The Babysitter

by Gadziala, Jessica

  I could do them in my sleep.

  But it was always easier on someone who wasn't moving around.

  Twenty-two stitches later, I moved onto her palms, then her feet, cleaning, sanitizing, smearing on some antibiotic cream, wrapping in gauze.

  Lastly, I moved onto her face, wiping away the dried blood with a wet washcloth, cleaning out the two cuts, sealing one with a butterfly bandage.

  They'd both likely scar. She'd walk around the rest of her life with the ghosts of a cut through an eyebrow, a light spot through her lower lip, and a giant gash down her belly.

  A low whimpering dragged me back out of my head, finding Captain standing beside me, panting hard, nose sniffing the air.

  "Couldn't catch 'em, huh?" I asked, rubbing his head as I moved away from the woman, going into my bedroom to find a red and black flannel shirt, carefully rolling her so I could slip her arms in, buttoning up the front, covering her body from view. "It's alright, Cap," I told him as he followed me, making low whimpering noises I wouldn't consider characteristic of him as I gently settled the woman down in the twin-sized bed in the spare room - if you could call it that.

  It was there for one purpose - work. I had it to house the - for the most part - spoiled, rich, entitled upper-crust who got themselves into some kind of situation that needed fixing. And while my boss and the rest of the crew handled whatever that situation might be, I got to have the client up my ass, complaining about the heat, the cold, the food, the gnats, the mosquitos, the dog fur, the lack of fancy crap to dress up coffee. The list was endless.

  And, holy fuck, the shit I got when I set them to work.

  If I had to work for my dinner, so did they. Case closed.

  The room had been empty for the better part of five months. People seemed to get into less trouble in the cold winter months. It seemed that as soon as the weather turned warm and clothes started stripping off, all hell broke loose.

  And if there was one thing worse than sweating it out in the hot Jersey summer, it was having to do so with another person breathing down your neck, making everything more frustrating.

  At least there was no one here at the moment. The last thing this woman needed was to wake up and find someone else looking down at her. I figured I would probably be intimidating enough.

  Living alone with nothing but animals to look at you, you learned not to give too much thought to your appearance anymore. Shaving had been given up on many years before. I would occasionally trim my beard if I happened out of the woods to see my crew and hear them rag on me about how long it was getting.

  But there was no mistaking a somewhat rough look to me. Scarred, tattooed, tight-lipped, or - as Miller might say - broody. All that paired with my height, my size, I could see her waking up, finding me, screaming, and running for her life.

  But that was a problem for another time.

  I walked back to the kitchen, grabbing some water, coming back, placing it on the nightstand. Pressing my hand to her forehead, I decided it was cool enough to leave her on her own, heading back out to the main room, digging through my cabinets to find the cell I never remembered to charge let alone keep on me, finding myself staring at while it sat on the charger until it finally powered up.

  Cell reception was on and off, but I lucked out, seeing two bars, enough to let me scroll through my short list of contacts, finding the boss - Quin - hitting the call button.

  "You in jail?" Quin's half-awake voice, rough, grumbling, met my ear. "Did they finally catch you, and drag you in?"

  "If they did, wouldn't be calling you on my cell."

  "That's true," he agreed, suddenly awake. I could hear the bed shift as he sat up, the door open and close as he moved out of his bedroom, so he didn't disturb Aven. "What's going on? It's four in the morning."

  "Got a problem."

  "And that is?" Quin asked, sounding amused.

  I couldn't blame him. No one would accuse me of being great at that whole conversation thing.

  "Couldn't sleep. Got out of bed. Heard some noises..."

  "Kids raving again?"

  "No. Different kind of noise."

  "Did you snap some rapist's neck?" he asked, tone as calm as if we were discussing tomorrow's forecast. "Do you need Finn to come out there and clean shit up?"

  "Always manage to clean up my own messes," I reminded him. Maybe I worked for a fixer firm, but I was someone who took pride in fixing their own brokenness.

  "Fair enough. So, what happened?"

  "Found a woman."

  There was a pause, Quin rolling around the unpleasant possibilities. "Okay."

  "The dogs caught scent of who dropped her but came up empty. It's dark," I added.

  "Was she alive?"

  "Yeah. Drugged. Pupils like saucers. And someone worked her over. Face is busted. Got bruises all over. But the reason I'm calling is because she's got this giant cut down her stomach."

  "Like someone stabbed her?"

  "Like someone was going to rip her open," I corrected. "Hesitated though, didn't go deep enough the first time. Then, I dunno, maybe heard me coming and ran? But he didn't get to finish."

  "Shit. Does she need to go to a hospital?"

  "I think she's stable enough to make it to the morning."

  "Okay. What do you need for me? Need me to come down there?"

  He didn't say it, but the implication was there. If she needed to go to the hospital, be looked over, be questioned, then she was sure to say something about the mountain man who lived in the woods in a cabin that was not supposed to exist, who was not legally supposed to be there.

  If the cops and rangers came snooping, I was fucked. My sanctuary would be overrun with people who didn't understand.

  I'd have to pick up and leave, find somewhere else to live.

  The idea made my stomach twist.

