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She rushed to the front door and immediately noticed it was unlocked. No, she thought in terror, tell me he didn’t go outside.
Barefoot, she tore outside and was down the balcony steps in hurried strides. In the broad light of day she could see how large the land was upon which the house stood. There was a scraggly semi-circle of front garden, and a long, straight driveway paved in cobblestones, between which patches of grass sprang.
And there, at the bottom of the drive, was Rhys, walking side by side with a large man. His gray sweatshirt and sweatpants were grimy and hung about him listlessly, and a blue bandana was tied around his head, but even so she could see a thatch of dark brown hair sprouting beneath it. His shoes were so covered in mud she’d be hard-pressed to tell the original color or the manufacturer.
As she watched in horror, this individual… a wandering hobo, perhaps… reached out and touched her precious son on the shoulder, and in unison they turned again, just yards away from the end of the driveway and the open road.
There were no words to convey her terror, the stark, bright, maternal ferocity that propelled her forward as she shouted incoherently, arms outstretched, fingers turning into claws. Her intent, as her feet grew wings, was to grasp her son with all her might and wrest him away from this person, this disreputable grungy miscreant who had dared to lead her son away.
But in the three or four seconds it took her to cover that ground—a feat she would eventually look back on and marvel—she had changed course, and her deadly attack was directed solely at the perpetrator. She heard herself screaming incoherently, cursing, spitting, like a mother wolverine protecting her cub from a fox or snake.
“Don’t you dare! My son, my son! Leave him alone!”
She collided with him just as he turned towards her, a look of shock forming on his face, and she felt the large, powerful body sway, stagger backwards under the force of the unexpected hit. Off balance, he began to flail his arms, reaching for something—anything—to break his fall. But he grasped at nothing but empty air. He went down with a thud onto the cobblestones, and his guttural roar let her know that he’d hit hard.
Good, she thought.
She was barely aware of Rhys next to her, voicing his consternation, as she straddled the man, taking advantage of his dazed moment, forcing him to stay prone. And then she started to pound on him.
