Secluded

by Alana Terry

  “I think it’s starting.” Brandy’s voice was tense.

  “Just lean up here.” Willow helped her rest her forearms on the dashboard. “Lean up here and when the contractions come, we’re going to lift you up off the seat a little bit, and you follow your body’s cues. This is going to be just fine. Kennedy, why don’t you pray for us?”

  It wasn’t until then that Kennedy detected the hint of fear in Willow’s voice. She would never get over how good of an actor her roommate could be.

  Praying out loud would at least focus her attention on something besides the sweating, laboring woman squatting on her leg. “Dear God, thank you that you’re always with us. Thank you that you’ve kept us safe so far.”

  Kennedy wondered what else to say. Her breath was choppy, and she hoped that it wasn’t an indication that she was about to have a panic attack. She remembered what Willow said. She’d be in lots of situations even more stressful than this as a doctor, and she’d have to stay rational. Have to keep her brain from shutting down.

  “Lord, please help Brandy’s baby to be just fine. Help everything to go really smoothly. Help her to not be in too much pain.”

  Kennedy had to pause every few sentences and think about what she wanted to pray for next, but she always found something. After praying about everything she could think of for Brandy and the baby, she prayed for Willow and then for Nick and then for all of Willow’s family in Copper Lake, and before she knew it she was praying for anybody who might have been injured in last night’s earthquake.

  She didn’t stop there, either. She prayed for the whole state of Alaska. Right about the time she began praying for her parents and their ministry to North Korean refugees living in China, Willow interrupted with a loud, “This is it. Kennedy, get ready.”

  Kennedy didn’t know exactly what she was supposed to be getting ready for, but she immediately stopped talking and held her breath.

  “Come on, Brandy,” Willow coaxed. “One or two more pushes and it will all be over.”

  Over? What was Willow saying? Was Brandy’s baby really about to ...

  Brandy let out a loud grunt, Willow reached her hands down between her legs, and just as Kennedy felt sure she was going to pass out, a sound like a cat meowing snapped her out of her near panic.

  “Here she is,” Willow crooned. “She’s absolutely perfect.” Her tone switched from gushing to demanding. “Kennedy, the blanket.”

  She handed Willow the blanket, thankful her brain was still in control of her body.

  The baby cried faintly while Willow sang out, “Are you cold, little sweetie? Here. I’m just going to wrap you up like this, and then we’ll let your mama keep you nice and warm. What a good baby. You did such a good job being born.”

  Kennedy wasn’t sure if Willow had said something funny or if she was just disoriented from the stress, but she sensed now would not be an appropriate time to laugh and clenched her jaw shut.

  “You did so well,” Willow told Brandy. “Your baby is so proud of you. Look how she’s watching you. Do you know what you’re going to name her?”

  “I was thinking something like Rylee.”

  “That’s a pretty name.” Willow leaned down and sang out in a high-pitched voice, “Hi, little Rylee. Hi, sweet baby.” She looked again at Brandy. “You can go ahead and talk to her. She knows your voice.”

  “I don’t know what to say.”

  “Tell her what a good baby she is. Tell her what a good job she did. Tell her anything that’s on your mind.”

  Brandy leaned over her newborn, nuzzled her cheek, and whispered, “Your daddy will be so excited to meet you.”

  CHAPTER 18

  BRANDY WAS EXHAUSTED and fell asleep with Rylee on her chest almost immediately after delivering the placenta.

  “What happens now?” Kennedy asked.

  “When they wake up, it will be important to get Brandy nursing, but other than that, I think we’re just fine.”

  “I was talking more about everything. The truck, the earthquake. How much longer before daylight?”

  Willow chuckled. “Daylight’s already here, Miss Observant. Sun came up about half an hour ago.”

  Kennedy looked out the truck window. “Oh.”

  “But in answer to your first question, I don’t think Brandy can walk all the way to the highway after what she’s gone through. That probably means one of us should stay here and one of us should head toward the Glenn to see if there’s any way to get help.”