  "I dunno," I admitted.

  Quin took a breath. I could practically see him scraping a hand down his face, trying to figure out how to fix this, as much as it bruised my pride to admit that I might need some help.

  "Alright. How about I send Gunner and Miller down there? They can hang someplace outside the usual place. Wait to hear from you. If shit is looking like it is going the search and seizure route, they will each have a vehicle to load down with your shit, the dogs, other animals. If you have to bug out, you are going to need some help."

  My heart stuttered in my chest at the idea of leaving, of loading up all the animals and runing.

  But if that had to happen, it had to happen.

  I had to be logical about it no matter how much it felt like there was a hand suddenly closed around my throat.

  "Tell Gunn that he is going to need to pick up a horse trailer."

  "Got it," he agreed. That was the thing about Quin. Being in the business of fixing impossible things at times, he didn't flinch or hesitate at unusual demands, didn't stop to question where he could find a horse trailer in the middle of the night. He would just find a way to get it done. "I can have Gunner and Miller there in about three-and-a-half hours. I'm gonna need to hear an update from you by then."

  "Got it," I agreed, wondering how long the woman might be out, if I had until seven, if she might take a turn for the worse unexpectedly.

  "No matter what goes down, Ranger, we'll figure it out."

  "Yep," I agreed, ending the call, uncomfortable with the turn of conversation.

  I didn't have to like the part of me that was hesitant to allow people to care for me, take care of me, to know that it was a part of me. Maybe it was something I should have devoted more time to improving. Especially since that crew would always be there, no questions asked. I owed it to them to let them give a shit.

  But, I reminded myself, they knew who I was. I had always been the same. They still came to visit, still invited me to their events even though they knew I wasn't likely to come.

  Maybe I didn't always make it easy to care, but they did, regardless of my comfort level with it.

&nbs
p; "Cap, come over here," I called, patting my leg. His head turned, eyeing me, as he slowly lowered to the ground in front of the woman's door, stubbornly - and uncharacteristically - defying me

  I'd once nearly severed my middle finger, desperately trying to sew it back on in the kitchen with one hand... while he casually gnawed on a bone a few feet away from me, oblivious to it all.

  Maybe, once upon a time, he had a female owner, someone he loved, protected. They didn't have any information about him when I picked him up, other than he was food aggressive and lunged when he was scared. For six months, the only time he got to eat was if it was out of my palm until he learned not to be afraid of hands around his food, until he realized he didn't need to protect it. And the lunging, well, I guess he'd never been scared of me. Or, more likely, trying to test an animal's personality when it was ripped from the home it knew, thrown in a cage, forced to listen to other dogs cry and growl and howl day in and day out, get poked and prodded by doctors, be terrified beyond what was possible for a dog to process was a fool's errand that ensured thousands of useless deaths every year.

  "She'll be alright," I told him, maybe telling myself it as well.

  I didn't like seeing anything in pain. I'd had enough of that in my life before. Those thoughts kept me awake at night if I didn't work my body into exhaustion during the day. I couldn't stomach it now. Farm life was full of undesirable occurrences, accidents, sickly, dying, mortally wounded animals in your care.

  It had been a long time since it was anything other than an animal. Longer still since it was a woman.

  Maybe it was something primal, some caveman impulse to protect those that needed protection, but it had always been hard for me to handle female pain.

  The service had beat out of me the basic human impulse to respond easily to the pain of my fellow men. I'd have made a terrible asset if I flinched at the sight of blood, if I got sick to my stomach making that blood spill in the first place, if I cringed at the sounds of begging or groaning.

  A low, pained whimper came from the other side of the door, making me stiffen, making Cap let out a low whine as he got back up, pawed at the door.

  And pawed.

  And pawed.

  Worried he might wake her up before it was absolutely necessary that she did get up, I walked over, sliding open the door, allowing him to move inside, watching for a moment as he stood at the side of the bed, tail wagging cautiously as he watched her toss in her sleep before carefully, more gently than a beast his size should have been able to, he stepped up on the bed, curling up in the small space between her legs and the wall, resting his head on her thigh, eyes open, staring up at her as she stilled again, let out a long sigh, and seemed to slip back into deeper unconsciousness.

  There'd been countless women in this house before. All of which the dogs treated with either complete disinterest, or wary distrust. They'd never taken to one before, certainly never climbed up on the bed with one of them, eyes wide open, acting as a sentry.

  Maybe it was the blood or the whimpers, but women had been here before in varying states of damage thanks to whatever bad situation they found themselves in, needing to hide away while it got handled.

  There was, apparently, just something about this nameless woman that Cap took to. The other dogs - over the next few hours - would periodically walk by the door, peeking their heads in. Invariably, there would be a low warning growl from Captain to stay away, something they obeyed with no small bit of reluctance, coming over to me, staring up at me with confused eyes, tails wagging, waiting for me to somehow impart some wisdom about the whole situation on them.

  And, well, I was empty.

  Whatever the situation was, clearly it wasn't good. Normal people didn't try to eviscerate helpless women. It spoke of serial killers, psychopaths, or a particularly ruthless gang.

