by Sky Winters
The clothing fluttered to the sidewalk and stairs. All except the bra, which got snagged by a tree branch and hung in the heavy night air. Delilah poked her head back in, the immense flood of satisfaction already waning.
“Oh my gawd!” the slut said, smacking Patrick’s sweaty chest with her scarlet-nailed hand. Could she be any more of a cliché?
Delilah leaned against the window frame, crossing her arms.
Patrick let out a grunt, which usually meant he was satisfied and collapsed over the Jersey Girl, rolling off and spying De for the first time.
“Shit.”
“Yeah. That about sums it up,” De said, straightening up. She’d waited for his full attention for her next move.
Grabbing hold of his favorite – and only – acoustic guitar, which he’d had since he ran away from home at age seventeen, she swung it like a baseball bat, spinning around in the small space.
“Whoa! De! Stop! That’s not funny,” Patrick screamed, scurrying to his feet only to nearly trip over his pants, which were circling his ankles.
“Oops.” Delilah let the body of the beast hit the window frame, where it made a horribly satisfying crunching sound.
Patrick yanked his pants up and rushed to her side as she watched it bash its way down the side of the old building, finally hitting pavement below.
“Bitch! That was important to me.” Patrick raised a hand as though he was about to hit her while she stood her ground, trying not to flinch.
He let his hand drop, smacking his thigh instead. “She’ll be okay. Kitty is sturdy.”
She should have known he wasn’t worth it when she found out he’d named his guitar Kitty.
De shrugged. “I tried. If I managed to get a good chip out of it, maybe you’ll think of me whenever you see it. Either way. This is it. The last straw.” She hated that her voice wavered on the last sentence. She’d tried so hard not to cry in front of him. He didn’t need to see how much he’d gotten to her.
“Get me my clothes!” the slut on the bed demanded.
Delilah didn’t know if it was her drunken state or some primal animal chord Patrick struck by cheating too many times, but she leaned around and hissed at the girl, sending her cowering back on the bed.
She pulled her beat-up suitcase out and began shoving everything inside. It was sad, but she didn’t have all that much to show for herself after being at college for two years. Maybe it was her way of telling her parents that she didn’t want to come to this Ivy League shithole in the first place.
Pre-law? They actually thought they could buy her a degree. Maybe they could. But the one thing they couldn’t afford was her. It was time to stop throwing away her life feeling sorry for herself and start doing what she wanted.
Patrick followed her to the door, his face pale beneath his shadow he called a beard. His washboard abs still glistened with sweat, and she wrinkled her nose.
“Come on, babe. You know I’m sorry. I’m a temperamental artist. You got even though, throwing Kitty out the window like that, right?”
“You can stop with the fake British accent,” De said, holding her suitcase between them. “I know you’re from Kentucky. Look, it was fun. The sex was great. But it’s time I move on anyway. Do that girl a favor and go down and get her clothes when you get your precious Kitty. You and I both know the clothes don’t make much difference, but it’s the right thing to do.”
With that, Delilah flipped a stray piece of hair from her face again and left her apartment and her sad excuse for a boyfriend without looking back.
When she got to her car, a Mazda convertible and her eighteenth birthday present from her parents, she finally let loose. Tears rolled freely down her face as she slung her suitcase in the trunk. Some part of her wished Patrick would run after her, begging her forgiveness again. But she knew it didn’t mean anything anyhow. It would just be easier was all. Easier to keep living the charade of a life her parents set out for her than actually striking out on her own.
Because that’s exactly what was going to happen the second the Harringtons of Marsh Harbor got wind of their daughter deserting her post. They’d disown her without blinking. Anything rather than risk the family name.
Delilah drove away from the city, ignoring the texts filling her phone from both Patrick and Tammy. In fact, Tammy was the only one she felt a twinge of guilt about leaving. But her friend was one of those people who could command the whole room’s attention the second she walked in. She’d be fine.
By the time her tank needed filling, she was long gone from the city and all the noise and pollution. She bought a pile of gas station snack food and a giant coffee to keep herself fueled and drove on through the night and most of the next day, stopping only when necessity demanded it.
She had no clue where she was going, but she already felt like a new person. By night number two, she stopped at a crappy motel and paid cash, not yet ready to face her parents. She treated herself to a shower, a hot meal at the local diner, and was on her way again. This time in skinny jeans and a cut-off shirt she’d found on sale the week before. She left the top down on the car and braided her hair so it wouldn’t fly around like crazy as she sailed through the middle of the country on the back roads.
The scenery provoked the first real smile she’d managed in a while. Thick pockets of trees and rolling green pastures filled with crops and old-fashioned red barns dotted the sides of the road. The sky was almost purple it was such a deep shade of blue, and the wind picked up as she passed a herd of cattle, chewing lazily on the emerald grass.
This was real beauty. The farmers here were probably real people, too, unlike the people she was used to. They worked hard and lived a simpler life where the things that mattered didn’t have a price tag or a designer label.
The sky grew a deeper shade of purple, darkening so gradually that Delilah didn’t realize how ominous it appeared until it was too late. She slowed her little red convertible to a crawl and lowered the volume on the song she had blaring from her phone. The wind continued to whip her hair loose from her braid and the field of long grass beside her seemed to do the wave as a great shadow engulfed the land.