  “I can do that.”

  “I think you’ll have to.” Willow smiled. “Unless you’ve become an expert at breast-feeding and are ready to give Brandy and her baby a crash course.”

  “No, you stay here. But how do you know so much about all this anyway, delivering babies and nursing and everything else?”

  Willow shrugged. “I’ve always been there when the goats and sheep are born. Usually, everything goes just fine, but sometimes you have to step in and help. Plus my mom’s coached a few women around Glennallen who wanted to have home births. The clinic there won’t deliver babies, so if you get pregnant, you either have to spend the last two or three weeks of pregnancy in town so you’ll be close to medical care, or you plan on a home birth. Mom took me to a few of them when I was a teenager. Ninety percent of it is just keeping the moms from freaking out.” She grinned. “And keeping your assistant from freaking out, too.”

  “Yeah, I’m sorry I wasn’t better help.”

  “Don’t say that. You did great. Who would have thought that a crazy, Type-A germaphobe like you could have handled a delivery in a truck without completely losing your head? You should be really proud of yourself.”

  Kennedy wasn’t sure if she was being complimented or insulted and changed the subject. “How’s your foot?”

  Willow shrugged. “I’m fine. Here, you take the boot back. And take my coat on top of yours. You’ll need it more than I do. I’ll have to turn the truck off for now. We’re running kind of low on gas. You know how to get back to the highway from here? You just follow the tire tracks in the snow.”

  Kennedy nodded. If her roommate could safely deliver a child in the middle of nowhere, Kennedy could walk a few miles without getting lost.

  “So you sure you don’t mind heading out alone?” Willow asked. “It will be kind of long you know. You should eat before you go.”

  “I’ll grab something from the cabin, or at least what’s left of it.”

  Willow shook her head. “All that will be frozen. Didn’t you bring a few things back into the truck last night?”

  “Yeah, I think there’s a can of spam around here somewhere.”

  Willow grinned. “Bon appétit. And even if it’s totally gross, you’ll need the calories to stay warm. You probably don’t have to worry about it, but you know the basics about hypothermia, right? You’ll go from just shivering and cold to really exhausted. At that point, it messes with your brain. It will make you want to just sit down and sleep, and you’ll tell yourself it will only be for a few minutes, but you’ve got to make yourself keep going, right?”

  Kennedy couldn’t believe she was actually getting a crash course in hypothermia in the middle of the Alaskan wilderness.

  Willow gave her a reassuring smile. “Don’t worry. You’ll be fine. You can follow the tire tracks so you won’t get lost, and you won’t have to worry about going through the deep snow. Hey, you ok? You look like you’re about to cry.”

  Kennedy shook her head. “This wasn’t how I expected to be spending the day before your wedding.”

  Willow sighed. “Yeah, you and me both.”

  CHAPTER 19

  KENNEDY TOOK A DEEP breath. She could do it. Her job was easy. Just follow the tire tracks to the Glenn Highway and signal for help. She didn’t think about what she’d do if the roads were deserted. Maybe even impassable. God hadn’t spared them from Roger’s murderous rage and ensured Brandy’s safe delivery in order to desert them now.

  Help would be there
.

  It had to be.

  The tire tracks made an easy path through the snow. Kennedy was glad she didn’t have to wrestle her way through the two- or three-foot drifts. A few times, she came across a tree that had crashed along the path, but otherwise the woods appeared completely normal.

  If you could call anything about watching the sun coming up at 10:45 in the morning normal.

  She tried to remember how long they’d driven last night. After hitting the moose, she thought making it all the way to Roger’s cabin would be the hard part. So much had happened since then. Was it really less than twelve hours ago?

  She started to pray, thanking God for keeping them safe, but her thoughts were distracted. Wondering what would have happened to her and Willow if the earthquake hadn’t saved them from their assailants. Remembering the way Brandy had rushed at Roger and then thrown herself on his corpse. Kennedy had never seen anyone sound so grief-stricken. So remorseful.

