by Dana Fraser
Kneeling in front of her, his fingers danced at the edge of her panties.
“Did you get any on these, baby? Do I need to take them off and have you sitting around with your pussy on display with everyone in the room?”
He touched along the waistband, stroking as he inspected for any stain. When he moved to the bottom, he slid a fingertip under each side, ran it along her hips, over the top of her thighs, between them.
She trembled. With fury or fear, he didn’t care. All he cared was that she was compliant. She didn’t tighten her muscles or open her mouth.
She let him touch her.
He bound her legs to the chair then stood, one hand reaching out and stroking her hair.
“You’re almost there, Marie. Almost.”
Chapter Fourteen
“Ellis! Ellis!”
Hannah slapped softly at her brother’s cheek then shook him. His eyes came open. There wasn’t enough light for her to see the pupils, to tell if he was able to focus, but the bob and weave of his head was a bad sign.
Never having the chance to get dry from his involuntary swim at Rocky’s, he was soaked through from landing in the water. His body shivered violently.
“Ellis, say something!”
His lips moved. He breathed in, his tongue perched at the tip of saying something. Then he exhaled and she slapped at his cheeks again.
“Ellis, do you know where you are?”
“Bonnie?”
“No, sweetie,” she answered, voice raw with tears and frustration. “The power went out everywhere. We’ve been on the road for weeks and…”
And Cash is dying, she thought as she propped Ellis against a tree.
“I have to go and get help. Do you understand?”
Offering her a loopy smile, Ellis touched his fingertips to his forehead then swept them forward in a salute that made him tip to the side.
She sat him up again, cold radiating off him from the wet clothes and the wind blowing over the water and snowy ground.
“You have to stay here. You have to stay with Cash. Do you remember Cash?”
“Go, Hannah.”
The voice immobilized her. It wasn’t Ellis speaking, it was Cash.
Whirling around, she saw that his eyes were open.
“Ellis fell, hit his head on the boat, I think he has a concussion, we aren’t sure where we’re at because everything flooded!” She spit the words out like her mouth was on full-auto, her ammo nothing but dummy rounds fired without aiming.
He pointed upward with his chin. She lifted her gaze. The snow clouds had parted, revealing the sky above.
“We’re close,” he rasped. “Head straight west like I told you.”
She looked between the two men, her gaze bouncing and her head pounding with indecision.
“Cover him,” Cash said, trying to lift her jacket off his chest and failing to raise it even an inch. “I’m burning up.”
She took the coat and draped it around Ellis’s shoulders then shook him to attention. “You have to stay with Cash, do you understand? Don’t leave him for anything. I’ll be back.”
When he just stared at her, she shook him.
“Do you understand me?”
“I love you, Sis,” he answered. “You came for me, I remember.”
A sob tore through her chest and throat. She threw her arms her brother, squeezing him as she kissed his cheek.
“Where’s mine?” Cash asked as Hannah stood up.
She stared at him, confusion deepening the shadows on her face until he offered up another wan smile.
“You’ll get your kisses when you’re on your feet, soldier, not your back.”
Dropping to her knees and holstering the M&P45, she gave him one teary peck along the temple anyway as she tucked the edges of the Mylar around his body.
“Wait for me,” she said then bolted into the woods.
The first quarter mile, Hannah’s legs were lead after the hours that had passed immobilized and bearing the weight of Cash’s upper body. She stumbled, tripped, got back up, the pattern repeating until she reached the stream Cash had mentioned.
At least she prayed it was the right stream. She cut north, looking for a fat boulder in the stream’s middle that marked fifty feet beyond the northern edge of their property line or the cascade of branches from an old willow tree on the sloped bank that meant she was dead center.
Reaching the willow, she knew she would be running a straight line to the house and outbuildings if she headed due west once more and didn’t angle off.
Finding new life in her legs, Hannah leapt up the slope and ran as hard and fast as she could, her short legs pumping.
Crashing through a line of trees, she landed on her face in the dirt. Lifting her head, she saw the dark outline of a barn.
Slowly, she crawled back into the trees despite every nerve in her body screaming for her to get up and run straight to the front door.
Cash had warned her and Ellis to wait and watch. There were no booby traps set up when he left, but his sister could have put up some simple, non-lethal traps once she realized he might not be coming home.
And there was always the possibility that his family was no longer in control of the homestead.
The idea that there might be no assistance forthcoming stabbed at Hannah’s chest. She had to use caution — but Cash might die if she delayed much longer.
Lights flickered on inside the home, silencing the debate going on inside her head. Moving from tree trunk to tree trunk, she stopped when she could see the windows and front door.
Curtains fluttered and a male face appeared, white and middle aged. Easing the M&P45 out of the holster, she fingered the safety off.
The door opened and two men stepped out — the white male she had seen at the window and a smaller, thinner black male.
Squinting, she realized that the black male had a rope around his neck as he turned to close the door. He also didn’t have any shoes or a jacket on despite the cold.
It was clear he didn’t have a choice about how he was dressed. The white male carried a shotgun and kept it pointed at the back of the black male’s head.