  Finn texted a couple minutes after the sun started creeping through the trees, asking for a picture of the girl, saying something about Nia - the new hacker who somehow barged her way onto the team - would try to find some traces of her online.

  I took the picture, not bothering to tell him it wouldn't do much good, not with the damage she had going on. He could see that for himself when it came in.

  I went through the motions of making more coffee. Then shredded up some potatoes, onions, spinach, carrots, and peppers, ready to be made into hash browns should she wake up hungry, easily served with some eggs, once I went out to let the chickens loose to crazy, grabbing a few fresh ones from the coop. She likely needed some protein to feel human after that kind of blood loss. Spinach would help with the iron.

  I had some frozen berries I could make into a shake.

  "Christ," I hissed, running a hand across the back of my neck, catching my mind shooting off in a thousand directions, each and every one of them trying to figure out how I could make this nameless stranger more comfortable when she woke up, could make the whole situation somewhat less traumatic.

  Ordinarily, I would be thinking about the repercussions of this situation, the potential it had to completely change my entire life. I should have been itemizing everything that absolutely had to come with me - the animals, the feed, the medications, my tools, some clothes, my guns and other weapons - both legal and not.

  If this came down to the cops and rangers swarming the woods, I would likely never be able to come back to get anything I had accidentally left behind. I wasn't sentimental by any stretch of the imagination, but I liked a certain amount of order and predictability in my life. I liked having all the supplies I might need on hand so that sudden trips to the store wouldn't be necessary.

  It was fair to say that people and me, yeah, we didn't exactly get on well. For them, I was big, quiet, brooding, intimidating. To me, they were loud, intrusive, pushy, and fake friendly. Just once it would be nice to hit a store for supplies without having someone walking around talking on their cell phones, bumping into me because - despite being on this earth thirty-plus years - they somehow still didn't know the width of their own bodies. Without them asking me what kinds of animals I had when I bought food, making uncomfortable, unnecessary small talk in the name of hospitality or friendliness.

  I burrowed my way out of the Barrens maybe once every two months, loading my truck down to capacity with dog food, hay, grain, new building supplies - tools, wire, fencing, nails, twine - as well as the foods I didn't grow for myself - grains, beans, lentils - or that were occasional guilty pleasures - alcohol, ice cream, chips. As a whole, I liked to live off the land, but exceptions had to be made here and there.

  The idea of having to head out randomly by the week to grab necessities filled me with dread.

  Did you ever think that maybe the reason you don't like people is because you spend your life avoiding them? Miller had asked me on one of her visits. They weren't often. Really, no one's visits ever were. Kai used to come a lot more back before he settled down. But if I saw the team members each twice a year, that was a lot. And when they did visit, there were always talks. About me coming out of the woods, about me rejoining society, of how it wasn't healthy to be completely alone all of the time.

  Maybe a part of me resented it. I didn't give them much shit about their lifestyle choices. It seemed unbalanced for them to get on me about mine. But the other part of me was glad I had them, glad they gave a shit enough to give me shit. Not all guys like me were that lucky. We got back from that world, were angry and unpredictable and cold, and everyone gave up on us. Or we pushed them away, so they didn't have to put up with us. And, eventually, they would let us go.

  Except for my crew.

  Except for the guys who knew what it was like.

  So they never gave up, never let go, gave me enough rope that I had some slack, but not enough that I could hang myself with it.

  In turn, I tried. Maybe not as hard as I could, maybe not as much as they might want, but more than I was one-hundred percent comfortable with.

  It worked for us.

  If I
had to leave the Barrens, buy some property, there was no way they would keep such distance. I'd be seeing them more.

  Where once there may have been complete dread at the idea, all I felt was a sense of interest, wondering what that might be like. To have connections once again.

  After so long without.

  I didn't have long to consider that, though.

  Because in the spare bedroom, there was a sharp intake of breath as the bed springs spoke of sudden movement.

  She was awake.

  It was time to see how things were going to go.

  TWO

  Meadow

  The blissful, inky blackness pulled violently backward like the bedsheets when I didn't want to get up for school as a kid, the cold washing over my body, inevitably dragging out a grumble from me as my mother told me that was what I got for not getting up on the first call.

  One second, I was enveloped in this world of blankness, of numbness, of blissful oblivion.

  The next, I was alarmingly awake, aware.

  The pain hit me first, a solid wall of it, undeniable, overwhelming. My face throbbed, my hands and feet burned, and my stomach. I wasn't even sure how to describe the pain in my stomach. Burning and aching and searing and oddly... tight. All at once.

  Other things nagged at me too. I felt dry. Like from marrow to outer layer of skin dry. There was no moisture in my eyes, my mouth. I had to rub my lids to create some, had to rub my tongue around my mouth, feeling a pulling sensation in my lip as I did so.

  I was cold too. My legs brushed together, a roughness speaking of a lack of shaving. Which struck me as suspicious. I was practically obsessive about shaving my legs. I never went two days put together without taking a razor to them, always wanting that perfect smoothness.

  And, what was even more alarming, I didn't remember the passing of days.

  Sudden wariness spread its cold fingers through my system, curling around my heart, my belly, my throat.