by Skye Warren
Adrenaline was a sweet elixir rushing through my blood, giving the world a lovely orange glow. Everything seemed breathless and yet wonderful, gasping for air and laughing all at once. It was almost as sweet as the rush of orgasm when he—no, I wouldn’t think about that.
That had been wrong. Disgusting, even. He had warped me into thinking it was okay, even for a few minutes, for days, weeks. I didn’t want to do that again, not ever. Which was convenient, because I couldn’t imagine doing it with anyone but him.
That was only the limitation of my experience, I reminded myself. I straightened. I was going to try lots of things. Maybe not sex, but there was more to do in the world than that, wasn’t there? No one would call me naïve when I was finished.
I walked for some time before my feet began to bleed. The grass had seemed like manna at first, like a magic carpet that had carried my away, but now it caked onto my sore feet, dragging me down.
I tried to think smarter, strategically. I didn’t have any of the things from my backpack, didn’t have my car, and I was alone in the woods. Not an auspicious beginning to my newfound freedom. But I resolved to keep going. Just keep walking and I’d find something new. Something better.
The afternoon waned into dusk, the edges of my vision tinted with purple. I could only see trees in every direction. I was so tired. Thirsty too. My worst fears began to surface in the delirium. I wasn’t cut out for the regular world.
Gradually, like the drift of a cloud, I became aware of the tinkling of water. I stopped walking and cocked my head to listen, then headed in that direction. It felt like I’d never find anything, like maybe it had been a mirage even as the rush of water got louder, the taste of moisture in the air grew thicker.
Shadows lengthened on the ground and pooled into darkness. Night had fallen. I glanced back the way I had come and saw only darkness. How far had I gone? Miles, light years away. It was impossible to tell and didn’t matter anyway.
I was too far away to be found by Hunter. Too far to ever find him again, even if I wanted to, and an inexplicable sadness stole my breath away.
The ground beneath my feet turned from grass to muck then to wet sand. I stumbled out onto a steep beach. Gentle waves lapped at packed sand. A burst of joy and relief pushed out of my body as a laugh. I stumbled down the bank, washing my feet in the frigid water. I splashed it on my face and drank it down.
When my feet were numb from the cold, I reluctantly returned to the shore. A soft of smoky air tickled my nose. Fire?
Running over the heavy sand, I saw a reddish point of light in the distance. The closer I got, the hazier it became, large and weighty—a campfire on the beach, and that meant people. I felt light, flying, almost there.
Two black shadows burnished with orange approached me while I babbled: p-p-please help me, oh I’m so glad I f-found you, I was lost. One of them got a blanket and draped it over me. Slowly the shapes turned into people. They were young, maybe my age, maybe a few years older. Both male, though I would have been hard-pressed to use the word man. Despite the scruff marring their faces, they both had a boyish quality. It was their eyes. No worry there, no hardships weighed on them. They did not seem overly concerned with my hardships either. One took a sip from a beer bottle.
The other examined me with detached curiosity. His dreadlocks were tied back with a ribbon, his shirt ripped down the side, exposing pale skin stretched over slender ribs. “Where you from, sweetheart? You damn near gave me a heart attack. You came out of nowhere, like you flew from the sky.”
I blinked. What a strange thing to say. “I was running away from—never mind.”
It was a relief, I told myself. These were exactly the type of people I had been seeking in the first place. They didn’t take things too seriously, not even a dirty, bruised woman stumbling out of the woods. Maybe they were even thrill seekers. That would explain why they were out here in the middle of nowhere, camping on the beach. Devil may care.
The circumstances may be strange, but I wasn’t going to waste this opportunity. In fact, as the seconds ticked by, instead of calming down, adrenaline flooded my system.
“I’m Evie. What’re your names?”
The one with dreadlocks said, “I’m Trevor. That’s Rob.”
