Twenty Years Ago

The following day, their march through the woods went on and on. Harper had numbed herself to the pain of her heel and to her exhaustion, but she couldn’t deaden herself to Jake’s perceptive gaze as he looked over his shoulder at her. He came to an abrupt halt and spun.

“You’re shaking,” he said tensely, coming downhill toward her in the rough brush. They’d been on the move now for six hours, Jake moving them rapidly over harsh terrain. He grasped her shoulder. “Harper, why are you shaking?”

Helplessness nearly choked her. She hated disappointing him, being so weak when he was so strong. “My foot. It hurts so bad. I’m sorry,” she said miserably, tears pouring down her cheeks.

He launched himself at her. Harper gasped in surprise and the impact of his body bumping into her unexpectedly. He hugged her tightly. She squeezed him back for all she was worth.

“Don’t be sorry,” he said emphatically near her ear. “I’m sorry, for making you think you should be torturing yourself and keeping quiet about it, just because I’m so scared.”

He pulled her tighter to him. She felt so small there in the middle of the vast woods and intimidating mountains, and in that moment, she knew Jake felt small, too. For a few seconds, Harper couldn’t speak, she was so overwhelmed by fear. For the first time, she started to wonder what it’d be like to die.

But then she focused on the boy in her arms.

“You’ve got nothing to be sorry for,” she rallied. “Jake, look at me.”

He wouldn’t, keeping his face buried in her neck. Harper knew she was experiencing him at his most vulnerable. It broke her heart that it was she who had made him this way.

“Jake, I think you should go ahead to Barterton. No, listen,” she said when he shook his head forcefully against hers. “We only have three or four hours before we get to town, right? I’m just holding you back. I can camp somewhere in a hidden spot. You know the woods so well, you’ll remember where I’m at. You can leave me some supplies. You can bring the police back to me!”

She couldn’t believe she was saying this. The idea of being alone in the black forest at night terrified her. But the pain of her blistered heel had become her whole world. That and her concern for Jake. He had a chance to make it . . . while she didn’t.

“I ain’t leaving you, Harper.”

“But Jake, he wants to kill you.” She said her unspoken fear out loud, her voice shaking. He didn’t move for a moment. She held her breath. The tall trees surrounding them rustled eerily in the wind. Slowly, Jake lifted his head.

“Some people would say what he wants to do to you is worse than death,” he said.

“Rape?” she whispered uneasily.

“More than rape. He wants to give you to people who would give you to a lot of men to be raped, Harper. He wants to turn you into prostitute.”

“I’d never become a prostitute,” she said disbelievingly. “I don’t care if I was raped.”

“They wouldn’t give you any choice. They’d keep you a prisoner. They’d probably get you hooked on drugs, so you’d have to depend on them for your next fix. You’d do whatever they say in order to get it,” he said miserably.

“I would never—”

“It doesn’t matter what you would or wouldn’t do right this second. You think you can’t get hooked on drugs, when someone is shooting you up without your okay? They want to turn you into a slave, a walking shadow of what you are right now, right here at this moment. I’m not going to leave you here alone for Emmitt to find!” He shook her for emphasis.

“Well, what will we do, then?” she asked desperately after a stunned moment.

His throat convulsed as he swallowed. Slowly, he began to release her, still holding her loosely. He looked all around them. Harper sensed him bringing himself under control, methodically assessing their situation like the Jake of old.

“We’ll set up camp when we get to the top of this rise.”

He looked so set and determined, and her whole body seemed to throb in synchrony with the pain in her foot. She didn’t have any energy left to argue with him, even when he put his arm around her waist, assisting her in her hobble uphill.

A light rain had started by the time they reached the top. The place Jake chose was a dirt clearing beneath an enormous, towering tree. He insisted that Harper sit with her back against the trunk and rest while he set up camp. He used the tarp, two large tree branches, and some twine to make a low tent that would give them cover from the rain. They were situated about fifteen feet from an overlook.

While Jake went to check the vantage point and scout the area, Harper tenderly tried to remove the tennis shoe from her sore foot. Friction had broken the bandage free. Dried and fresh blood had caked around the wound, but also to her sock and the canvas tennis shoe. Who knew a blister could wreak so much havoc? She pulled the tennis shoe and sock free, wincing. After a dizzying wave of pain passed, she rose from her sitting position, intent on re-dressing the blister despite her exhaustion.

While she was inside the low tent, sitting on a blanket and pulling out first-aid supplies from a pack, she heard a muted thumping sound outside on the ground.

“Jake? I’m in here!” she called, twisting around from her sitting position. “See anything?”

A huge black shadow suddenly blocked the entrance. Harper stared into the face of a bearded, brutal-looking Emmitt Tharp.

All the fear she’d been holding at bay erupted in her like a volcano. She wasn’t aware of screaming, but the shrill sound reached her ears as she scurried to the rear of the tarp enclosure and the back entrance. Emmitt caught her ankle with huge hands and jerked her toward him as easily as he might a panicked rabbit. Harper struggled, but the only thing she really managed to do was knock the branch support down, making the tarp fall on top of her.

The next thing she knew, she was on her back and the dark green tarp was whipped off her face. She looked up at Emmitt, who towered over her like a giant, his face nearly covered by coarse, dark brown hair, his eyes glassy. A horrible smile slanted his lips.

“Well look what I found,” he said. “Little Red.”

