7. Night Drive & Dark Fears #2
“There is a kid,” Cara said, already moving. She wrenched the door open to reveal a tiny girl strapped in her booster seat, face contorted in terror, knuckles stark white around a filthy teddy bear.
“It’s over now, sweetheart,” Cara whispered, her fingers already working the buckle.
The little girl launched herself into Cara’s arms, her small body convulsing with sobs. “MOMMY!” she screamed, the sound like glass breaking. “I WANT MY MOMMY!”
The woman crumpled forward, a guttural sound ripping loose from her throat as Cara lowered the trembling child into her arms.
“Layla, baby, oh Christ,” she gasped, crushing her daughter against her chest, rocking her.
Seth’s throat closed tight. The scene seared itself into his memory alongside every other nightmare he carried—this one heavier, because he’d come within seconds of witnessing a slaughter he couldn’t undo.
Jay knelt beside them, his voice low and even. “Ma’am, you’re safe. We won’t hurt you. Was he alone?”
Josie shook her head, a violent, full-body tremor. “Yes… just him. In a lot… I though he wanted the car. That’s what he said.” Her voice shattered. “He lied. He just… kept talking… saying what he was going to do…”
Seth’s jaw locked.
Jay met his gaze, a silent understanding, forged by years of conflict, passing between them.
Jay exhaled slowly. “Alright. Let’s get everyone inside. We’ll figure out what happens next.”
Seth remained rooted to the spot a moment longer, staring down at the dead man on the asphalt—thinking of Molly, of AJ, of every failure he still carried in his chest like shrapnel.
Tonight, at least, he hadn’t failed.
Nearly an hour passed before Cara managed to calm Josie’s enough for the woman to breathe without sobbing. Layla slept in her mother’s arms now, little fists curled tight, cheek pressed against Josie’s collarbone. Even in sleep, the child trembled.
Cara kept her voice low and even, a calm point in the dark. “You’re safe now. He can’t hurt you. Not you, not your little girl.”
Josie nodded, but her eyes stayed glazed, shock clinging to her like frost that refused to thaw.
Outside, the night air cut sharp against exposed skin as Jay and Seth dragged the man’s body toward the tree line behind the church. The weight didn’t bother them; the silence did. Their boots crunched over brittle pine needles, the only sound for yards in any direction.
Halfway to the woods, Jay cast a sideways glance. “You good?”
Seth’s jaw flexed. “Yeah. I’m fine.”
Jay didn’t buy it—not with the stiffness locked into Seth’s shoulders, not with that clipped tone—but he knew better and let it lie.
Seth exhaled through his nose, breath fogging in the cold. “The sick fuck intended to rape her,” he said, his voice low and shaking with a rage he hadn’t permitted himself until this moment. “Right there. In front of her kid.”
Jay’s face hardened, the lines around his eyes deepening. “Yeah,” he said. “That’s the world we live in now.”
They kept dragging.
Branches brushed Seth’s arms as the shadows of the woods swallowed them both. He dropped the body without ceremony, without a word—discarding it like something poisonous he refused to carry any further.
Jay stepped back, his gaze drifting toward the faint glow of the church parking lot. “Lucky for her we stumbled on that place,” he muttered. “Another ten minutes and…”
He didn’t finish the sentence. He didn’t need to.
Seth wiped his hands on his pants, anger still simmering beneath his skin, but it was cooling, leaving something hard and clear in its place.
“Let’s get back,” he said. “They need us.”
As they turned toward the vehicles, the wind picked up, rustling through the dry leaves of the trees behind them.
Cara’s voice was a steady presence in the quiet backseat turned sleeping quarters. “Josie… why don’t you lie her down?”
She gestured toward the cluster of sleeping bags spread across the back of the SUV.
Josie’s arms tightened around Layla “I—I don’t want to let go of her,” she whispered, tears tracing clean paths through the dust on her cheeks. “It feels like if I blink, something else will try to take her from me.”
Cara moved closer,“She’s exhausted. She’ll sleep better lying down. You’ll be right next to her the whole time.”
Josie’s breath hitched. She looked down at Layla—her whole world curled against her, thumb near her mouth, tiny brows still creased from crying even in sleep. After a long moment, she nodded, allowing Cara to guide her toward the makeshift bed.
She knelt, lowering the little girl into the blanket’s warmth with the care of someone handling something impossibly fragile. Layla didn’t stir.
But Josie broke.
“I’m sorry,” she whispered, her voice collapsing. “I don’t usually fall apart like this. I just—God—he kept—” The words tangled and died. “He kept saying he’d hurt her. That if I didn’t do what he wanted—if I didn’t cooperate—he’d make her watch.”
Cara sat beside her, their knees touching gently. She met Josie’s gaze. “You’re safe now. And so is she.”
Josie pressed both hands against her face, tears slipping through her fingers, her body shaking with everything she’d held back for hours.
“I thought—” Her breath shuddered out. “I thought that was it. That he’d take everything I had left.
I kept thinking about her little voice, her smile, the way she says ‘goodnight’ to that stupid teddy bear every single night—and I—” She choked on the words.
“I couldn’t let him take that. I couldn’t let him take her. ”
Cara wrapped an arm around her shoulders, hesitant at first—comfort had never come naturally to her, never been something she’d grown up learning to give—but instinct overrode the awkwardness, and she pulled her closer.
“You didn’t let him,” she said. “You fought. And Seth… Seth made sure it ended.”
Josie covered her mouth. “I didn’t even thank him,” she whispered. “He saved my life. He saved her life.”
“He knows you’re grateful,” Cara said. “And you’ll get the chance to tell him when you’re ready.”
Josie wiped at her eyes, her breath still catching in ragged pulls.
“I just… I just wanted to get to Denver,” she whispered.
“To see if my parents were still… I never imagined someone would…” She swallowed hard, the words failing her.
“The sick… at least you can run from them. You know what they are. But him… he was just a man.”
Cara squeezed her shoulder, grounding her against the tremors still running through her frame.
“Tonight was hell,” she said. “But you’re not alone anymore. We’re heading to Denver, and you can stick with us as long as you need. We’ll keep you and Layla safe.”
Josie’s gaze, raw and red-rimmed, fixed on her; Months of surviving alone had stripped away every layer of self-protection she had built.
“You mean that?”
Cara nodded once, steady and certain. “I do.”