The pathetic pissant swallows hard, his pupils narrowing with the hot light I have pointed at him. “Molly…she… She found, she caught… We took her in the woods—l” He’s barely coherent, and I advance a couple of aggressive steps, hell blazing in my eyes. “She fell!” He’s quick to get to some kind of end point, before his cohort starts wobbling unsteadily.
“I’m unarmed, he can’t shoot me,” he slurs out lazily. With the amount of blood he’s lost, his moments of consciousness are numbered. He starts trying to amble towards the driver’s side door as I lock my grip on my gun and take a shot at the front tire, the bullet whizzing right passed his leg and making him stumble and Riley startles in my peripheral and the loud crack of the shot.
“You’re not going anywhere,” I inform him gruffly and shine my light back on Riley “Where the fuck is my wife? Where did she fall?” I demand.
“The ravine! She fell in the ravine!” He gets the words out as quickly as he can, and I wish I had time to take delight in his pathetically terrorized face, but the puttering exhaust of my brother’s approaching ATV approaches.
Riley shakes as I slowly step into his personal space, and his cohort tries to make his way to the driver’s side door of the SUV as Hawk roars around the bend into view. “You better pray to whatever God will listen to your pointless ass that my wife is all right,” I growl.
Hawk swings his machine into a skidding stop before cutting it and dismounting. “Sheriff’s on the way,” he reports, reaching for the cuffs at his waistband.
I give Riley one more menacing death glare from hell before backing away from him. I hand my flashlight off to Hawk and tuck my gun back behind me before rounding back to Riley’s cohort, who’s now using the SUV as a wall to prop himself. I get in his face, grabbing a fistful of his shirt, chest hairs included.“Did you shoot at my wife?” I demand, my voice so ominously low it could rival Satan’s. He doesn’t answer, and I don’t have time. Balling my fist and drawing back, I deliver a hard straight punch to the side of his face, making his head swing to the side before I let him drop.
“Whoa, what was that? I didn’t see anything,” I catch Hawk’s voice behind me as I tear through the nearby brush, bolting as fast as I can toward the woods.
34
MOLLY
Terror and anxiety flash behind my eyelids in whites and greys. I’ve been here so many times, this little cove in the ground. I’m bundled up and cozy, and yet I shiver uncontrollably, which makes it terrifying and the last place I want to be. I squirm, but when the harsh and ominous light flickers over me again, my body freezes. It’s a rinse and repeat cycle: I’m constantly terrified but make small and feeble attempts to take control in weirdly timed-out measures.
Something’s different this time though. Instead of dryness, cold water drips all over me like some kind of ancient form of torture.
There’s a soft but persistent nudging at the side of my head, opposite the side that’s throbbing with pain. It’s cold and wet as it pushes at me to open my eyes. When I do, I can’t see anything at first, but the cold dampness of the air tells me I’m outside.
I blink more, hoping that with each movement, I’ll see something other than black, but the best I can get is dark blue. The cold water keeps dripping on my face, wetting my lashes and making me blink harder. It seems to drip faster, hardly givingme a chance to look for anything more and finally forcing me to test my ability to move.
As I lift my arm, the nudging at my head disappears, and I wipe water from my eyes just as a man’s voice echoes. A low growl follows, and I freeze.
Just be quiet.
“No!” I shriek, and my body shoots up without permission from my brain, making the throbbing in my head enhance exponentially. I understand that the dripping is rain, drizzling down steadily, soaking my clothes and plastering my hair to the side of my face.
The bright white light flashes again, making a sharp gasp tear its way up my throat. My heart freezes, refusing to beat as I see a dirt wall in front of me, adorned with sporadic rocks and gnarled, dead tree branches.
Not a cozy cove. The ravine.
My heartbeat pounds in my ears, echoing like a war drum in symphony with my gasping breaths. I don’t try to look around me—the reality might overwhelm me. I focus on one small broken stick in front of me as my arms find their way around my body, trying to hold it in one piece, and gently rock like a child. Then another bout of thunder crashes.
Just stay still.
I whimper and flinch, this time daring to look around, frightening surroundings be damned. It can’t be worse than that place in my mind—the place every thunderstorm insists on taking me. And it’s trying to take me there now as I sit here like a fish in a barrel, helpless at the bottom of a ravine. No comfort of home. No protective husband’s arms around me…
“I’m bigger than the storm,” I say out loud, beckoning myself to hear my own words. “I’m bigger than the storm,” I repeat again as the bright lightning flashes against my surroundings.
With every moment that passes, every crash of thunder gets closer, increasing the likelihood I’ll surrender to my mind. The worse it gets, the more I have to fight. I don’t even give movement a thought, shifting to my knees. I crawl, looking for something I can grab onto that could ground me.
The rain goes quickly from scant drops to full-on shower, and I continue scrambling, looking for something to grab, something to focus on that will keep me in the moment. My fingers sweep through the dirt that is quickly becoming mud, occasionally catching a flimsy leaf or twig until my right hand pans over something hard and smooth.
I grapple in the darkness, trying to find it again, and pick up a rock, roughly the size of a small peach. It’s imperfectly round, but its edges are smooth, and I hold onto it tightly as my body goes back to rocking.
I’m in the woods…in the ravine… I was chased here… The culvert was blocked up… There’s a thunderstorm, but I’m not back in that place… This rock wasn’t there with me so I can’t be… I’m bigger than the storm.
I repeat these mantras, clinging to each one like they’re lifeboats. Nothing is going to get me through this storm but me.
The thunder booms again, making me jump. I can’t help the startled scream that comes out, along with a few tears.
Be quiet!