45
Once Wylie shut the door, the girl immediately got to her feet and began pounding on the front door. She tried the knob. It was locked. The cold wind bit at her exposed skin. “Mama,” she shouted, slapping at the door. “Mama, let me in.”
The cold seeped through her body. She wanted to go back to her little room with her bed and her books and her television and her small window. But she wanted her mother even more.
They were shouting inside the house. The girl squinched her eyes tightly shut. Then she heard the bangs. With each blast, she cried out.
The girl had known Wylie for such a short time, but it felt like much longer. Did she trust her? She didn’t know. She felt a nudge at her knees. It was Tas looking up at her with his amber eyes.
Wylie told her to hide. She would hide.
She ran to the barn with Tas at her side. She tried not to think of her mother back in the house with her father and the sound of the gun. Wylie told her to run. She would run. The cold bit at her face and her fingers, and every few yards, she would fall through the snow up to her waist, but still, she forged forward.
She slipped into the barn with Tas right behind her and scanned the dark space for somewhere to hide. Her eyes settled on the ladder and the hayloft, and she began to climb.
46
Present Day
Becky dropped the shotgun as if it burned her fingers and cowered in a corner.
Randy and Wylie reached for the weapons at the same time. Wylie grabbed the hatchet, Randy the shotgun. They both brandished their weapons—each waiting for the other to make the first move.
“You killed my parents.” Wylie’s voice shook so hard she thought she might crack into a thousand pieces. “You beat my brother, strangled him, and hid his body in the barn. You tried to frame him and you kidnapped my best friend. You shot me. Why? I don’t understand.”
Randy just laughed. Wylie wanted to throw herself at him. Wanted to dig her fingernails into his eyes, to scratch that smug, superior look from his face.
“We’re leaving,” Wylie said. To Randy, she said, “If you let us leave, we won’t hurt you.”
Randy turned toward Wylie. She was ready. She wasn’t going down without a fight. She thought of Seth, of Becky, and the little girl. She had too much to live for.
She swung the hatchet but only managed to send a glancing blow off Randy’s shoulder. He tried to wrench the weapon from Wylie’s hands, but she held tight. He let go and she stumbled backward, striking her head against the floor. Dazed, she dizzily tried to get to her feet.
She prepared herself for another attack, but he stepped right past her toward Becky.
Wylie reached for him but missed, instead knocking over the woodpile so that the kindling scattered across the floor. Randy stood in front of Becky as she cowered before him, and then he slammed her into the wall behind her. She crumpled at his feet.
Wylie jumped atop Randy, but he shrugged her away and she hit the floor hard.
Groaning, Wylie pulled herself into a fetal position, trying to protect her head from further attack. She could hear Randy’s heavy breaths as he stood over her, deciding what to do next.
He lowered himself down so that he was kneeling beside her. “Relax,” he whispered. “It’s all going to be over soon.” With that, he grabbed a fistful of her hair, lifting her head from the ground and slamming it to the floor. Stars exploded behind her eyes, the pain white-hot and searing.
Wylie felt the world fall away from her, and everything went to black.
Minutes passed or perhaps hours. Wylie forced herself back from the brink. It was like swimming through black tar, but she knew if she didn’t stay conscious, she would die. Becky and the little girl would die.
Pain radiated through her skull. Wylie swallowed back the vomit that crept into her throat and concentrated on keeping her breath slow and regular. She didn’t need to appear dead, just unconscious. Once she got her bearings, she could fight back.
Wylie hoped that the little girl had made it to the barn, found a hiding place that would buy her some time.
This would be the time to make her move, Wylie thought. To get up and fight back.
Wylie heard footsteps, and then she felt Randy standing over her.
He bent over her, and Wylie could feel the heat of his breath on her face. She tried not to wince at the foul odor. He smelled of garlic and onions and something else. Fear, Wylie decided. Randy was afraid. His perfectly created world had been disrupted. Becky and the girl almost made it out.
Now Wylie was the only one who could help give Becky what she wanted for her daughter. Freedom.