1. Montana

1

Montana

I wake up with a dry throat, unable to utter a single word. Two days without water will do that to you. If I don’t find some quickly, I’ll die out here alone in the wilderness. But dying out here is better than dying in the cage I escaped this morning. The one my father kept me in for seven days.

I sit against a tree, hoping a second of rest will help me get my energy up. I look down at my brown skin that’s covered in wet dirt. My fingers are blistered and raw from clawing at the rope that bound my wrists to my ankles and yanking at the rusty bars that held me captive.

And my ankles. They’re swollen like my aunt Bertha’s were when she was eight months pregnant.

I just can’t let him find me.

I can die out here alone of starvation or thirst. I can get mauled by a bear. But I can’t let my father find me. That would be the worst way to go .

Keep going. I tell myself to keep going as I stand up on shaking legs with aching and bruised limbs. I’m still wearing the black slip dress I was wearing the night he captured me. The night he showed up to my friend Charlotte’s thirtieth birthday party.

I almost thought I’d outsmarted him. That he’d never find me. But he showed up that Friday night with two guns in hand, and he killed everyone in the room before dragging me out by my ankles.

Now I’m back in the middle of nowhere in Wyoming. The place I grew up and the place I hate more than anything. Except I have no idea where I am or where I’m going. The place he locked me in when he captured me isn’t the home I grew up in where he killed my mother. No. The place he locked me in is so far away from civilization that I might not find the nearest town for another day. Or two. But I don’t care about finding the nearest town right now. I care about finding some water to drink and to wash away the blood matting my hair to my skull.

My feet ache with the pain of carrying my body through this forest for five hours, and my makeshift shoes from bark are withering away and starting to splinter, stabbing the soles of my feet. I lean down just so I can remove the scraps of fabric tying them to my feet and kick the useless material aside while I try to gain comfort in the moist soil under my toes.

In addition to having no drinking water, I haven’t had a bath since I was captured. I started out the day of my kidnapping smelling like roses, and then over the course of the week, I started to smell like ass. Now I smell like grass and blood. I need a bath before I get to town and a change of clothes. If I don’t get those, the first person who sees me is going to call the police, and I’ll be back in my father’s tender care in no time.

I hear something crunch behind me, and I freeze, tucking myself behind the nearest tree.

He can’t be here, can he? I haven’t seen my father in two days. That’s when he left me and said he would let me rot like the useless carcass I was, and when he returned, he’d bury me in the backyard next to my mother. My mother who I don’t remember because I never got to know her. I didn’t use to think about her that much. I didn’t care about her. But the older I got, the more I ached to know her. The more I missed her. The more I hated him for being the reason she wasn’t around.

The only thing I have of my mother is a photo. Had a photo. My dad burned it in front of me on my eighteenth birthday and said that he was the parent who raised me and that I wasn’t his daughter if I let her occupy any part of my heart. I can still see the photo in my head now.

She was sitting in a rocking chair with her dark brown hair in long locs that fell past her hips. She had on a white long-sleeve cotton dress that went to her ankles. She was barefoot, wearing brown nail polish that matched her skin, and had the biggest smile on her face, and she cradled me in her arms. The sun was shining, and it reflected off her hazel eyes. My father is the one who took the photo. He said he took it before she betrayed him. I get a flash of his pale blue eyes in my mind and his honey blonde hair, and I wince, feeling the shadow of his strong grip digging into my arms while he wrangled me out of his truck last Friday.

I look just like my mother, with brown skin and hazel eyes. The only thing that differentiates me from her is my hair. My hair is still dark brown, but it’s wavy, like my grandmother’s was on my father’s side. It used to be long like hers too. Past my ass long. But I cut it when I escaped this morning, leaving it at shoulder-length, hoping that if by some chance my father does spot me, he won’t recognize me.

The sound I hear gets closer, but I start to relax when I see a moose munching on something a little bit away from me.

He won’t find me. Not this time. I’ll make sure of it .

Shooting pain stabs my aching hips, but I ignore it when I spot a small stream in the distance. I see water. Clear fucking water. I pick up my pace, ignoring my burning shins, trying to reach the liquid heaven before I collapse.

Almost there. Keep going. Just keep going.

It’s farther away than I estimated and takes a ten-minute jog to reach, but eventually I get there. I feel like I could cry, but the tears don’t come, my body refusing to spare a single ounce of moisture. The first thing I do is shut my eyes closed and submerge my head under the plunge.

It stings, seeping into the open wound on my hairline, but I embrace the burn, knowing that if I don’t get it somewhat clean, it’ll get infected. It probably already is. After some time, it goes numb, and I lift my head, keeping my eyes closed while I cup my hands under the steady flow, forming a bowl for me to drink.

My throat is so dry that it hurts to swallow, but I push through the pain. After about five hand bowls, I feel a little less lightheaded, and I sit on the edge of the stream, getting ready to rinse off.

While I haven’t had water for two days straight, I haven’t had food since my friend’s birthday party. My dad wasn’t generous enough to share the hot-cooked meals he ate by my cage the first few days he had me in captivity. I can’t decide if I’m more hungry or tired, but both needs feel overpowering while I rest beside the water. I have to keep running. I need to keep moving. But I’m so exhausted.

Washing off should help me.

I take a glance around, making sure I’m the only one out here, and when I confirm I am, I slide out of my tattered dress and ease my naked and bruised body into the water.

With a lubricated throat, I make an audible yelp while the steady flow grazes my injured skin, making it tingle in the worst way. I dunk my head in once more, washing the rest of the blood out of my hair, and I take a look at my surroundings, seeing if there’s a good place I can take shelter to sleep for a few hours.

The pain from the water eventually turns into relief, and I step out slowly, standing on the grass while I reach for my tattered dress. It slips from my grasp and into the water, and I scream while I dive in, trying to go after it.

But I’m not fast enough.

The useless scrap of fabric gets carried away by the current as quickly as it fell in, and then I’m left in the stream, naked. I squeeze out my damp hair that has fresh blood in it from my open wound, thinking my day can’t possibly get any worse when I hear gunshots.

Close gunshots.

Someone’s near, and they’re after me.