“Nice to meet you.” I laughed, still a little lightheaded from the lack of food or water or sleep. “Well, T-T-Trevor, I’m going to t-tell you something. I’ve had a really bad d-day, but that’s over now.”
“Yeah, because you’re here now. You can stay with us.”
“Actually I probably need t-to find a town.” And a police station.
I didn’t relish the thought of turning him in, but I didn’t have a way of getting back my stuff without him. My car, my camera—my book. Some days I wondered if the book meant more to me than the place.
“It’s a hike up that way.” Trevor waved down the river. “We’re going back tomorrow morning if you want us to show you.”
Relief flooded me. “That would be great.”
Rob popped open a beer from their cooler and held it out. “Thirsty?”
* * *
“Hold her down.”
I woke up without air. Someone was on top of my chest, holding me down. Something else was clamped over my mouth, blocking my breath. I struggled, managing to dislodge the hand long enough to suck in precious lungfuls, but by the time I could focus again, my arms were bent backward, trapped in the sand by two heavy knees pressing down, cutting off circulation.
Trevor straddled my chest, mauling my breasts. My dress was pushed up, the thin fabric bunched around my neck, making me feel even more trapped. My breathing came faster. Dark spots danced in front of my eyes. I was going to black out. Maybe that would be best. Then I wouldn’t have to feel what came next. But I might not wake up. Already I struggled to breathe, jerking and flailing for unblocked access to the crisp night air.
Slowly, I stilled. Around me, there was motion. The men were moving over me, around me. Hurting me. I stared up at the stars. They were so bright out here. There were never so many at home. Was this the price to see them?
A sharp pain stabbed at my center. My entire body recoiled from his penetration, writhing in the sand with nowhere to go. The night sky blurred as tears filled my eyes, and the twinkling lights melted and swirled. It reminded me of a painting I’d seen in a book, swirls of blue and yellow. Maybe the artist had cried and painted what he’d seen. Maybe he had been hurt too while looking up at the sky.
How had this happened? I’d agreed to stay the night in their camp. They were hiking back to the nearest town in the morning and they’d take me with them. Oh God, oh God. Had it been a lie to keep me there? Or I’d just been too convenient.
The world was exactly as awful as my mother had said it was, but I didn’t even wish to be home. Like the girl in the story, the true story, I wanted to take a canoe onto the river, to let it slip over the waterfall and never have to worry again.
This time, Hunter wasn’t here to catch me. No god of thunder to keep me safe.
I was alone, though I’d lost something precious, something important along my harrowing trip through the trees. I’d lost fear. So let me die, let me hurt. I didn’t care, and the detachment lent me strength.
With a force unknown, I snapped my head forward. My forehead cracked against the man on top of me. I shoved him off me and started to get up. Other hands dragged me down, but I kicked and screamed. I bit down on fingers until I tasted blood and felt my teeth grind against bone.
Blows rained down on my head, my stomach. I fell to the ground, gasping for air but taking in sand. Pain blossomed all over my body as they closed in on me. They huddled around me and kicked, and I stared up at the sky, my body jostled about by their currents, tipping over the edge of the waterfalls and falling, tumbling to a welcomed conclusion.
A crack rang out and one of the men fell over my body. There was shuffling and shouting, then another crack and a thud beside me.
Hunter, H
unter, is that you?
Someone came to stand over me, blocking the stars. Not Hunter, I realized. Never Hunter because I’d left him. Just an ordinary man, and I understood what had sent the girl out into the canoe. Why did you catch me from falling? I wanted to die.
Chapter Thirteen
At the current rate of erosion, scientists predict the Niagara Falls will be gone in around 50,000 years.
I woke up bound to a bed, my arms held immobile beside me, my whole body weighted down and sweating. No, not again. I fought, kicking and punching my way out of the restraints. A man appeared over me and held me down, shouting something I couldn’t make out.
“Hunter!” I screamed his name, though I didn’t know whether it was in anger or a call for help. My heart beat against my chest like a drum. God, he’d made me this way. If he was going to domesticate me, he had to damn well keep me from running away.