“Shit,” De said, pulling over and pressing the button that would put the roof up on her car.
An earth-rumbling crack made her jump, gripping the steering wheel tighter as she glanced over to the other side of the road. In the distance, a monstrous storm wound around like a giant spinning top. Objects and even animals were sucked into its massive corona as it slithered across the field.
Her car wasn’t going to protect her from that.
De snapped into action, snatching her cell and abandoning her car. She could come back for it later. She tried punching in 911 as she stumbled across the field, but there was no service.
When she finally gave up on the phone and stuffed it in her pocket, she realized the wind behind her had stopped and everything was unnaturally still.
Maybe the storm died. Maybe it went a different direction. Maybe it was really miles away and it was her big-city imagination that scared her senseless.
De stopped running and turned.
That wasn’t possible, was it? The twister had somehow gained at least half the distance between where she’d first seen it and where she now stood. And it appeared even bigger. Jaw droppingly big.
De ran.
The closest structure was a farm house with a large brown barn in the rear. She changed trajectory and shot toward the house, coming within a few feet of a large black cow who mooed in protest as she whipped by.
“Sorry, Bessy, every girl for herself,” she yelled back, wondering even in her panicked state if there were some way she could save the animal.
Maybe the people in the house would know what to do.
The gale force winds were so strong by the time she reached the front steps that the swing on the porch banged back into the picture window and the cushions flew off into the melee.
De pounded on the door and twisted th
e handle, desperate for shelter, but no one was answering. She cupped her hands and pressed her face against the glass, careful to avoid the wild wooden swing.
All she saw was a quaint living area with a patchwork quilt slung over the back of an overstuffed loveseat and a wooden table beyond. Living plants lined the sills across from her so she knew someone had to live there.
She pounded again, but it was no use over the sound of the storm.
Heart thumping against her chest like it was trying to escape, De began searching for some other way in. The twister was closer than ever, and visibility was almost non-existent past about a foot in front her. But she pushed on, fighting against the force of the winds, grasping the side of the house as a guide until she nearly tripped over a stone ledge.
A cellar! She’d found the double doors to a storm cellar. That’s where the owners must be. Surely they wouldn’t mind a little company? De knelt beside the wooden doors and tugged at the plank holding them down.
When it finally swung open, the wind tore it off the hinges and the two-by-four flew into the swirling dust. The doors flipped open, slamming into the borders and a gaping dark square beckoned her out of the chaos.
De swung a leg over just as one of the doors was ripped off. She squealed and tucked inside, finding footing on some sort of stairway.
“Hello?” she called, feeling for some kind of banister to guide her.
Nothing.
She swallowed and glanced back at the opening just in time to avoid a mailbox that threatened to decapitate her. The twister was practically on top of her now and it was time to throw caution to the wind.
Trusting that the stairs would be there, De jogged down into the dark. She was just starting to calm down again when her right foot caught on something that shot out from beneath her with a screech. She tumbled down the steps, banging her knee and shoulder, grappling for hold, but unable to see anything. Then her head hit cement and the world blurred as she finally came to a stop.
The last thing she heard as she blacked out was a man’s deep voice saying, “Bad kitty.”
Chapter 2
De threw an arm over her eyes to block out the sunlight that had blinded her right through her closed lids.
“Ow,” she moaned, working her way into a sitting position. She must have had too much to drink again because her head pounded like it had hit a ton of bricks. But before she could even work her eyes open, it all came flooding back.
She’d fallen down the steps – tripped over something, a cat? Was the storm over? How had it gotten so bright in the cellar?
De blinked and forced her lids open.
She’d expected devastation. She’d expected trees torn from their roots, houses with roofs ripped off, cars overturned. She hadn’t expected to be lying outside in the center of a tiny ghost town rimmed by thick forests on all sides and green mountains in the distance. She definitely hadn’t expected the buildings neglected by time to be tiny, three-quarter versions of normal ones, like they’d been made for spoiled rich kids like herself.
She’d had a dollhouse like that in her backyard in fact, growing up. It had a full kitchen and furniture, but she’d never seen anything on this scale. There was a tiny courthouse, a general store, and even a miniature hotel with the wooden door open and wavering in the light wind.
“Hello?” she called, but only silence answered.
De swallowed hard and pushed against the ground, trying to stand. Her palms rested against the rough surface of bricks, and she noticed for the first time she was on what seemed to have been a brick pathway that had long since overgrown with weeds. Roots had worked many of the bricks out of the ground, making the surface uneven at best, but some were still painted a bright golden color that reflected in the overhead sun, making her head hurt even more.
Managing to stand rather unsteadily, De also realized she was no longer wearing her own clothes.
She had on a dress, which was probably two sizes too small. It was a light blue checkered dress with short puffy sleeves that dipped off her shoulders, way too much cleavage, though probably because of the small size, and a wide skirt that was so short she made a mental note not to bend over. She also had on stiletto boots that fit skin tight all the way up to her thighs. They were sparkling in the sun just like the bricks, and bright, ruby red.