Seeing the men head toward the barn, she moved through the trees until she was no more than ten feet from the structure.
The closer the men approached, the better she could see that the rope around the black male’s neck ended in a noose and that he was little more than a boy, not even as old as her brother.
Clearly, something was wrong on the homestead.
The man with the gun led the kid to the side of the barn where there were rods attached to the side of the building. He looped his end of the rope around one of the rods then used his free hand to unzip his pants.
Hannah watched, eyes wide with astonishment, as the older male began to urinate while he kept the shotgun trained on the kid.
“You just going to stand there?” the male barked.
Hannah jerked, thinking she’d been found out, but then he gave the kid a nudge with the barrel of the shotgun.
“You gotta piss, don’t be shy. It’s here or in front of the women.”
The kid didn’t move to unzip, just stood numbly staring at the side of the barn.
The older male chuckled, his bladder apparently large and full because he kept a stream going that was as steady as his hateful chatter.
“Been thinking ‘bout that sister of yours,” he told the kid. “I gotta admit, she gives me one hell of a rage boner. But, if I fucked her, well, Marie would know and then I’d be back to square one.”
Hannah tried to process the information but it didn’t make sense. Marie was Cash’s sister. What was she doing with this deranged buffoon? Had she been so desperate for protection when Cash didn’t return that she had hooked up with this redneck Hannibal Lecter?
“So I been thinking,” the man babbled on, chuckling between his words. “Black ass is black ass. And you, why you wouldn’t say a word
about what I’d do to you. Wouldn’t want your sister or mother knowing how much you like my white dick.”
Finished pissing, the man didn’t zip up his pants. Instead, he pushed the barrel of the shotgun hard against the teenager’s cheek.
“Maybe I make you do to me what I’m gonna make Marie do to you.”
Even in the low light of the moon, Hannah could see that the kid was terrified. His mouth stretched in a grimace, providing a flash of strong white teeth. She could see the white of his eyes, too, their size bigger than golf balls.
Taking the rope off one rod, the older male bent down, the shotgun still aimed at the kid, and looped the rope around a rod closer to the ground. Then he began to pull, the action forcing the kid to choke or get on his knees. First, the teen resisted, but then his face turned slack and his body slid out from under him
Hannah couldn’t see the boy’s face anymore. The man’s bulky frame blocking most of his captive’s body.
“Now, you’re gonna reach in and take it out all nice and gentle, get me? Otherwise, I blow your head off then your mama’s and, well, you don’t want to know what I’m gonna do to your sister before I kill her.”
Enough!
The word trumpeted in Hannah’s mind. She stepped forward, one foot, then two, then three…four…five…
Half way to Hannah being at point blank range, the man turned. His arm started to swing, but Hannah had been slinking forward with her arm up and her finger on the trigger.
Her hand shook wildly, but it was a big round in the M&P45 and a big head as the target — and she was too close to miss.
His arm kept swinging as he tried to bring the shotgun around. He dropped his hold on the rope. Hannah squeezed at the trigger, the pistol’s pull unfamiliar to her.
She kept squeezing as the shotgun came up level with her.
Inches versus ounces, she thought
If he had buckshot instead of single slugs, she was already in lethal range of the shotgun even if the man shot a little wide.
With a hoarse scream, she jerked the trigger.
The barrel lifted as the shot exited the pistol. The bullet ripped through the man’s face, blood and brain matter erupting out the back of his head against the barn wall.
The shotgun fell from his hand, landing in the snow.
The kid, not knowing what was going on because the dead man’s body had blocked Hannah and no words had been exchanged, scrambled to grab hold of the shotgun.
Hannah brought her foot crashing down on the weapon at the same time she brought the barrel of the pistol to rest so close to the kid’s head, he could probably feel the heat of the round just fired.
“Are there others?” she hissed.
Screams from the house pierced the cold air and Hannah charged up on the kid, the gun pressing against his cheekbone.
“Answer me right fucking now!”
“Ju-just him,” the kid cried out. “He shot my mom and Miss Marie’s mom and—”
“Cash’s mom is hurt?” Hannah blurted as the screaming from the house continued.
“He just shot her leg,” the kid said, body trembling and his gaze darting around like a trapped animal.
Just her leg? How would Hannah get the woman to Cash?
“It’s fake,” the kid explained then his voice teared up. “He hurt my mom really bad, though.”
“Cash…” Hannah shook her head, the words reluctant to leave her. “Cash is dying, I need to get help to him.”
A crash sounded from inside the house. The boy pulled the rope from the rod before Hannah could react and took off running for the front porch, Hannah following fast behind him after grabbing the dead man’s shotgun.
“It’s okay!” the kid yelled as he bounded onto the porch. “Someone’s here to help us!”
Chapter Fifteen
Hannah approached the open door cautiously then froze when the saw the scene inside. A woman not much older than her own mother was bound to a chair, her face bruised and swollen, one leg and part of another on an ottoman. Based on what the kid had said outside by the barn, this had to be Cash’s mother, Eleanor.
Funny he’d never mentioned the one leg thing.
The kid went to her first and began untying her hands.
