Fuck. Fuck. Fuck. Fuck!
I didn’t just touch my daughter.
Did.
Not.
Fucking.
Happen.
Hysteria rises in my chest and I gag. Hot, furious tears sting at my eyes. I just ruined all of our lives in the blink of an eye because I thought it was Sabrina I was touching. I should have known my goddamned wife wouldn’t respond to my touch.
Bile rises in my throat.
That means my daughter did enjoy it.
I snarl out a string of furious curse words.
I’ve probably just fucked up her head royally for the rest of her life over one stupid moment. I start slamming cabinets on a search for some hard liquor. I need a fucking drink so I can think of how I will fix this.
I.
Will.
Fix.
This.
I have to. That’s my baby girl.
The storm is violent outside, and it matches my raging heart. Everything rattles and shakes. My daughter sobs from the other room causing my heart to shatter into a million pieces.
Don’t worry, Pip. I’ll make it right again. Just let me cool the fuck off.
A loud, earthly groan is the only warning I have that something is seriously off. And then I’m free falling. My shoulder slams against the ceiling before I get tossed across the room.
Crunch.
Smash.
Rip.
The yelp of our dog.
So many awful noises I can’t make sense of anything.
Pop! Pop! Pop!
My head slams against every surface and all I can think about is thank God Dev and her mother are safe in the bedroom. It’s my last thought before everything goes black.
Black.
Black.
And still falling.
I think I’m tumbling straight to hell.
After what I did, I deserve to go there.
But they sure as hell don’t.
Black.
Screams.
Loud, ear piercing wails.
Devon.
She and Drew are out in the backyard. By the way she’s screaming as though she’s trying to wake the dead, I know she’s in severe pain. I charge down the stairs knocking a few frames off the wall as I tear along toward her. My bare feet hit the cold marble floors and I skid to a stop long enough to shove my feet into my boots. Then, I’m running through the house and out the back door. The screen door slams behind me as I sprint toward the edge of the woods behind the house. Long ago I built her and Drew a treehouse.
What if she broke her arm?
Worse yet, her neck?
Bile rises in my throat as I run.
My first inclination is to blame Sabrina. I was buried in paperwork while she did God knows what. She’s probably fucking napping. So help me if something happens to Devon…
I find her standing in the clearing, her blonde hair wild. Her face is bright red as she sobs. Rushing over to her, I pull her into my arms and then start assessing her for damages. I kneel down and take her small face in my hands.
“Where are you hurt, Pip?”
Her face crumples as she sobs and points up at the treehouse. My heart ceases to beat.
“It’s Drew?”
She nods.
“Stay here,” I instruct as I scale the small ladder up the tree.
Her wails are all I can hear.
A sound so devastating I’m not sure I’ll ever get it to leave my memory bank. It’ll probably haunt me until the day I die.
My head is throbbing.
Screams.
It only intensifies my headache, but it does pull me from my fog a bit. I absently pat at my forehead above my right brow. The skin is split there and hot blood rushes from it spilling over my eye. Using my palm, I press it to the wound to keep it from bleeding and try to make sense of what just happened.
I’m still in the RV.
Everything is mangled and crumpled and broken.
The RV is on its side, and I’m lying along the wall in between the cabinets and the stove.
“Devon,” I croak out. “Sabrina.”
My voice can barely be heard over the howling wind and torrential rains that still rattle the camper. I groan as I try to pry myself from my position. Nothing feels broken. My head just fucking hurts.
“Daddy!”
The scream, so sharp and terrified, jolts me completely out of my daze. It reminds me of that day when I thought she was hurt. And just like then, I scramble to find her. Her hysterical sobs are coming from the bedroom where I last left her.
Where you had your finger inside her…
I grit my teeth and push that into the recesses of my mind. I have more important things to worry about like my wife and my daughter’s safety. The trek to the back where her cries haven’t lessened is difficult. The RV is torn to shreds and rain pours in through a hole right before I get to the bedroom. I manage to yank the partition door up so I can squeeze through.
Lightning flashes and I get a sense of where Devon is at. Over and over the lightning illuminates the sky, allowing me to see fairly easily.