“Holy shit, I’m dressed like a hooker.” De spun around, trying to wrap her head around it. Who had changed her? She felt slightly ill as she thought of some guy dressing her up like a doll and putting her here in what appeared to be a giant doll city. Well, she wasn’t about to act out some sicko’s idea of a fantasy.
Time to vacate.
The heels took a little getting used to, especially on the uneven surface of the bricks, but the old road led away from the creepy little city and that was exactly where she was headed.
The countryside only grew stranger as she wound her way along the path, the sun beating down on her bare shoulders. There were strange tall flowers with brightly colored petals and leaves and twisted trees that almost looked alive. She could have sworn she saw one move at one point and hurried her pace.
Miles went by. Strangely, her feet felt perfectly comfortable in the strange boots, but her stomach grumbled and her mouth was parched. She had to at least find some water in this crazy place. She wished there was someone to ask for directions. She couldn’t be that far from the farmhouse on the back roads she’d last remembered. Yet something told her she wasn’t anywhere near Kansas anymore.
That was when she spotted it in a clearing up ahead. It didn’t look like much at first, but as she got closer, she realized it was a campsite. A sign of civilization!
De hurried forward, then remembered she had to be cautious since she still had no idea who’d brought her here or changed her clothing.
She dove into the twisted trees to the side of camp and peered around the corner. There was a circle of stones around the remains of a campfire, now long put out. A tree stump nearby looked like it was being used as a table of sorts as a map was laid out on top, held down by… a tin cup full of water!
De glanced over at the small tent wavering in the breeze and noted that it was empty. The place was as silent as ever. More so even, since she’d heard occasional rustlings in the brush on her way down the brick path. Now there was nothing. Like everyone and everything had suddenly cleared out.
She squinted at the campfire and noticed a stick with some sort of burnt meat still stuck on the tip. Her stomach grumbled, filling the emptiness, and she decided she had to go for it. So she rushed out, snatched the stick and, holding it in one hand, grabbed the water with the other and chugged.
It was the best water she’d ever tasted; cool, clear, and refreshing. Then she bit into the meat. Less perfect, but edible and worth the effort. She wasn’t in a position to be picky after all.
She was on her third bite, and it was tasting better than ever, when she was engulfed in shadow. She spun around just in time to be tackled to the ground, hard.
The man on top of her was enormous, probably well over six feet tall with a wild mane of dark blond hair and a rough shadow of a beard to match. His eyes were golden like the bricks on the road and were narrowed at her as a low growl emanated from his massive chest. He was simultaneously breathtaking and frightening, like a wild animal that she would love to stare at but not get too close to. Unfortunately, he was closer than she’d been to a guy since her last time with Patrick.
She stared back into his eyes, chest heaving against his, frozen because she didn’t know what he’d do if she moved. Should she say something? Kick him in the balls? She mentally calculated her chances against a ripped, possibly psycho guy twice her weight. If only she had her pepper spray, but whoever changed her clothes didn’t leave her keys and phone on her.
Wait.
“Are you the asshole who dressed me up while I was unconscious?” she blurted.
Golden Eyes blinked, shocked at her outburst. “What?” he asked in a l
ow treble voice that vibrated through her. Probably because he was still lying on top of her.
“You heard me. You did, didn’t you? If you think I’m going to play out some sick fantasy of yours, well, you can forget it right now.”
Golden Eyes backed off, staying in a squat, watching as De worked her way to her feet in a much less graceful way. His eyes narrowed, drinking her in from head to foot. De tugged the tiny dress down in response. It didn’t help. Either it rose too high on her thighs or too low on her chest.
“Where did you get those boots?” he asked finally.
Yeah. Right. It was the “boots” he was interested in.
“Why did you kidnap me?” she demanded, crossing her arms while trying to look tough and hide her trembling.
“Kidnap you?” he roared with sudden deep laughter and stood as well.
De’s eyes widened at the sight of him at his full height. He was a mix between Tarzan, Chris Hemsworth, and some Greek god. His body rippled with muscles beneath his tanned skin that contrasted deliciously with his golden hair and eyes. He wore only a pair of tight black pants with legs tucked into tall leather boots, worn down to practically nothing in spots.
“What’s so funny?” she said, trying to distract herself from gawking.
“Why would I kidnap you? You’re the thief who stole my dinner.”
“Stole your dinner?” De repeated incredulously. “You mean that rat on a stick?” God, she hoped that wasn’t what it was.
“If it was so horrible, why did you eat it?” he asked, folding his own impressive arms across his chest.
“I was starving,” De admitted, exhaustion washing over her.
“You must have been. You did a pretty shitty job stealing and now look. It’s ruined, so neither of us can eat it.” He gestured at the ground where the remainder of the hunk of meat sat, layered in dirt and covered in ants.
De’s stomach turned. “Look, I’m sorry I ate your food and drank a little water. If I had any money, I’d pay you for it.”
“I’ll take the boots.”
“What? No. I’m not giving you my boots. I can’t walk on this awful road barefoot. It’s probably miles to the nearest town. Wait. Do you have a cellphone?” Hope lit inside her as she glanced past him around his tiny campsite.