“No, Jake!” Harper screamed, slapping and punching at Emmitt’s arms and face when he reached down. She might as well have been a pesky fly, the effect she had on him. He hauled her up off the ground so abruptly, she lost her breath. He jerked her around in front of him, her back against his front. One hand pressed hard against her neck and jaw, twisting her chin; one forearm dug painfully under her rib cage. Harper tried to twist and escape his grip, but she was like an animal caught in a steel trap. He pushed harder on her jaw. He looked down at her dispassionately.

“It looks like my stupid nephew didn’t get the goods damaged too much.” His deep, guttural voice barely penetrated the panicked state in which she swam. But then Emmitt twisted her chin roughly in the other direction, and her gaze flew across a pile of something on the ground. She recognized Jake’s dark green T-shirt, her heart lurching.

“Jake, Jake,” she screamed, but his slight form remained unmoving on the ground. Oh my God, Emmitt’s killed him!

“You son of—”

“Shut up, or I’m going to cut you.”

Her eyes sprang wide at the feeling of cold, sharp steel pressing against her throat.

“Do you have any idea how much trouble you caused me, you little bitch? My buyer gave up and went home two days ago. I’ve been to Poplar Gorge and back twice now and then thought: Why not try Barterton? Jake’s stupid enough to take her there. And looky here. I was right,” he breathed, pressing the edge of the knife into Harper’s skin. Pain pierced her, swelling her terror. He’d cut her throat. She was going to die—

“Let her go, Emmitt.”

Her clamped eyelids sprang open. Jake stood just eight or nine feet in front of them, his face chalky beneath his tan, his hands bunched in fists at his sides. Harper thought she saw a rising bruise on his forehead. Did he look a little woozy, as if he was struggling to stand? She felt Emmitt jerk slightly in surprise behind her, but then he noticeably relaxed. His laugh chilled her.

“You gonna take me, stupid? You think you can kick my ass, you worthless little piece of shit? Gonna show off for your little girlfriend here?” He laughed even harder, like he’d just been told a hilarious joke. Jake stepped closer, his face like a mask, his eyes glassy, his stare glued to the man who held her. Emmitt abruptly stopped laughing. Harper made a choked sound of pure terror when he pressed the knife tighter to her neck and she felt the bite of the blade. Jake came to a halt.

“What’s a matter, Jake? Worried about Little Red here? Didn’t you tell her you like boys?”

“Shut up, Emmitt.”

Harper blinked, shock making her rise slightly above her terror for a moment. Jake sounded scared, but also cold.

And hard.

She realized something else. Suddenly Jake was staring at her, not at Emmitt. It was just for a split second, but his eyes compelled her.

“I’m going to cut her right in front of you if you take another step, then I’ll make her watch while I gut and skin you. Get back, you fucking runt.”

Jake held his ground, though. The sharp knife shifted to Harper’s cheek. “How would you like a scar on your little girlfriend here?” Emmitt taunted. “Think she’d be so pretty then?”

“Let her go.”

Emmitt tensed, pressing harder with the knife. Harper clamped her eyelids shut, tears leaking from beneath her eyelids. She was suffocating. She couldn’t breathe. Everything went into brutal slow motion.

Something pelted her face—hundreds of little missiles—and time suddenly leapt forward. She felt a sharp stinging sensation at the corner of her mouth, and then her lungs hitched, and she was breathing in dirt. Emmitt’s tight hold on her relented. She lunged forward, tripping. Someone caught her—Jake. He righted her forcefully before his hold was gone. She realized she wasn’t the only one coughing. Emmitt was, too . . . with hoarse, violent choking sounds.

She spun around, her coughing fit freezing for a moment at the vision of Jake standing next to his uncle. He gripped Emmitt’s large knife in his hand. Emmitt was bent at the waist, coughing violently and digging at his eyes with his fists, trying to clear his vision from the dirt and small stones Jake had thrown into his face.

Jake lifted the cruel-looking, long silver blade. Harper’s heart stopped. He paused with knife poised in the air and glanced over at Harper. She sensed his terror. His helplessness.

Then something clicked in his eyes as he stared at her.

He brought the knife down, plunging it into his uncle’s back and then his side. Emmitt grunted and went down hard to the forest floor on his knees. He fell forward to his hands. Jake made a wild sound in his throat, and the blood-smeared knife fell to the forest floor.

“Grab a pack, Harper,” he told her after a few seconds of staring down at Emmitt, who was gagging and writhing around, on his belly now. Jake’s voice sounded hollow and funny to Harper’s stunned brain, but hearing it unfroze her, too.

She raced over to the fallen tarp, still coughing dust and dirt out of her throat. She tossed aside the tarp frantically and grabbed the two packs. When she turned, she saw Jake picking up the knife, a disgusted, desperate expression tightening his thin face as he stared at Emmitt.

“Jake,” she rasped.

He blinked and met her stare. Some message passed between them quick as electricity. He nodded and came over to her, reaching for one of the packs. Hastily, he jerked the tarp completely away from the area, picking up Harper’s bloody shoe and the fallen bottle of antiseptic cream from a blanket. He tossed them into his pack along with Emmitt’s horrible knife.

“Let’s go,” he whispered tensely. His hand closed around hers, and as always, Harper followed his lead.

She took one last look over her shoulder at Emmitt gasping and writhing, struggling to push himself up off the ground. Then Jake pulled on her hand, and they were running like mad through the forest.