Resigned, I slumped down on the bed, sobbing quietly. I was the crazy one.
“It’s okay, you’re okay,” a voice said.
He sounded relieved, I thought.
I opened my eyes to see an older man blink at me with worried eyes. “It’s going to be okay.”
With a sigh, I said, “Just do what you’re going to do.”
“I’m not going to hurt you.”
Oh sure, like I’d believe that. Then again, Hunter had never really lied about his intentions. That was just the warped way he saw the world.
This man didn’t seem like he would hurt me. I had to doubt my ability to read people considering my lack of experience and my general state of confusion where Hunter was concerned, but I didn’t feel threatened.
He was old, with wrinkles falling over rheumy gray eyes and more hair in his eyebrows than on his head. His plaid shirt was faded and worn but clean, buttoned all the way up.
“Who are you?” I croaked.
“You don’t remember?”
I closed my eyes. The memories were slowly coming back, even though I didn’t really want them to. Running through the woods, meeting those boys. Fighting them off.
I met his gaze. “You shot them.”
He nodded. “They brought it on themselves.”
I looked down and saw that the sheets had been tucked around me—not tying me down but keeping me warm. My skin was clammy. I struggled to sit, and the old man kept his distance, probably having learned his lesson after struggling with me earlier.
“You asked me not to call the police, so I brought you back here to heal. The fever broke last night, I think.”
“How long?”
He looked up, a little uncertain. “Oh, maybe three days. Sorry, not entirely sure. Time passes a little different when you’re used to being alone.”
Yeah, I could sympathize with that.
I finally glanced around the cabin, taking in the small bookcase with pulp thriller novels, the open shelf with blackened pots and pans, the small, ancient-looking television.
And only one bed.
He caught my line of thought. “I slept on a roll in the corner.”
I’d put him out of his bed. “I’m sorry.”
“Don’t you worry. It was just like camping again. But now that you’re awake, maybe you want to reconsider calling the police. Or at least let me take you to a hospital. They can check you out better than I can.”
I shook my head. “No cops.”
My heart had gone from twisted to torn right in half when I’d run from Hunter. But however much I might rage against him on the inside, I didn’t want him behind bars.
Unfortunately, waking up didn’t mean I was fully healed. Though I had no broken bones that we could tell, there were enough bruises that my body wanted to rest all day long. The man’s name turned out to be Jeremiah, and he was generous with his space, his food, and his stories.
True to his word, he never laid a finger on me. In fact, he was exceedingly careful of my personal space in such cramped quarters. He knew what had happened to me from how he’d found me. He told me the first day I woke up that “those boys” wouldn’t bother me again, and I couldn’t summon enough compassion to ask if they had lived or died.
Instead Jeremiah shared with me stories of a young man in the Wyoming wilderness, tales of hunting bear and running from geese that I wasn’t sure whether to believe but I enjoyed all the same.
Three days after I’d arrived, I was sitting at his kitchen table eating scrambled eggs and hotcakes for breakfast. He began telling me a story of how he and his friends had gone up to “the falls” for a buddy’s bachelor party. There was something about smuggling a stripper over the Canadian border, but I had to interrupt.
“Niagara Falls?”
“One in the same, darlin’. You ever been?”
“No, but I want to.”
“Oh, it’ll blow you away. Right beautiful it is. ’Course nothing’s as beautiful as what Candy had to show us—”
“How far away is it?”
He scratched his forehead. “About five hours or thereabouts.”
My spirits sank. That was a long way away for someone with no transportation. Or money. I toyed with my eggs, but I could feel Jeremiah’s curious gaze on me.
“You know,” he said. “There was a time I had dreams about those falls, even if I knew they wouldn’t come to nothing.”
“Really?”
I figured he was just saying that to make me feel better. How many other people hung their hopes on a waterfall? But I appreciated the gesture.
