Chapter 4
GWEN
The nightmare woke me again.
I lay there in bed, staring at the cedar wood ceiling, waiting for my heart rate to settle.
Bluish moonlight trickled in from the window on my right.
It was the only luminance, just enough to remind me where I was, that I was safe in my bed, in my cabin, hundreds of miles from anyone who would hurt me.
Honey snored at my feet, a reminder of that fact.
Eventually, my shaking hands would ease, my heart rate would slow, and I would fall back to sleep. That was the hope. There was a TV on the dresser before me, but no Internet. I could’ve popped in a DVD, but no guarantee that would put me to sleep either.
I still didn’t understand the nightmares. Even from an evolutionary standpoint. I’d gotten out. For almost a year, I had been out. I was safe. I had been safe for all this time.
So why did my brain taunt me with memories I couldn’t change? Were they reminders to never go back? Or were they a punishment?
Punishment made the most sense. I deserved it.
When enough time passed, and I was certain I wasn’t falling back to sleep on my own, I did what everyone did when they couldn’t sleep. Checked my phone.
New Message: Sebastian 9:52 p.m.
My stomach swirled, and a smile touched my lips.
Damn it. Damn it, I had to stop this. Last time I swooned at a screen, I was fourteen, and I’d just met Troy.
Clearly, that hadn’t turned out well.
Sebastian; All’s Well that Ends is my favorite. Counting Cards is a strong second.
Ugh, that damn smile ached my cheeks.
It hadn’t been like this with Troy. He never cared about music I showed him.
But Simone listened to songs I sent her too. What the hell made me think this was even the slightest bit romantic?
No, no, no. This was stupid. We were just two friends, talking about a good band. And friends didn’t reply in the dead of the night.
I tossed my phone to the pillows and stumbled out of bed. Grabbing my hoodie off the hook by the door, I looked at Honey. Her eyes were open now.
“Do you want to go outside?” I asked her.
She smacked her lips a time or two and looked away.
“Guess not.” I gave her a scratch on the head, reached into the drawer below the TV, and came out with a joint.
While I didn’t smoke much, Simone had suggested it when I’d first gotten here.
I hadn’t wanted to, but after that first nightmare, I figured it worth a shot.
It didn’t take long to realize she’d been right.
Sometimes, it was the only thing that would keep the nightmares at bay.
Beyond doubt, it would help me fall back to sleep.
After walking down the hall and through the kitchen, I grabbed my candle lighter off the counter. My attire wasn’t ideal for a hike—just a pair of sweatpants, a hoodie, and some snow boots—but it would be fine for a quick smoke on the porch.
The cold wind blasted my cheeks as I stepped outside. Snow trickled from the clouds overhead, adding onto the two feet already covering every inch. The plowed gravel path provided a clear line of how much snow we had gathered in the last two weeks since it came for the mountains.
Autumn in Montana always had a risk of this kind of weather. Back home, there wouldn’t be any accumulation for at least another month. Up here though? We could get snow in the summer.
Holding the joint between my lips, I flicked the lighter on. As I held it to the end, something sounded on my left. It was hard to tell with all the pine trees around, especially because my cabin was the most secluded of them all. The first one anyone driving into the ranch would see.
I was in the densest patch of woods, surrounded by it really. I heard all sorts of things at night. Coyotes howling. Crows screeching. Even a few bears growling. Not to mention the raccoons who loved getting into my garbage.
That’s what I thought it was at first. I even glanced around the cabin to look at my cans around back. They still sat there, untouched. No raccoons in sight.
The sound came from further in the distance. Taking another hit off the joint, I squinted in that direction.
Headlights? Were those headlights glowing behind the cluster of pine trees?
Then, clear as day, “Stop!”
Simone. That was Simone’s voice.
Why was she so close to the exit? It was 11 p.m.. She and Junie, her daughter, were usually in bed by 10.
I set the joint in the ashtray atop the railing and took off. No matter what I wanted, I couldn’t move like lightning down the icy flagstone path.
Her voice was louder as I approached the gravel road. With the stability of the stones beneath me, my careful steps morphed into a steady jog.
I still couldn’t make out every word, but there was someone else’s too. Someone was yelling at her. They were yelling at each other.
Was there an animal? Had someone reported it, and Simone was sent to check it out? Was that voice Axel’s?
That voice was deep enough. It could’ve been Axel. I couldn’t make it out with perfect clarity, but it was definitely a man’s voice.
If it was an animal, I needed to be prepared.
Jogging still, I fingered the blade inside my hoodie pocket.
I’d gotten into the habit of carrying a pocketknife over the last year.
Although I had yet to confront a wild animal who wouldn’t back down when I yelled at them, it didn’t hurt to be prepared.
