I feel myself hanging, and when I slowly open my eyes, I’m hanging off his shoulder. The pain in my shoulder hits me right away, and I groan again. My eyes close now again, and I fight to keep them open. The sound of twigs snapping under his feet as he walks. My vision is blurry when I open my eyes again, and all I can see is the darkness of the forest. I try to spot anything that would tell me where I am.
The sound of creaking makes me open my eyes again as we walk into a wooden cabin. I look around, spotting a lone cast-iron bed in the corner. The mattress is full of stains and has no covers. He tosses me on the floor like I am a rag doll, and even though I don’t want him to know I’m in pain, I can’t stop the groan that escapes me. "Shut up," he hisses at me as I lie on my side, looking at him. My entire body is crying out in pain. I close my eyes, trying not to focus on the pain. Fight it back, I tell myself as I lie still, not moving.
He walks over to the table and comes back with something black in his hand. He grabs my hands together, and I cry out now in pain from my broken wrist. "Shut the fuck up," he says roughly as he zip-ties my hands together. The pain just soars through me. "Why couldn’t you just shut the fuck up?" he asks, and I just look at him as he squats down in front of me. "Get up," he says, grabbing me by my hair and making me sit up, hitting my head on the wood. I don’t know anything else after that because the darkness takes over. I’m standing in the middle of a forest now, and I’m running one way, and just like that, I’m taken back to where I started. I hear Mayson yelling for me and turn to go toward the sound of his voice, but I can’t find him.
"Do I have your attention now?" I hear the voice in my head, and my eyes slowly open. Everything is coming back to me now. The drive to my house, the plate breaking, Mayson's father getting me. Being shot in my shoulder. I’m sitting in the dark, and the pain is kicking in. I open my eyes, but my head feels like it weighs a hundred pounds as I fall to the right and to the left. It takes everything in me to get my eyes to stay open. I fight away the darkness, knowing I have to survive this. "Now is that any way to talk to your father?"
I want to yell out and tell him not to give him anything. I want to tell him that I love him. I want to tell him not to blame himself. I want to tell him all of these things, but nothing comes out. "You want her?" he sneers at him. "Then you better fucking find her before it’s too late, you son of a bitch."
He throws the phone on the counter and then looks over at me. "My boy likes you." He goes to sit in the only chair in the room. The cabin is as big as my bedroom. A counter against one wall with a sink that looks like it hasn’t been used in years. A stove and fridge next to each other that looks like it’s from the seventies. "He has gotten his panties all in a twist about you."
He runs his hands through his hair. "You would think he learned something from me. A woman is nothing but a warm body and a punching bag." He laughs.
I lick my lips, now tasting the metallic taste, knowing it’s blood. "He’s a better man than you will ever be," I croak out.
He laughs even harder now. "He’s got his head up his ass if he thinks that there is something better in the world. There are no fucking rainbows. There is nothing for him, you want to know why?" I lean my head back on the wooden wall. "Because he is nothing."
I snicker now. "He is everything," I say. "He’s going to find me," I say the words, and I pray it’s the truth.
"I really fucking hope he does," he says. "In fact, I’m betting on it." I close my eyes, trying to talk myself out of the pain. "Thought he could hide from me for all these years." I don’t say anything to him. "Ran away to the Army." He shakes his head. "Like a bitch hiding." I close my eyes now, trying to gather my strength. "Found him hiding in the woods." He laughs, getting up and walking over to a bottle on the counter. "Hiding with his tail between his legs." He swigs from the bottle and then hisses. "Boy did he squeal like a little fucking pig instead of taking it like a man."
I laugh now and open my eyes, shocking him. "How would you know what a man does?” I know that I shouldn’t provoke him. "He is more of a man than you are." He gets up and comes over and backhands me before I even know what is going on. The blood now pours out from my lip, and I hear Mayson’s voice in my head telling me to shut up.
"If he was a man, you would know your place," he says, trailing his finger from my cheek right down my neck
