As I hobble across the warped wood floor with too much eagerness for my brain to register the pain rocketing up my leg, I dart my eyes between the brute of a man getting dressed and the large carved door. He acts oblivious to the thumps of my feet, even with them being loud enough to overtake the pounding of my pulse in my ears. The only reason he busts my escape is because he spins around to face me once he finishes getting dressed.
Unfortunately for him, it’s too late. My hand is curled around the rusty doorknob. Freedom is within my grasp.
“Ugh!”he grunts before he races my way like a madman.
Eager to flee before he can catch me, I throw open the door and bolt through the tight opening without watching where I’m going.
Big mistake.
Not only is the icy ground impossible to grip since it hasn’t been salted like almost all flat surfaces in these parts the past couple of months, but there also isn’t another cabin in sight. We’re in the middle of the woods. Nothing but snow-topped trees can be seen for miles.
Incapable of giving up even when the odds are stacked against me, I start to bolt for an opening on my right. I don’t even make it through the door. The bearded stranger doesn’t end my campaign to flee. Something dumped by the door does.
Its furry disposition stops me from skidding across the icy verandah, but any attempts to seek help without risking a mental evaluation is lost when I land face-first into a sticky and ghastly smelling matter.
I learn the reason for the peculiar yet highly recognizable goop covering my face and torso when I draw away from the object I tripped over. Deer heads can’t get mounted to walls without first removing said head.
Not only did I fall onto the remains of a deer, but I also landed face-first into its headless carcass.
ChapterFive
While screaming bloody murder into the blistering cool air, I scramble back from the deer that shouldn’t look familiar since they’re a dime a dozen around these parts but somehow does.
The violent screeches ripping from my throat ramp up when my endeavor to get away from one murderous scene sees me stumbling into another. The stranger with the waist-length hair and gruff exterior already seems the size of a giant when I’m on my feet, so you can picture how ginormous he is while towering over me.
“No!” I pelt into him with my fists when he plucks me off the ground by a quick yank on my arm before he tosses me onto his shoulder like I’m a sack of potatoes. “You need to let me go. People will be looking for me. Very. Important. People.” My last three words are separated by the sudden realization that there could be no one looking for me. I checked into my flight, so as far as my family and friends are concerned, I’m in a remote village in Prague eating braised beef dumplings. “You’ll be in big trouble if you don’t let me go this instant!”
My fight to get away from the stranger could have me mistaking one of his grunts as laughter, but I swear he chuckles while marching me back into the cabin like my legs and arms aren’t violently clashing with sensitive regions of his body. I drag my nails down his back, rip at the hair swishing in front of my face and direct the kicks of my feet to the area of his groin only just covered by a pair of dowdy sweatpants.
When my violence fails to slow him down, I toss out threats that aren’t technically mine to issue. “This land is owned by the Lancasters. They don’t take kindly to trespassers.” My last word leaves my body with a grunt when he walks us into the steam-filled room. I’m not just stunned by his lack of concern about my beatdown, I’m shocked by the faint memories creeping into my head.
I could swear on my grandmother’s grave that we’ve done this before, but instead of me being tossed over the stranger’s shoulder, he carried me in his arms like a groom would a bride over the threshold.
My breathing staggers when my eyes scan of the bathroom fills my head with more hazy memories. They match the movements the stranger makes while removing the shirt I’m wearing as a dress, but back then, not a single protest spilled from my mouth.
Since I’m conscious this time around, the instant his hand grabs the waistband of my panties, objections fire from my mouth hard and fast. “Whoa, whoa, whoa.”
I didn’t say they were good objections.
My head is far too woozy for that.
Either deaf or ignorant, the stranger slips my panties off in one fell swoop, distributes my weight to his left side, then heads for a shower cubicle that looks as organically sourced as the rest of the cabin. The ‘tiles’ lining the walls are shavings of rock and shrubbery on a compact bed of dirt is the floor.
When he switches on a ‘faucet’ at the side of the cubicle, I make myself one with the hairs stretched across his pecs. It’s below freezing outside, and with no modern appliances in sight, I anticipate the water to be as bitterly cold as the snowy ground that almost killed me last night.
It isn’t, but since my focus is on another damning revelation, I don’t take the time to appreciate how pleasant it is.
According to the date on my work phone, my accident wasn’t last night. It was three nights ago, so the familiarity of an often-understated task shouldn’t be surprising. Nurses bathe their patients all the time. It’s a necessary part of their recovery, and more times than not, the most healing.
You feel icky after an accident, so if a nurse washes away some of the murkiness before waking you, more times than not, the recovery time is significantly reduced.
It was for me when I was blasted across a swampy woodland by a furious explosion. From the medical records I read, I had mud from the roots of my hair to the tips of my toes. It was lodged so far in my ears, preliminary results indicated my hearing had been irreparably damaged by the blast. Mercifully, after multiple ENT appointments and a simple procedure, my hearing returned stronger than ever.
I stop reminiscing on what I thought would be the worst couple of weeks of my life when a screen of red hinders my vision. The mixing of the water from the rain-simulated showerhead above me and the deer’s blood is a quick reminder that I’m not bathing in the natural spring a couple of miles south of Ravenshoe. Nor is the goop on my face a mask. It is the blood of a dead animal—the same species I almost died trying to save.
With bile racing up my esophagus and my brain only seeking solutions instead of explanations, I scrub at my cheeks like a blood-red cleanser is part of my daily facial care regime while acting oblivious to the fact I’m being held under the water by a man with no name.
Once I’m confident every drop of the deer’s blood has been removed from my face and neck, I shift my focus to my collarbone and chest. I grope my breasts more eagerly than Cedric ever did when something brushes my backside two chest strokes later. It’s neither of the stranger’s hands. One is curled around my knees, and the other is bracing my back.
