The Outliers (The Outskirts Duet #2)

“Sure, my mother used to say that all the time.”

“Well, I’m here to tell you that it’s all bullshit. It’s what’s behind you that counts. It’s what’s behind you that is going to save you. Don’t wait on your knight in shining armor to rescue you, as hot as they can be sometimes. BE your own knight. Rescue yourself. Finn might have rescued your heart, but the rest is up to you now.”

As fast as she appeared, and before I could ask her what exactly she meant, the woman in white was gone.

I opened my eyes and felt the water at my chin. Water was now splashing up into my eyes. I squinted over at my mother whose face was now only inches away from the rising water. I wished my dream were somehow real and what was behind me was really going to save me. The only thing behind me was the tree I was tied to and countless swamp animals waiting for me to shift from life to death so they could have at my carcass.

I wouldn’t give up.

I will never give up.

I felt a new resolve growing within me. A new kind of power, bravery. It was exactly what I needed to push on.

In a last attempt to free my hands I stretched my fingers under the water, searching for anything that I could use as a knife to cut through the rope. The water was flowing around us more like a river than a swamp so it was possible things underneath had shifted.

I touched something hard with my finger where moments ago there was nothing. It was at least six inches and broken or jagged at one end. I didn’t know if it was a pipe or broken piece of wood or rock, but I hoped it would do. I maneuvered it between the ropes and started sawing. I dropped it once and then once again before I could do any real damage to the rope. I growled out my frustrations into the rising water that had now reached my mouth. My thoughts were scrambled as I pressed my lips together tightly.

I didn’t dare look over to my mother knowing full well she had to be submerged by now. I couldn’t let anything distract me from the task at hand.

Both of our lives depended on it.

I had to hurry, but I knew rushing wouldn’t get me anywhere. I hummed the lullaby my mother used to sing to me during storms to ease my fears. And as my mind drifted over those times she gave me comfort when she had none of her own, I sawed away.

I took my last large gulf of air right as the water rose over my mouth and then my nose.

After reciting three verses of the lullaby in my head my lungs were burning, like they were on fire. With one last push of the restraints against the object, and one last underwater scream, something snapped and my hands broke free.

I emerged from the water, gasping for my first full breath of air in what seemed like forever. As my lungs took their fill it was as if everything stood still. The splash of each rain drop in the water. The leaves falling from the wind rustled trees. I could see everything now. Everything smelled stronger. Sounded louder. Appeared clearer.

My mind completely cleared. I felt calm. Peaceful.

It was as if I’d been baptized in the dirty water. Christened by the hurricane itself and delivered into the swamp reborn.

I was no longer Sawyer the girl running from her past. I was Sawyer, the girl from The Outskirts.

A True outlier just like the rest of them.

I remember reading an article for my religious study we’re a pastor from Alabama send that when God takes you into troubled waters it’s not to drown you, but to cleanse you.

Suddenly, it became clear what he meant.

I stood up and blew the water from my nose, leaping over to my mother, waiting through the thick water and underbrush. I lifted her head from the water with one hand and untied her strains with the other. I almost fell over with relief when she gasped for air. I put her arm around my shoulder and had only made it one step up the embankment when I lost my footing and together we slid back down into the water with a splash.

I was startled by the man looming over us. A man I never wanted to see again. My heart pounded against my ribcage like it was going to leap from my chest and lunge at Richard. The wind picked up, whistling between the trees.

Richard snarled. “Looks like you got yourself a problem there. Although, I’ll give you some credit. I half expected to be disposing of corpses by now. Figures that you were both terrible at listening and taking directions. It’s not a big shock to me that you two just won’t shut up and die when you’re told.” Richards words sent fear, but mostly anger, almost twenty-two-year’s worth of it, surging through my veins, igniting a fire of rebellion under my skin.

“Hey Richard?” I asked, looking him right in the eye for the first time in my life. “FUCK YOU!”

His response was to chuckle. “You Think you are so brave. But none of that matters when you’re dead, sinner,” he taunted.

“Father, we cannot pick and choose which sins we abide by. You speak out against sinning, but you yourself are a walking contradiction of sin. Of evil. You are guilty of lust, gluttony, wrath, envy, pride, and so much more. I know because I’ve seen it in the way you drink alcohol like your thirst is unending. I’ve seen it in the way you’ve beat and raped my mother. I’ve witnessed you speak of God’s will as if you are the only man in the world who understands it.” I laughed at how ridiculous this man really was. “Well, I hate to tell you but you don’t. You don’t understand any of it.”

“Blasphemy! Blasphemy!” he growled. He pointed a finger down at me. “You little, cunt! How dare you!”

I found a sudden freedom in my words, but because I needed time to figure out how I was going to get to myself and my mother out of the swamp alive. “They say the truth will set you free. Well, father. For your sake. I hope it does just that. Because your truth is that you are a selfish asshole who is going straight to hell.”

There we were, laying in the mud, looking up into the eyes of the madman who once dared to call himself my father when he wasn’t even a fraction of the man my real father was. My mother slid from my grip. She landed off to the side in the mud with an audible thunk.

Richard pointed at her. “I told your mother a long time ago that I would kill you while she watched if she ever betrayed me. Too bad she isn’t conscious to see me keep that promise.”

Richard knelt and reached for something in his back pocket. “Good bye, daughter.”

When you know the end is near you’d think that would be when you’re most afraid. It’s not. Because as I prepared it to all be over I couldn’t help but to feel proud.

Proud of the woman I’d become. Proud of the relationships I’d made. And proud of the way I was standing up to Richard in my final moments.

Finn would have been proud too.

I made sure I was staring Richard directly in the eyes. If he was going to kill me he was going to have to do it while I disobeyed his stupid rules right to the end. Even the baby gave a defiant first kick against my hand as I protectively covered my stomach.