Girl, Stolen

something fierce. When he put his hand to the top of his head, it came away wet and sticky.

At the sight of the red on his fingers, he felt a muzzy sort of shock. He explored the wound more gingerly. Two welts, one an inch longer, right next to each other. The skin around them was swollen tight. But no broken bits of bone when he probed, grinding his teeth together against the pain. Pushing himself into a sitting position, Griffin tried to figure out what had happened. He was on the bed, in his sleeping bag. He looked to his left. The nylon cord was still tied to the empty bed, but there was no Cheyenne on the end of it. And on the floor was a big silver wrench, one end clotted with something. He felt a little sick when he looked at the reddish brown clump, matted with hair. That was blood. His blood.

Griffin got up. For a second, he had to steady himself on the bedpost. He wasn’t going to make the same mistake he had last time. He wasn’t going to go rushing outside only to leave Cheyenne in the house. He quickly went from room to room, opening all the closets and looking underneath the furniture. The fire in the woodstove had gone out, and the house was quiet and cold.

No Cheyenne. This time she really had to be in the woods. He yanked on a coat, hat, and gloves, then grabbed the flashlight and went looking for her. And then he discovered Duke was gone, too. To follow their trail, he had been forced to move slowly, scanning back and forth with his flashlight, looking for a footprint in the dusting of snow, or freshly broken branches. Once it got light, Griffin knew it would be easier — for everyone. He had been determined to find her before the others did.

Now he walked beside Cheyenne through the forest. Even though it was daylight, it was the time of year when even at noon the light was gray and uncertain. Scarves of mist clung to the trees. Sounds carried oddly here, floating through the cold, crisp air, making it hard to pinpoint where they came from. Even though he was hurrying as fast as he could, it was still slow going as they skirted mud holes and underbrush.

At least the snow was lighter here, just a spotty dusting, so they didn’t have to worry about leaving tracks. There wasn’t enough clear space for them to easily walk side by side, so while Griffin carefully steered Cheyenne across relatively unlittered ground, his own feet scuffed through ferns or got sucked in by half-frozen mud.

When his foot was wrenched from under him, Griffin screamed. He couldn’t help it. He fell to the ground.

“What is it?” Cheyenne yelled. Her hands swam through the air, looking for him. “Griffin? What’s wrong?”

The pain was so great that he couldn’t speak. Hot tears ran down his cheeks. He pushed himself up on his elbows. His left foot was still half in the hole he had stepped in, some animal’s small burrow. But his leg was now facing a completely different direction.

“Griffin?” Cheyenne’s voice broke. Her unseeing eyes were wide as she turned her head from side to side.

“It’s my ankle,” he managed to grunt. “I stepped in a hole, and I think I broke it.”

Invisible knives were slicing his tendons and nerves.

Griffin didn’t mean to, but when he pulled his foot free of the hole, he let out another scream. It dangled at the end of his leg like a shoe he had half kicked off. But this was his foot. Panting, Griffin pulled up his trouser leg, ignoring the fresh waves of agony, even though part of him didn’t want to know how damaged it was.

Cheyenne found his shoulder and crouched beside him. “How bad is it?”

“Bad. My foot’s pointing the wrong way.”

“Is it bleeding?”

“No. But I think at least one of the bones in my ankle is broken.”

“What are we going to do?” Cheyenne’s face was creased with concern.

It was hard to think. Griffin realized he was moaning faintly at the end of every breath. “Here. Help me get up. If I can lean on you, maybe I can hop on my good leg. I’m going to have to be your eyes, and you’re going to have to help be my leg.”

Cheyenne leaned down. Putting her hands around his wrists, she began to pull while Griffin tried to stand on just his right leg. She was overbalanced, in danger of toppling onto him. He got nearly all the way up and then lurched forward. His left foot touched the ground. A bolt of electricity jolted its way up his leg, burning every nerve. With a cry, he fell back on the ground, pulling Cheyenne over on top of him. He let out another scream when some part of her pressed against his ankle. He was in too much pain to be ashamed. She rolled off him so they were lying next to each other on the icy ground. For a second, there was just the sound of their breathing.

He made himself face the facts. “I can’t do it, Cheyenne. You’ll have to go on on your own.”

She propped herself on one elbow. “I’m not leaving you here. You could freeze to death. I can already hear your teeth chattering.”

“It’s nothing. Just from the shock, that’s all.” He was vaguely aware of the cold and wet seeping through his jeans. “Look, we’re only about a mile or two from the main road. I can point you in the right direction. Just keep walking in a straight line, and you should get there in less than an hour. That’s not enough time for anything bad to happen to me. Face it. There’s no way I can put any weight on my leg. Even if I managed to get to my feet, I can’t hop for two miles. You go out to the road and flag somebody down. Then you can come back for me.”

She trailed her fingers up his chest until she found his face, then cupped his cheek. “But if they find you, they might kill you for helping me.”

“But they won’t know that I was helping you.” He had to speak through gritted teeth as the pain seared up his leg and into his brain. “I’ll just tell them I was looking for you. And then I’ll say I saw tracks going in the completely opposite direction.”

“No.” She shook her head, her upper lip curled. “No way.” She grabbed one of his hands and half stood. “I can’t leave you here. You have to come with me. Come on. Just try getting up again. You gave up too soon.” Her face was so white. A blue vein fluttered in her temple.

“Cheyenne” — he hardened his voice — “I can’t. If either one of us is going to survive, you have to get to that road as soon as possible.”

A QUARTER-MILLION DOLLARS, TWO GUNS, AND A DEAD MAN

Griffin was so cold. His whole body vibrated. And each time he shivered, it ran down his leg to his ankle. It felt like the ends of the bone were grating together, but he couldn’t stop shaking. He remembered shaking like this in the burn unit. The nurses had told him it was shock and then wrapped the unburned parts of his body in white blankets warm from a special dryer.

He tried to tense his body so that he would stop shaking, but it didn’t help. Every shiver was echoed by a wave of pain that radiated from his ankle to his pelvis. Trying to conserve the little heat he had, Griffin curled on his side. But he was still just as cold, if not worse, and now a new side of him was wet. The backs of his clothes were already stiffening with ice.

He didn’t know how long he lay there before something roused him out of himself. At first Griffin thought he was imagining it, but then he definitely heard something. He corrected the thought. Someone. Moving through the forest. And voices, too. He couldn’t make out any words, but the tones were familiar — Jimbo and TJ. Arguing. That was familiar too.

“We just go back to the house and take the truck and go,” said Jimbo. “Go before Roy has a chance to rethink this. Screw them. We’ve got our money.”

“But where are we supposed to go?” TJ sounded confused.

“Don’t you get it? There isn’t any more ‘supposed to.’ We can do what we want. We each have a quarter of a million dollars. I think I’m going to Brazil. I’ve always wanted to go to Carnaval.”

“What about TJ?”

“What about you?” Jimbo echoed.

“Am I going with you?”

Jimbo didn’t say anything for a few seconds. Then he said, “Maybe it’s time we did things on our own.”

“Hey!” Griffin yelled. “Hey!” He levered himself up on one elbow, ignoring how much it hurt to move.

“What the hell was that?” TJ sounded spooked.

“It’s Griffin, dummy,” Jimbo said. “Hey, Griff — where are you?”