So this is the perfect place to stop. Stop while they’re wanting more.
She nonchalantly collects her trophy and the blue ribbon for her horse’s bridle on her way out of the arena. The prizes are nice to look at, but there is something else waiting for her. A check for forty thousand dollars. She has just won forty grand.
That money means so much. Not because of what it can buy, not because of the economic problems it can solve, not because of anything less than the power it gives her. There will be no more fighting, because she won’t allow it. Who will contradict her? Who would dare say a word? No one. Because she’s the winner, the breadwinner, the champion, the one with the killer instinct. The girl in the pink shirt who won over the crowd, made them her own.
She thought she knew what it was to be a winner. It has a new definition now. It is a great and terrible thing, to know just what one can do. From now on she will live with the knowledge of what she can accomplish and the oppressive weight of expectation.
This is what it is to win.
She feels the cost even before she leaves the arena. But she thinks, Bring it. She thinks, I can handle it. She thinks, I am tough enough for anything.
CHAPTER FIFTEEN
THERE ARE NO GOOD OPTIONS.
I could try to follow Wolfman, who has disappeared into the forest, silent as a ghost. When I went on my mission to steal his truck, I found the occasional footprint and broken branch, but really that was more a matter of recognizing landmarks. This is a place I’ve never been before. Tracking would mean searching for evidence he’s left behind. That feels like a tall order, and he’s so much faster than me out here. He’s a woodsman, he’s got boots, and his feet don’t have holes in them. He knows where he stashed the truck. There’s no doubt in my mind he’s got his handgun in there, and probably zip ties in the glove box and who knows all what else.
Hunting down the Wolfman, in the hopes of taking him out with my single bullet, would mean walking straight into a trap, one he will have restocked with the tools of his trade. Thing is, I didn’t do too well with either of my first two bullets. It doesn’t give me much confidence I can do anything too useful with the third.
I could go back to the mansion, using it as shelter until a search party finds me. But I’m scared of that house. I think he’d find me there, and he knows the place as well as or better than I do.
There’s the Logans. Maybe after their visit from the cop things would be different. Maybe the cops are still there. But maybe they aren’t. Maybe the Logans decided I was a meth addict after all; maybe none of them found my message on the garage door. Mr. Logan should have seen it before he found me eating his garbage, but what if he was too out of his mind to register anything at all? What if the cops came and nobody ever lowered the door?
On a purely rational level there’s a case to be made for going back to the Logan Family Lodge, but on an emotional level it’s a bitter pill to swallow. One that won’t go down right now.
Out of the mire of my thoughts rises one solid fact: I am exhausted. I’m exhausted beyond all reason. I am exhausted to the point I can’t think. I have no idea what to do, and everything is starting to feel dangerously hopeless. Hopelessness is not an emotion to be indulged. On the heels of hopelessness comes defeat, and even though everything seems pointless and impossible, I still want to win. Underneath my confusion and utter, bone-crushing fatigue, even though I don’t know much of anything at all, I still know I want to win.
I want to win, but first I just want to sleep. It occurs to me that it might not be the smartest idea, but in the end, the call of sleep is too powerful to ignore. A couple hours of rest would let the antibacterial salve do some good work on my wounds; it would give me back some energy; it would let my traumatized brain heal. At least a little bit. Before I search for a sleeping spot, I take two more Tylenol to fight back fever.
At first I’m looking for something on the ground. Ideally, something like the overturned-tree hole I hid in before stealing the truck. Ten minutes of walking later and there are no holes to speak of. Frustration is hard to fight off this tired, and the hopelessness starts creeping up again. It’s lapping against my throat, looking to take me under and drown me altogether, when I spy an almost-downed tree.