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Everything happened so fast then, but Asher freed me, beat the man down so he wouldn’t be gettin’ back up any time soon.
He was pantin’, breathin’ heavy as he held the gun in hand and looked towards the man still cradlin’ his broken jaw on the ground.
“Don’t fuckin’ move,” Asher threatened as he slowly staggered to the truck to retrieve more rope and tie the rest of them up. He was no killer.
Yet he was clearly no one to mess around with either.
I didn’t know how to feel about it all, but I didn’t have a lot of time to think on it either. I was just runnin’ on instinct, on what felt in my belly to be right.
“What now?” I asked, surprised at how awake I felt after hardly gettin’ a wink of sleep.
Asher got down onto one knee and hog tied them, one after the other, startin’ with the one that had the broken jaw.
“I can’t stay any longer, Shelby. They’ll be coming for me soon,” he said, moving onto the one who’d just held me hostage.
“They already came for you,” I argued, following after him like a stray pup. I couldn’t believe that after all we’d been through he could just leave, but it wasn’t like I could abandon the farm neither. Not with ma the way she was. I’d fallen for Asher, but I wasn’t without a soul.
“What’s goin’ on, Asher? You gotta tell me...”
Asher’s big, broad shoulders heaved as he tied up that fella.
“You don’t understand, Shelby… they had that little girl locked up, ready to sell to anyone with the money,” he said, his voice tempered, but quaking with repressed anger. “I couldn’t just let that go. Couldn’t walk away like other men.”
That took the air right outta my lungs and I staggered back, my palm finding the railing as I stared at him. Then, the anger started bubblin’ in my chest, and I saw the three thugs before me in a new light.
“W-what?” I asked and my voice sounded hard. Deadly.
He looked up at me as he tied the knot real tight.
“I knew they trafficked in drugs. But selling little girls?” he narrowed his eyes in an anger that hadn’t dissipated. “There was no way I could live with myself if I didn’t do what I could. Even if it was just for that one girl. Even if it cost me my life.”
“Asher,” I murmured, going to his side, the smell of leather and guns in the air, “What’re we gonna do? Hank ain’t equipped to handle guys like these.”
“It isn’t these guys I’m worried about,” he said, rising up as I went to them. “You see Shelby,” he said, taking hold of my hand as he looked into my eyes. “I saved that little girl, got her far away from these guys. But the police were looking for her. And their last reported sighting was with me.”
He looked at me so deadly serious.
“Her family reported her abducted. But she told me they were the ones who sold her to the gang. I couldn’t very well turn her over to them. But now I’m wanted for abducting a minor. You have any idea the kind of sentence that goes with that charge?” he asked me, his face grim.
I felt like I was going to throw up.
“But these guys, we’ll have proof. They came after you, tried to kill you! They’re not... they’ve gotta believe you,” I said with tears threatening to spill from my eyes. I could barely breathe, barely manage to stand as I stared at him with such concern.
And deep in my heart, I dreaded that there was nothing that could be done...
“And then what? I’d still have to turn the girl over to her family. The same family who sold her off to some bikers for crack,” he said, his jaw set firm, though even as stoic a man as him couldn’t hide the pain in his eyes. “If I have to die for that little girl, I will Shelby. If I have to serve time for her… I’ll do that too. But what I won’t do is turn her over to people who’ll use and abuse her, you hear me?”
I nodded my head, because I understood and even admired his conviction. What he was trying to do, what he’d do for her...
How could I hold that against a man?
“What’s next, then?” I asked, because I knew arguin’ wasn’t gonna do either of us any good.
A moment of pain
ed silence lingered between us, and then… sirens.
Not somethin’ we often heard ‘round here, I gotta say. But when I saw Sheriff Hank’s vehicle comin’, it was easy to see the gunshots must’ve got him called. We weren’t so far away that the sound of that wouldn’t reach pryin’ ears. Certainly not of my cousin.