My heart pounded faster, harder, as I jogged down the gravel road. The shaking of my hands, the pounding in my chest, had me wondering if I was still asleep. Was this even real? I’d had worse dreams, stranger ones.
That question only got louder in my mind when I rounded the bend, closer to the gate, and my suspicion was confirmed. There were headlights.
Before them stood two figures. Nothing more than silhouettes. One had to be Simone. She was my best friend. I’d recognize her voice in a choir.
The other was a man. He was a few inches taller, nearly a foot broader, with a voice that boomed like thunder. I still couldn’t make out every word he was saying, until I caught Simone say, “…allowed to be here, David.”
David.
That was her ex-husband’s name. A man that made my ex look like a saint.
That monster was here.
He stood in front of the open gate.
The gate was open.
I was atop the hill, coming down to them, with at least a few more hundred feet to go.
But I wasn’t fast enough, because he said something, and she said something, then she was up against the car.
Only his silhouette was visible. He was yelling, but I couldn’t make out the words.
It was an incoherent jumble, just as it always had been with Troy.
Syllables mashed together, barely forming sentences, but they weren’t what mattered.
The tone did. The deep, husky growl. It wasn’t different from that of a wolf’s.
In therapy, they told us not to look at men as predators, because when we did, we removed their accountability from their actions.
They were not predators. They were people who chose to exploit their power, just as David was doing now.
Simone was invisible, hidden behind his frame, and she was silent.
Simone was never silent.
His fist raised, and it fell, and it raised, and it fell, and I screamed, “Stop!”
Only then did he turn.
Sooner. I should’ve spoken sooner.
“Leave her alone,” I said, winded, still half a dozen strides away. “I don’t know what you’re doing here, but you’ve got to go.”
Releasing Simone, he spun around. She dropped to the ground like a bomb, a thundering thwack echoing through the cold winter night. “You people have my kid. And I’m not going anywhere until I see her—”
“You’re leaving before I call the cops and they lock you up for another domestic violence charge, David,” I snapped.
The balls he had to mention Junie. After what he’d done to her, after the story Simone told at group tonight, I had to grit my teeth to keep from screaming.
This wasn’t about Junie. Just as it wasn’t about Honey when I’d left Troy.
Men like David used those who mattered most to us as leverage to weasel their way back into our lives, to continue controlling us, to force us into their arms. If I knew nothing about this bastard, I would feel bad that he hadn’t seen his daughter in four years.
But I did know. I knew what he’d done to that little girl.
I knew why Simone had run from him. It was the best thing she could’ve done for Junie. I’d use myself as a human shield to protect that sweet child from this monster if it came to that.
“Bullshit.” His face was still disguised by the headlights behind him, all distinguishing features a mere dark shadow. “She hit me first. It doesn’t matter anyway. We have a custody agreement. My kid’s behind this gate, and I’m gonna—”
“You’re gonna leave,” I repeated, stepping closer. We were only a few feet apart now. “You’re never gonna see Junie again. Get that through your head. I know what you did. I know everything you did, you sick son of a bitch, and you’re never going to hurt either of them again.”
“I don’t know who the hell you think you are,” he said, taking another step in.
“But I have rights. She has warrants.” A wave at Simone, still lying on the ground, barely conscious—if she was still breathing at all.
“This bitch stole my kid. That’s kidnapping.
And you think you can—” Another step in. He shoved his chest into mine.
I pushed back.
Then it was a blur.
He shoved me, I pushed him. His hand came at my face, made contact. I jammed my knee toward his groin, then, somehow, his hand was around my throat.
His hand was around my throat, and I didn’t see his face. I didn’t see his eyes.
I saw Troy. I saw the nightmare I had just woken from twenty minutes ago.
I wasn’t surrounded by knee-high snow. I was standing in my kitchen, and the coffee pot was whizzing past my head, and Troy was screaming, then he was in front of me, those blue eyes so cold, so dead, but I had a blade this time.
I had a blade in my hoodie pocket.
Before I realized what I was doing, my hand was on it, switching it open. Before I realized what I was doing, it was in his gut. Before I realized what I was doing, I stabbed again.
And again.
And again.
Blood trickled from Troy’s lips.
I stabbed again.
He released my throat.
He fell to the ground, steam wafting from his blood, a cloud gathering between us, floating from each wound like smoke from the engine of a train.
There, laying atop the snow, covered in crimson, his blue eyes turned brown.
His nose got bigger, his lips thicker. Rather than a balding blonde, a mop of brown covered in a black beanie.
Instead of sweatpants and a band T-shirt, he wore baggie jeans.
Beneath his black jacket, his white tank top was bright red.
He wasn’t Troy anymore.
He was David.
He was dead.
I couldn’t move.
Hands trembling at my sides, I dropped the blade. “Shit. Shit, shit, shit.”