“Shut up.” His voice is unrecognizable to me.
I do. I shut up. I don’t fight. I don’t scream. Shame rides alongside my terror. But somewhere deep, deep inside, I hear Mom tell me to trust my gut. My gut tells me I am blind and I am lost, and if I fought for freedom now, it would end in my death. I listen to my gut. Because I want to live.
A truck door opens with a loud creak. He throws me inside. My hands fall against the bench seat. It is frayed and torn. Foam cushion blooms from the tears. The air isn’t clean. It smells like mildew and rot. This is an old truck.
He grabs my wrists and doesn’t let go. Neither does the agony of my shoulder; it digs in deep, teaching me what pain really is. He’s tying my hands together, but it’s not rope, it’s a bungee cord. Only a bungee cord could be this tight.
“It’s going to cut off my circulation. I’m going to lose my hands.”
Nothing.
He binds my ankles. It’s another bungee. I can feel the stretch, hear the slight click of the hooks coming together. The door slams shut. The tie around my legs is not nearly as bad as the one around my wrists. My cowboy boots help protect me. I am definitely wearing boots. So I was at the barn. What happened? Who is this? When is this?
There’s somewhere else I’m supposed to be, but it’s misty. A far-off location, and I’m supposed to be there, but I can’t remember what it is. Fog. It’s all a fog. I’m blind and confused and in trouble beyond what I thought possible.
I don’t understand why this is happening to me. I’m a good person. A good daughter. A good friend. A decent student. And I work like hell. Nobody I know my age works as hard as I do. I’m at the ranch morning, afternoon, and night, working the farm, working Tucker, doing everything I possibly can to keep the farm on top, because winning isn’t just winning. Not for me. For me, winning at the horse shows is required.
The cab of the truck leans toward the driver’s side as the man gets in. He closes the door. I’m waiting for the sound of the gear shift, but the truck continues to idle. There, in that moment of stillness, something reaches me. A smell. It’s familiar. A kind of cologne. I’ve smelled it before.
“Who are you?”
He answers with a blinding crack to my temple.
I’m dreaming, but at the same time I know I’m dreaming. But it’s not really a dream. It’s a memory. I’m at the barn. I’m uncomfortable. Someone is there I don’t like.
Then I remember him. He is tall and big, with a large, black beard and bushy eyebrows. He has strange, hazel-orange eyes. He reminds me of a wolf.
He watches me while I tack up Tucker. I’m short and Tucker’s tall. The man comes over and offers to help me heave the saddle onto Tucker’s back. I don’t say a word, but if looks could kill, he’d be dead. As offensive as the offer of help was, far worse is the watching.
A friend of Dad’s from church recommended him, said he needed a second chance. He worked on the cattle side of the farm. Everybody sang his praises. He showed up on time, worked hard. But the guys who worked the cattle side of the operation had no business showing up at the horse barn. Most of them I never saw at all. But I kept seeing that wolf-looking guy, and that wolf-looking guy kept seeing me. I told Dad to fire him. He didn’t want to, not at first, but then I explained how he watched me, and he was gone the next day.
That was all a long time ago. I can’t recall his name, but I’ll never forget that disgusting cologne.
With a jerk, I’m awake. I’m sitting on a wooden chair. My hands are bound behind my back, my feet to the chair legs. My fingers feel like swollen sausages that don’t want to move. The bungee cord has done its work. I try to open my eyes, but it’s no use. My eyelids are fastened shut. A stench, almost like the smell of a Dumpster, fills my nostrils. Under the stink there’s mildew. Under the mildew there’s dust. The kind of dust that comes from years and years of neglect. The dust and the mildew and the stink are so thick I can feel them on my skin.
I listen.
There’s nothing to hear.
“Hello?”
Nothing.
Somehow silence is worse than sound. Is he right in front of me? Staring at me? The nausea comes again. This time I can’t choke it back. I vomit down my shirt.
Concussion, I hate you.
“Hello?”
Nothing.
Panic wells up inside me, overriding reason. I have to get free. I have to get free now. I wriggle and twist my numb hands. My right arm is screaming, but I don’t care. It needs to suck it up. Like a miracle, one of the hook ends snaps off the bungee. In an instant my hands are free. Blood rushes into them. They move. They even work.