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Once inside I almost fall to the floor, exhausted, drenched in sweat. Trembling from the pain, and the numbing chill, I shred my wet and dirty clothes all over the place as I slam the door shut behind me. The cabin is warm but I’m still so cold it’ll take a long time before I’ll start feeling my toes again. I’m still stunned. I hurt all over and wince as I move, but at the same time I’m giddy. I haven’t thought about how I’d react if, or when, I finally caught up with her again.
Them.
It’s them.
It’s absolutely quiet inside, and I’m guessing my hunch was wrong. There’s no life in here. I’m figuring the kid is with her somewhere out there in the quickly darkening and hostile surroundings. I can only hope Kerry isn’t too fucking out of her mind and tries to leave by foot. It’s a really long way back to any sort of civilization.
Surprisingly enough, I’m not particularly angry with her for attacking me. I’d have done the same in her position, and I can’t hold it against her. Actually, I’m so fucking pleased with myself right now for following my instincts and finding they were right, that I’ll let her violent outburst slip.I limp to the kitchen and pour some cold water in a glass, downing it eagerly. Finding ice in the freezer, I wrap a fistful in a kitchen towel before I roll up the left leg of my pants. I swallow hard as I look at my swollen knee that’s beginning to discolor in bluish and red nuances.
Fuck!
That’d be some ligaments gone to hell. I wrap the ice around it and secure it, tying another towel around the first, groaning from the pain as I pull the knot tight. I have goosebumps all over already. It’s not like I need the extra chill.
I stiffen and listen, my fingers still on the knot. I thought I heard something. If they’re coming here soon, I’d better not just stand here more or less defenseless. I pull down my pant leg in a rush, yanking the fabric to get it past the knee. Then I hear it again. A soft cat-like mewling somewhere in the proximity. An animal?
No way.
I’m out of the kitchen in no time to locate the source. My heart pounds so hard I can barely breathe. If that’s what I think it is... Stopping in my tracks, I can barely believe what I’m seeing and I forget about my pain, about Kerry, and fighting, about where we are and why we are here.
In the room behind the main room, in the miniature bedroom, stands an old-fashioned crib of wood and in it lays a little girl with thick dark hair and warm brown eyes.
My eyes.
She looks so much like me it almost breaks my heart. And she shows no fear at all in front of the stranger who stares at her as if he’s seen a ghost, instead she raises her chubby little arms in the air and demands I lift her. I give her a trembling hand and she grabs it with tiny, tiny little fingers and heaves herself out of the crib and onto the floor. I don’t even know if she can walk and I’m afraid to touch her because I don’t want to scare her.
The girl, Cecilia, my child,mychild, toddles out of the bedroom and into the next and sits down by a red little car and a black plastic baby doll. It takes me a nanosecond to get back to breathing right again, then I follow her footsteps and crouch next to her.
“Caaa,” she says and hands me the toy.
I have no doubt she’s mine. And she talks!
She’s incredible.
Kerry
My throat aches from the tears I don’t allow, and my chest burns, but I keep running. I’m leaving Cece behind, but I’m of no use to her if I’m dead, and maybe, just maybe he doesn’t know she’s in there. He’s getting closer but I know the terrain better and as I get to the steep slope I start sliding-running-sliding on the wet, slippery ground, faster and faster until I can’t hear him anymore. I turn my head to look when my foot gets stuck and I fall on my face with an intense pain from my ankle radiating up along my left leg. It hurts so much I want to scream. Sweat drips off my forehead, and I clench my teeth not to make any sounds as I fight to get loose. I expect a killing blow any moment. Finally, I still and listen. Everything is quiet. Too quiet. All the little hairs on my back stand straight up. He’s not here. He’s gone back.
Cecilia!
God! I have to get backnow!
It takes forever to limp all the way back to the house. My ankle hurts badly, and every step is agonizing, but I push forward with only one thought in my adrenaline-drenched brain.
Save Cecilia.
There’s no doubt in my mind he’s already found her, and in my worst moments I see before me how he’s taken her and left. Without a trace. And that I’ll never find out what happened to my daughter. I sob loudly, every breath hitching on the intake. I have no doubt he is capable of anything and everything and I expect the worst.
Crouching by the same bush I hid behind before I attacked him, I study my home. It’s almost completely dark outside now. The lights are on inside and I see tell-tale signs of a break-in in the faint light over my front door. I wait breathlessly for something, anything, to happen. At first there’s no way of telling if he’s still there or not, but then I see a shadow across the opposite wall in the living room and I start trembling, finally allowing some of my fear and a flood of relief to break through.
He’s still here. Meaning she’s still here too.
I have to assume she’s still alive. I have no other choice. I crawl closer, knowing I’m invisible in the dark unless he suddenly decides to open the door. I don’t hear anything. Why isn’t she crying?
What have you done? You’re herfather!She’s just a little girl!
My heart beats so hard it almost makes me faint. I have to get inside. Now. Tiptoeing to the back of the house I find that the back door is very much closed, as it should be, but I grit my teeth, nonetheless. It’s impossible to enter through the main door, because he will have to be virtually hiding in the bedroom or the bathroom not to see me, and I can’t count on that. I stand in the cold darkness, puffs of white appearing and disappearing before my eyes, and I want to scream. I want to step up on the porch outside the front door,mydoor, and scream at him to show himself, to let me have my daughter, and then to just, just… disappear.
Forever.
