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“Anything?” Vivienne kicked at a clump of dirt with the toe of her shoe.
“Nothing,” I admitted.
She pouted. “Now what?”
Vivienne might have been an inner-city princess, but I wasn’t. I crouched and collected a heavy rock, passing it between my hands, testing the weight.
Then threw it straight through the window.
The baby gave a squawk, and all of us looked over at her in marvel. She’d become so quiet, her crying felt like the second miracle of the day.
Nova reached through the broken window and around to open the door from the inside. She tested the lights, and we all cheered when there was working electricity. It lit up the single-room cabin, which was bleak by normal standards, probably used as a fishing or hunting sleepover spot by the owners.
But it may as well have been a mansion to us.
We all went straight for the kitchen, opening and closing cupboard doors.
“Doritos!” Nova shouted, clutching the bag and holding them in the air like she’d just been given a gold medal in the Olympics.
I pulled things out of my cupboard. “Granola bars! Ooh, Cap’n Crunch!”
Vivienne laughed, throwing food onto the round table in the middle of the kitchenette. “This place has gotta be owned by a sad single loser, right? This is total bachelor food. Oh my God, there’s shelf-stable milk. Probably for that sugar overload they call cereal. Can the baby drink that?”
They all turned to me.
“I don’t know. Probably not, but she has to drink something other than water, and that milk has gotta be better than trying to feed her a granola bar. Hopefully one night of it won’t hurt her. Tomorrow we’ll follow the road back into town, and then she can have all the formula her tiny heart desires. Can’t you, little one?”
The baby gurgled at me.
For the first time since Caleb had thrown her back in with us, I thought maybe she was happy. Even if she was too little to smile.
We shoved Doritos in our faces while I warmed up the milk in a saucepan on the gas stove. Nova found some matches and got a fire going in the small wood-burning fireplace. Vivienne and Georgia wrapped themselves in blankets and sat on the couch chatting with more animation than I’d seen from any of them since we’d been shoved together.
I whistled as the milk heated, but I stood over it, stirring slowly with a spoon, not wanting it to burn.
A dark shadow moved outside.
I froze, searching for it through the darkness.
Nothing.
I shook it off and went back to stirring, but the next time I stared out the window, it wasn’t with quite as carefree a glance as earlier. I didn’t want to scare the others when it was probably nothing.
Everything was still.
Until the shadow moved again.
A man stepped out.
Then another.
And another.
They surrounded the house, approaching from all angles.
I wanted to scream. Wanted to warn the others. But it was too late. When four men stormed the cabin, all I could do was let them take me.
This was my life now. My reality.
