looking at me. “As soon as we know something, we are going to let you know." She looks down at the chart in front of her.
Turning around, I run my hands through my hair and go back to the empty waiting room. It’s been like this the whole night. Black chairs are set around the room with two vending machines. Two tables in the room hold newspapers that look like they’ve been thrown on them. The television is on, but there is no sound. I look out the window, seeing the sun has come up. The big window faces the parking lot with just a couple of cars parked there.
I watch the sun move up and replace the moon. The only thing in my head is the look of her eyes when she opened them and looked at me. I saw the look of horror. I saw the look of fear. I saw the look of a woman who was one step away from letting go.
"There he is." I turn and see my mother and father walk in with a tray of coffees. “We brought you coffee.”
The second I got to the hospital, Mom was running to be with my aunt Savannah as my cousin Chelsea was being rushed into surgery. Slowly, the room filled up with everyone we could think to call, but then just as slowly, the room started to empty when the news came that Chelsea was out of surgery and waking up. Ethan had wanted to stay, but I forced him out of here when I looked over to see Emily holding their baby girl in her arms. The only ones who stayed with me were my parents.
We watched the seconds turn into minutes and then the minutes turn into hours. I finally kicked them out of here four hours ago. My mother didn’t want to leave me, but my father dragged her out of here.
"Any news?" My mother sets the tray down and gives me a hug.
"Nothing,” I say, shaking my head and grabbing the cup of hot coffee from the brown takeout container. I take a sip, ignoring the burning right down to my stomach.
Sitting down, I look down at my feet. I’m still wearing the black outfit from when I found her. The only thing I took off was the bulletproof vest.
“Honey," my mother says, and I look over at her. She wrings her hands together, and I know she is nervous about what she is going to say. "What are you doing here?"
"Darlin’," my father says. My parents met when my mother was running from her ex. She is from the city, and he is from the country. Watching them together is like watching oil and water mix.
"Don’t you darlin’ me, cowboy,” she says, folding her arms over her chest. "I’m just asking the question everyone else is too afraid to ask." She turns and looks at me. “What the hell are you doing here?"
"Mom," I say, taking another sip of my coffee. “What do you expect me to do, just leave her here alone?" I ask. She opens her mouth to say something, but nothing comes out. “We don’t even know who the fuck she is, let alone how to contact a family member to wait for her. Dying alone." I shake my head, trying to swallow down the lump in my throat. The same lump that has been there since she opened her eyes and looked at me. “No one deserves that, Mom."
She puts her hand on mine. “But you don’t even know if she is a good person."
I look up at my father. “She has a point there. She was in the cabin." He runs his hands through his blond hair. They say I look exactly like him, but I’m a touch taller than he is.
"Under a fucking bed, beaten almost to death,” I say, sitting up. “I doubt she would be in there fighting for her life if they were working together. What if she has parents out there looking for her?" I ask my mother. “What if a mother, just like you, is sitting down in her living room waiting for the phone to ring? What if it was Harlow?"
"I get the picture, Quinn," my mother says, wiping a tear away from her face.
"Did anyone contact the missing persons?" I look over at my father, knowing that if anyone can find out who she is, it would be him.
"I contacted a couple of friends of mine and put some feelers out there." He puts his hands on his hips. “But no one fitting her description has been reported as missing."
I shake my head. “I don’t know what her story is, but something inside me tells me she has nothing to do with this."
"Or maybe you are too close to it to see what is right in front of you," my father says. Ever since I can remember, he has never been the one to sugarcoat things. He looks at things from both sides and sees the good and the bad in everyone. In his field, I guess he has to, and most times, we are butting heads about things. It’s why I didn’t follow in his footsteps. It’s why instead of going into computers, I stuck to the farm life.
"Or maybe, just maybe she was held there and not given a choice," I counter, and my father just stares at me.
"Guys," my mother says, trying to calm us both down. "It’s not the time or the place for this."
My father and I share a look, and I know that this conversation is far from over.
I’m about to say something else when I see the doctor coming out. His scrubs are full of blood as he looks down with a defeated expression.
"You need to rein it in," my father says, “I know that look, Quinn. You need to realize both of you are on the same side."