  But if Brandy hadn’t attacked Roger ...

  It was silly to dwell on what hadn’t happened. It wouldn’t help her get to the Glenn more quickly.

  She and Willow were supposed to be waking up in a nice heated Anchorage hotel and starting their five-hour drive to Copper Lake. Not battling insane attackers or delivering babies in negative temperatures.

  She kept her fists balled up in her sleeves and cursed Willow’s stupid boot. Did her roommate own any foot apparel with less than a three-inch heel?

  Well, it was better than nothing. Besides, if it hadn’t been for Willow stepping up last night and taking control, Kennedy didn’t want to imagine what could have happened to her, Brandy, or the baby.

  She wondered how badly the earthquake had hit the surrounding regions. With Anchorage reeling from the volcano, would the earthquake confirm people’s fears that the world really was about to end? What about those riots her dad was so afraid of?

  What would happen to Willow’s wedding plans? Even if Kennedy found help, was the highway passable? What if they couldn’t get back to the Winters’ home? What about the wedding? With the earthquake as bad as it had been, was Copper Lake even standing anymore?

  She wished she could check the news on her phone. She hadn’t realized until now how accustomed she’d grown to having access to the internet all hours of the day. But even if she had her cell right now, there wouldn’t be any reception. No way to signal for help or find out how badly the rest of the state was hit.

  The only thing to do was go forward. Keep pressing on. She knew if she stopped to think, she could come up with one or two highly effective Bible verses. Metaphors comparing this trek of hers through the cold and the snow to the Christian walk of faith. But she didn’t have time to stop and think.

  She had to keep moving.

  Her whole body was trembling. Even with Willow’s extra coat, she wasn’t prepared for a five-mile hike through the woods in temperatures like this.

  How could Willow have grown up in this state and survived?

  She thought about Brandy, wondered what she must have suffered from the time of her kidnapping until now. Would she ever recover from that trauma? There had been something so primal, so animalistic about the way she threw herself on Roger’s body. It was easier to think of her as some nameless character, an animal in a cage, than a human being. A human being who’d once had dreams and joys and hopes for her life.

  What had Roger done to her?

  And what would it take to bring the real Brandy back up to the surface?

  God, she’s been through so much ... It wasn’t fair. How could Kennedy try to wrap her mind around it? God could have kept Brandy from getting kidnapped. How hard could that have been? There would have been hundreds of opportunities. Let Brandy develop a cough. Make the coffee stand close down early that night because they ran out of espresso beans. Give a few other strong, hardy, and well-armed Alaskans the urge to get coffee or late-night snacks at the same time Roger was planning to abduct her.

  Better yet, he could have thrown a moose in the path of Roger’s car to keep him from getting to Brandy in the first place. Or stopped him a dozen other ways. Kept him off whatever trajectory turned him into the kind of psychopath who would go around kidnapping girls and handcuffing them to the walls of abandoned cabins out in the middle of the woods.

  He could have made it so that Roger was never born.

  An infinite number of possibilities — all of them preventing Brandy’s abduction. Where would she be now? Preparing to marry the love of her life? About to graduate college? Working her way up the corporate ladder to land herself the career she’d always dreamed of?

  It wasn’t right. No matter how Kennedy looked at it, nothing was right. God could have stopped Roger. He was strong enough.

  So why didn’t he?

  And what about Brandy’s baby? Innocent little Rylee. What had she ever done to deserve being born in such squalid, terrifying conditions? If God loved all people equally — and who could read the Bible and come away believing anything else? — why did he allow some people to suffer such unthinkable trials and others to live relatively pain-free lives?

  She was too cold to come to any real conclusions but figured the questions would still baffle her if she were relaxing in a steaming hot sauna. Some things would probably never make sense, but she wouldn’t stop trying to figure them out nonetheless. Somewhere there had to be answers, and even if she never came up with a satisfactory explanation for life’s injustices, at the very least she could work to try to alleviate them.