On the floor, her chair tipped over and facing the others, was a dark-haired woman in her underwear. Given her age and the lack of other options in the room, the woman could only be Marie Lodge.
“This lady just shot Banker Lee,” he said. “She said Cash is hurt really bad. She’s going to take you to him, Mrs. Bishop.”
Not with one leg, Hannah thought before she looked at the other prisoners of the man she had killed.
Dizziness from a fresh adrenaline surge washed over her as she came to a young black woman bound with barbed wire. Forgetting that she truly didn’t know any of these people, she holstered the pistol and put aside the shotgun.
“Where are the wire cutters?” she asked at the same time everyone started firing questions at her.
“What do you mean Cash is hurt?”
“Who are you?”
“What are you doing with my uncle’s gun, lady?”
“Wire cutters?” she asked again, looking directly at the young woman who needed them.
“Under the cot, I think.”
Hannah looked at the cot near Eleanor Bishop’s chair. There was an older black woman on it and nothing underneath. Spinning around, she saw a second cot against the far wall with clutter beneath it. She ran over as the black male moved on to untying the white woman who didn’t have any pants on.
“My son!” Eleanor Bishop demanded.
Your leg, Hannah thought, coming up with the prosthetic first and sliding it across the floor as she yanked more items out from underneath the cot. Seeing the wire cutters, she seized them and raced back to the young woman.
“I left him with my brother, they’re both hurt,” she answered, snipping the barbed wire around the young woman’s wrists first. “Cash was shot — shoulder. Bullet maybe nicked a lung.”
Her throat constricted, her sudden inability to talk communicating to those in the room how bad the wound was.
“Where?” Eleanor demanded, strapping her prosthetic on as Marie untied the two smaller children.
“It’s flooded out by the lake.” Hannah finished snipping the girl’s wrists free then starting on her ankles. Both wrists and ankles had been bleeding, the puncture wounds scabbed over. “We were aiming for Willow Spring branch but I’m not sure how far off we were.”
The instant Hannah snipped the last piece of barbed wire, the black girl seized Hannah’s arms. “Is he dead?”
“I left him with my brother,” Hannah repeated.
The black girl shook her. “Banker Lee — is that sick fuck hurt or is he dead!”
“Dead,” Hannah answered, pulling back from the crazy glare in the young woman’s eyes. “Brains splattered over the barn.”
“Get your shoes and your jacket on, Samson,” Eleanor said to the black male. “Then get the quads and the skiff out. Help him, Tonya.”
Hannah watched the two teens hurry into warmer clothes then race out the door.
Gaining her feet, Eleanor walked over to where Marie Lodge was crushing her children to her. Cupping her daughter’s face, Eleanor forced Marie to look up.
“Love,” she started softly. “Your children are safe from that man.”
Marie nodded but tears continued to stream down her cheeks.
“Your brother needs you right now. The house needs to be prepared when I get back with him. I’ll need to operate.”
Marie nodded, her expression so numb Hannah thought the woman would have nodded if her mother had just said that Santa Clause was coming for a visit and bringing Hitler with him, so she’d best boil some water and get out the best china and that tin of Christmas cookies.
“I’ll need as sterile an environment as you can get ready. Show me you understand w
hat I’m saying.”
Nodding again, Marie wiped the tears from her face and stood. “Gabby, you watch Mrs. Anders and Jace while I get things ready for Uncle Cash. Mama, I’ll get the med kit you’ll want to take with you.”
Legs still bare, Marie walked away as Eleanor turned to Hannah and thrust her hand out.
“I’m Eleanor Bishop.”
“Hannah.”
“Hannah,” Eleanor repeated. “Please tell me you know how to get back to my son.”
With the willow tree near the stream as a starting point and no fresh snow on the ground, they were able to locate where Hannah had come out of the woods on the other side of the stream three hundred feet south of the willow. Following as straight a line as using the quads would allow, it took about twenty minutes from leaving the house to finding Cash and Ellis.
Ellis was still groggy from the hit to his head.
Cash wasn’t responsive at all, but he breathed on his own and a weak pulse fluttered at his wrist. Together with Samson, Hannah carefully loaded him onto the sled attached to one of the quad runners, the extra weapons alongside him. Then she gathered up Ellis and Grub. Using the paracord loops with the clips to hook her loose-limbed brother to her on the quad, she followed as Eleanor and Samson took off with Cash.
When they got back to the homestead, Marie and Tonya waited on the porch to help unload Cash and get him inside.
The dining room table had been cleared, a center board added for length and fresh plastic wrap put over the surface. A metal tray with a clean pillowcase over the top waited on the sideboard, along with bottles of rubbing alcohol and tincture of iodine.
“Good, get him up on the table and strip everything off his upper body,” Eleanor ordered as Hannah, Samson, Marie and Tonya came through the door with Cash.
As soon as Cash was on the table, Hannah raced outside to retrieve Ellis. She led him inside, heart twisted in knots from his uneven gait and the way he was still shivering. Instead of stopping in the front seating area, she headed down the hall. Ellis needed stripped and wrapped in a blanket.