What I see nearly has me vomiting.
A tree has come through one window, a long and slender pine, and gone through the other window. Like a toothpick right through a sausage. My daughter’s legs dangle from the upper window. A thin branch from the tree has impaled her on the side. Each time she wiggles, she slides further against the branch.
“Devon,” I bellow over the storm, finally finding my voice. “Don’t move.”
“Daddy!”
Despite my orders, she kicks her legs frantically. I clamber over to her and let go of my forehead to grab her legs in a bear hug so she’ll stop moving. She’s sobbing so hard that her body trembles. I kiss her flesh and then try to inspect the branch stabbing her.
“Listen to me, Devon. I need you to calm down. I’m going to get you out of here.” My gaze scans the small ruined room and Sabrina is nowhere to be found. Sickness roils in my belly. “Baby, can you see your mother. Tell me what you can see.”
“It’s raining too hard,” she screeches. “I can’t see anything. Lightning is going to strike me!”
Gritting my teeth, I lift her by her ass. She starts screaming in pain.
“See if you can climb up some,” I holler. “I need to get this branch out of you.”
I help her put her foot on my shoulder. Quickly she understands what she’s supposed to do and kicks against me. Her howls are enough to crush my heart but my strong girl manages to slide off the branch. When she’s free of it, I grab it and break it. Then, I slowly ease her back down into the camper with me. As soon as she’s free, she latches onto me bawling her eyes out.
“Dev, I need to stop the bleeding. Let me see your wound.” My voice is hoarse from exertion. We’ve fallen back against the mattress that is standing up since the RV is on its side. I don’t have the energy to move. Blood rushes from the gash on my forehead and our bodies are slick against each other from the rain and blood from her stomach.
“I-I’m t-tired, Daddy.” Her teeth are chattering wildly. I think she’s going into shock.
I jerk my eyes open. I’m tired and dazed, but I can’t just lie here. Sabrina is missing. Both Devon and I have wounds that need tending. And yet I can’t move. Blindly, I reach for the quilt and try to wrap it around us. Devon is shivering so badly that I think warming her up is the first order of business. She burrows against me as though she’s trying to crawl inside my skin. I hug her to me and kiss the top of her soaked head. We slump down—me falling on my ass and her nearly strangling me so I won’t let her go.
She cries and cries.
I have to be strong for her.
My eyes droop and my muscles feel as though they weigh a ton. I can’t seem to find the energy or strength to do anything else. Her fingernails dig into my chest. As my eyes start to close, I have the forethought to maneuver her so that her wound is pressed against my stomach. Hopefully that’s enough to stop the bleeding.
“Rest for just a bit, Pip.”
“Daddy.”
The voice is soft and sweet. I don’t walk toward it but I run for it.
My eyes crack open, and I’m blinded by a sunray that’s shining in on me. It takes one horrible second to remember the chaos that happened last night. When I start to frown, something tugs at my forehead. I try to rip at it, but someone grips my wrist and pulls it away.
“Don’t touch it. I bandaged you up,” Devon whispers softly. A sob tears from her. “Buddy has vanished.”
I tilt my head to the left to avoid the bright sun and stare at my daughter. Her blonde hair is wavy, damp, full of leaves, and caked with blood. The dog is probably smashed under the RV.
“He’ll turn up.” Lies. “Your stomach,” I croak, my hand fumbling across her chest.
She lets out a whimper when I yank the fabric up to see. Her entire chest is scratched up like she took a slide face first down hot concrete. Both of her small breasts bore the brunt of the attack. But what has me most worried is her stomach. She seemed to have found the first aid kit because her abdomen is bandaged up too. Blood stains the gauze. I’ll probably have to stitch her up soon.
“Have you been outside? Have you seen your mother?” I’m still frowning at the scratches on her breasts and stomach when she slowly stands letting her shirt fall back down.
“Dad…” Her bottom lip wobbles. “Let’s just stay in here. I’ll find you something to eat.”
I close my eyes. The horror in her eyes is all I need to see. Sabrina is gone.
“Help me up,” I grunt.