  It was an overwhelming task to consider. How many other girls like Brandy were living victim to the whims of villains and sociopaths? How many were caught in the clutches of prostitution and sex slavery? It was so easy to think of things like that happening in other parts of the world, but here was an unforgettable reminder of the kind of suffering that happened regularly in her own country.

  Was there any place safe left on the earth?

  She thought about a conversation she’d listened to one morning around the dining room table with her pastor and his family. Sandy was reading from one of their devotional books and came across a quote. The safest place you can be is in the center of God’s will.

  Pastor Carl scoffed. “Yeah. Tell that to the Christians who are imprisoned in North Korea for their faith. Or the evangelists getting beheaded in the Middle East.”

  Sandy was quick to show her disappointment. “I think what it’s saying, love, is that when we’re doing what God has called us to do, we can trust him to watch out for us and protect us.”

  “Except for when he doesn’t,” Carl added dryly.

  Sandy rolled her eyes and leaned over toward Kennedy. “You have to forgive him, sweetie. He’s been getting mood swings ever since he had that accident.”

  “It’s not a mood swing,” Carl insisted. “It’s the simple truth. Everyone who wants to live a godly life in Christ Jesus will be persecuted. Second Timothy 3:12. You don’t get much more clear-cut than that.”

  Sandy frowned. “Well, of course there’s persecution and suffering, but when a Christian is doing the will of the Lord ...”

  “The Lord just might see fit to let them get fed to lions,” Carl interrupted.

  At that point, their son Woong, who previously had been absorbed in his food, jumped into the conversation. “Wow, fed to lions? Does that really happen, Dad? Do the lions eat them all up and then throw up their bones like an owl? Or do the bones go into the digestive tract and turn into poop? Do you think you could go to the zoo and look at lion poop and see if maybe they’ve fed a Christian to him or not?”

  Carl and Sandy never finished their theological debate.

  Kennedy still didn’t know what to think of it. There were so many verses in the Bible that talked about God keeping his children safe, but nearly all of the original apostles and so many early Christians died in gruesome ways. Sawed in half, crucified upside down, burned at the stake ...

  Kennedy shook her head. These certainly weren
’t the kinds of thoughts that made her trek through the woods any easier.

  Find your happy place. That’s what her counselor was always telling her to do to overcome her anxiety. Think about the things that made her feel truly safe and joyful. The problem was all her good memories from the past few years were tainted by the fear and trauma that went along with them.

  Did Kennedy have a single happy memory that was untarnished by sadness or danger?

  She thought about Willow’s wedding. It was nearly all her roommate had talked about last semester. But what if something had happened to Nick? What if Willow’s home had collapsed in the quake? No, she had to hold onto hope. It’s what gave her strength to keep on putting one foot in front of the other. She reminded herself how deeply in love Willow and Nick were. How obvious it was that they were destined to marry.

  And hoping that one day God would bring a soulmate into her life as well.

  Preferably someone who wouldn’t abandon her because he was HIV-positive or wouldn’t die saving her from a crazy terrorist with a bomb.

  Or a journalist who flew across to the other end of the world and didn’t even think to send a text.

  There she went again. She had probably kept happy images of Willow’s wedding in her brain for all of twenty seconds before her mind wandered to her own unlucky love life. No wonder she was anxious all the time with that many negative thoughts.

  So instead of trying to focus on joyful memories or hopeful dreams, she directed one foot in front of the other. That was the only way she’d keep from collapsing with cold and exhaustion.

  She had to keep going.

  Willow and Brandy and little baby Rylee were counting on her.

  Time was passing, but the scenery looked exactly the same. She had to be getting closer to the highway now. There were no landmarks to back up her optimism, but she couldn’t make it much farther. Not with her toes stinging like she’d stepped on fire and her gait still unsteady because of her roommate’s stupid heeled boot. Even with her hands tucked up into the seams of her coat, the tops cracked open, and the blood froze immediately to her skin. Something rattled in her sinuses every time she inhaled so she wasn’t sure if she was breathing through frozen boogers or if her snot had literally turned to ice.