Lives Worth Saving #3
“That’s something you should’ve definitely told me before,” she snaps weakly. “I’ve been losing my mind.”
I grimace. “Yeah. Sorry. When I said play along, I guess that didn’t really explain why I wasn’t worried about what they’d do to me.”
I unlock her cell first. She launches herself into my arms. It catches me off guard, but I wrap my arms around her thin body and hold her close.
“Hey, hey. It’s okay. You’re safe.”
She nods, then breaks down completely, sobbing against my shoulder. I give her a moment—but I’m painfully aware of the other woman. I ease Lila back and nod toward the neighboring cell. Lila follows me into the other cell and goes to the girl's side.
Palming her face, she attempts to calm her down. “Shh. They’re dead. They can’t hurt us anymore.”
To me, she says, “Grab the other keys. They're probably in Riker's pocket.”
I do and hand them to her. Lila’s tear-filled eyes flick up to mine as she begins to unlock the cuffs. “Her name is Alissa.”
“Why is she like this?” I ask quietly.
“She tried to escape a few days ago.”
I help Alissa sit up. The instant she’s upright, she latches onto Lila. Their embrace is with all the strength they can manage.
Realizing they need a moment, I turn and step out of the cell.
A knife is driven deep into my gut. My face is slammed against the iron bars, and then I’m thrown to the floor. A boot comes down hard on my throat, crushing my airway.
The man I thought I’d killed stands over me, the one I had in a chokehold.
“How’s it fucking feel, bitch?” he screams, spittle flying from his mouth.
He jerks the knife toward the women. “You two stay right where the fuck you are.”
Alissa doesn’t.
She surges forward, screaming like a banshee, and throws herself at him—fists, nails, mouth in a sneer as she screams out her holy rage. She claws his face, kicks wildly, and fights with everything she has left. He cuts her a few times as he fights her off.
I shove his leg off my throat and scramble up—but not before he grabs her by the hair and his blade flashes. He slices her throat and throws her aside like discarded trash.
I hit him full force, tackling him to the ground. He rolls us, raises the knife, and I grab his wrist and fight to hold him as it nears my face. With his free hand, he shoves his weight into the blade. I twist my head away just in time as it slams into the floor inches from my face.
I punch him hard. He loses his balance. I climb on top of him, fighting for control of the knife. He spins us again.
A gunshot cracks through the room. His body jerks above me.
Lila stands a little off to the side. She’s trembling, and tears are pouring down her face.
I raise my hand and offer to take the gun, but she’s not looking at me.
She’s glaring at him now. She takes one more step toward us and fires again.
This time, she takes his face off directly in front of me. Blood and bone spray everywhere.
The body falls away from above me as he goes limp.
For good this time.
We bury Alissa on the hillside before we leave the valley. In place of a headstone, we plant a small patch of columbine flowers. It’s near a stream, out in the open, where the sunlight will find it each day.
As Lila kneels beside the grave to say her last goodbyes, I mark the sight on my map, intent on visiting it again when I pass back this way.
It takes some coaxing to draw Lila away, but eventually she rises, and we begin the difficult journey back to my homestead.
The terrain is unforgiving, and the longer we travel, the more Lila’s health begins to falter. Midway, she’s barely able to keep herself upright, stumbling often and even twisting her ankle.
She grows thin. Sickly.
I tell myself it’s due to the trauma. Or dehydration. But as the days pass, her hands begin to shake, and her skin turns clammy.
At one point, she collapses and tells me to just leave her—that she won’t make it, and that she’s dying anyway.
After much protest, I find out why. It isn’t simply that her will to live is failing her; Lila has something called Addison’s.
The men who took her did so in the middle of the night—dragging her from her home without warning, without time to gather anything.
Not even the small pouch of medicine she kept beside her bed.
They didn’t think of the consequences. Didn’t care what her body needed to survive.
It was about lust and possession. Nothing more.
Some of the medication stored within the prison helped, but without it, she’s suffering. Her body is failing, slowly and quietly, like a candle burning down to nothing.
By the time she tells me, her lips are already pale. Her pulse is faint beneath my fingers. Fate has already begun to close its hand around her life.
So I make a decision I never intended to make.
Because when I look into the soft brown eyes of this innocent girl, I don’t see inevitability—I see a life worth saving. A girl who deserves a chance to see more of the world than what God had in store for her.
And if preserving her life means damning my own soul in the process… then so be it.
Some sins are worth committing.