She grabs my wrist and helps me to my feet. When I sway, she hugs my waist. “I think you have a concussion,” she whispers against my bloody still-bare chest.
I swallow and stroke her matted hair. “I’ll be fine. We need to figure out what happened.”
Her head tilts up to regard me. Fresh new tears well in her eyes making her blue eyes seem like lakes. “The cliff gave out. Washed away right underneath us last night. Must have been all the rainwater and the weight of the RV.”
Guilt claws its way up inside me. “This is all my fault.”
She shakes her head in vehemence. “No.”
I clench my jaw and give her a clipped nod. She releases me and clumsily starts ambling out of the room and down through the camper. I follow after her, my head throbbing in pain. She’s barefoot and wears nothing but a T-shirt and her bloody panties. I’m stuck in a pair of jeans but still shirtless and shoeless. We’re a mess. I’ll need to find us clothes, but first I need to find Sabrina.
The window that used to be beside the table has been smashed out. As if she’s done this once already, Devon grabs the edge of the window, uses the bench seat at the table for leverage, and hoists herself out. Her legs flail as she tries to climb through. I grab her slender thighs and push her through. The metal of the RV groans as she walks along the outer side. My head hurts like a motherfucker but I easily hoist myself through the opening as I’m taller and stronger than my daughter. The moment I’m out of the hole, my breath catches in my throat.
We fell.
RV. Trailer. Everything.
At least two hundred feet down the side of the cliff. Trees, along our path of descent, are destroyed. Just the one tree seems to have impaled the RV. All of our belongings and tools and food are scattered over trees and along the forest floor. When I look to my left, I’m sickened to see some of it floating down the river.
“Where is she?”
Devon points through a few trees but doesn’t look. As soon as I see Sabrina, I wish I hadn’t looked. She hangs upside down from a tree by her foot that’s caught on a branch. Her arm—Jesus fucking Christ—has been torn from her shoulder and dangles in the wind, barely held on by some muscle. Her other leg hangs off to the side in an obscene way. Her eyes remain open and her tongue hangs out.
Fuck.
Fucking gruesome goddamned shit.
“Daddy…”
“Stay there,” I bark as I slide down the side of the RV to the muddy earth. A stick stabs my foot but I ignore it. Hobbling over to my wife, I pray it’s just a figment of my imagination. That she’s not dead. Simply passed out.
“Sabrina,” I call out as I rush over to her.
So much blood.
While I was trying to save our daughter, she was out here bleeding to death. I didn’t look for her. I just held our daughter and fell asleep. What the fuck?
I run my fingers through my hair and roar at the top of my lungs.
This was supposed to be our new life.
Our motherfucking happiness.
Not this.
It was never supposed to be this.
Falling to my knees, I let out a choked cry. “S-Sabrina. I’m s-so sorry.”
Devon, despite being told to stay, squeezes me from behind. Her thin arms hug my neck as sobs make her entire body tremble. I stand back up and shake her off me.
“Go back to the RV,” I snarl. “I need to take care of this.”
“N-No, Dad. I’m going to help.”
I glare at her, but she lifts her chin in defiance. I want to scream at her that now’s not the time to back talk. She needs to fucking listen. But she looks so goddamned brave and fearless right now. Her mother is hanging dead from a tree like something out of a horror flick and she’s begging to help.
“We need to find you clothes.” My throat aches with emotion. There is so much that needs to be done to take care of her. I’m fucking overwhelmed. I don’t even know where to start. But I hate that she’s standing there in a torn shirt and panties, covered in blood.
“We can look for some after we help Mom,” she whispers. “I promise.”
With my jaw clenched, I reach forward and offer her my pinky. She hooks hers with mine and then we release our hands. I break away from her sad gaze to try and grab onto Sabrina’s good arm. I’m about four feet too short.
“Put me on your shoulders. I can pull her down,” Devon says as she comes to stand in front of me.
Since it’s the quickest solution, I kneel down. She slides her thigh over my shoulder and then the other. I grip her legs so she won’t fall as I rise. We wobble as she reaches for her mother.
My sweet, brave daughter has to tug her dead mother from a damn tree.