“Well, if you haven’t noticed, I’m a bit of a hermit. But even us hermits, we have people we look up to. Something to work toward. And ain’t no hermit better than the Niagara Falls hermit.”
I made a face. “You’re pulling my leg.”
“Nuh-uh. He was a real guy back in the eighteen hundreds. Francis something-or-other. He lived on an island right in the falls. He’d climb over some wooden planks and sit on the end like he was on a dock somewhere. People would scream, thinking he was going to fall.”
Despite myself, I was intrigued. This hadn’t been in my book.
“Did he fall?”
“Nope. Lived there happy as you please for years. Then one day he was gone into a shallow portion to take a bath like he always did. Went under and never came back up. Just goes to show.”
“Uh. What does it go to show?”
“Goes to show people think what they want to think. The man was highly-educated, well-traveled. Been to all these countries. Famous for his music. But he goes to live in the falls and everyone assumed he was crazy.”
“But you don’t think so.”
“Nah, he just knew a good thing when he found it. The falls is beautiful, so why should he leave?”
I couldn’t stop thinking about that man. The hermit. He knew a good thing when he found it. Was that Hunter, living isolated in his truck? Or was I trying to romanticize something so it would sit easier with me? It didn’t really matter. In the end, Hunter did what he did. And like Jeremiah said, people would think what they wanted to think.
In two more days I was strong enough to go outside. I took short walks but kept close to the cabin. I’d need to leave here soon, and that meant I needed money.
I asked Jeremiah about it when he came to stand on the porch to smoke his pipe.
“I know this is a long shot, but you wouldn’t know anyone around here who needs graphic design work, would you?” I sighed. “That’s pretty much the only marketable skill I have.”
He seemed thoughtful. “Nope, can’t say that I do. I barely know what to do with those computer things, but I have one if you want to look around for a job or something.”
I raised my eyebrow, doubtful. “You have a computer?”
He grinned, showing off his missing tooth in the front. “Bet you thought I was just an old stupid hillbilly, didn’t you? Well, I am. But my daughter keeps trying to get me hooked into that stuff, so she got me set up. It’s in the kitchen cabinet underneath the sink.”
Excited
, I ran to the door. On a whim, I stopped and gave him a kiss on his cheek.
“You’re not old or stupid.”
His eyes danced. “But I am a hillbilly.”
I laughed on my way inside. “And I love you for it.”
I pulled out the laptop and cables, which were pretty new as far as I could tell, and thankfully not messed up from being in a damp, enclosed space for so long. There was a little router that pulled up a signal, though it was slow all the way out in the woods.
The cursor waited patiently for me to type some search terms about a job nearby. Or maybe there would be some kind of assistance program for homeless people—which I basically was at this point. Or if I were really desperate, I could try to get in touch with my mother.
Instead I typed in Hunter’s full name. Apparently there was a B-list actor of the same name so I had to scroll through a few pages of search results until I found the one I was looking for. A news site reporting on a conviction for aggravated assault.
Nineteen year old parishioner…
Spiritual advisor and close friend of the family…
Abused his position of authority…
Guilty and sentenced to five years in a medium security prison…
A priest?
Jesus Christ, Hunter had been a priest. No wonder Laura had been so sure of him. And yet, what I’d told her had been true. How had he come to this? Why had he done it?
I went back to the search results and found a new article dated one year later.
U.S. Federal Appeals court tossed out the conviction on Friday…
New evidence brought forward by the victim’s friend…
Had fabricated the story over a series of emails…
Released on bond pending official exoneration…
The conviction was overturned.
My palms felt sweaty on the keyboard. A girl had lied about him. Lied to get attention or for whatever reasons, and he’d gone to jail for that. Where Hunter had gotten raped. The article didn’t say but I knew it with a certainty bone-deep. A priest who had raped a teenage girl would be exactly the kind of person targeted for assault by the other inmates. He wouldn’t have stood a chance against those men.