I sat down on a tree stump, away from the action. My cell phone battery was dead, and I still hadn't called my parents. And I was cold. Really cold. So cold that I wasn't trembling anymore. My energy was utterly depleted.

A police detective approached me, a woman, and she asked, "Is anybody helping you? Are you okay?"

Sister Honororia's brother looked startled, as he groped for his gun and didn't seem to find it. He looked on the floor and patted himself down in back. He took the sleeping bag and shook it hard. My phone clattered out, but there was no sign of his weapon.

A soft whisper came to my right ear. "It's kind of heavy, but I got his gun. Here it is," Misty said, as she pressed it against my back. I quickly reached behind me and grabbed it.

I had never so much as touched a gun before. Misty was right, it was heavy. One thing I did know about guns was that they have a safety mechanism. On the side of the gun I saw a button with red on its side. Did that mean that the safety was on, or off? I figured red meant danger. I was betting it was off, ready to shoot.

"How the hell did you get that?" he said. "Nobody moves that fast! Give it here."

"No," I said. "I'm going to hang on to it." I slid a little toward the door.

He smiled. He didn't look scared at all. In fact, he seemed to relish the situation. "No, you're going to give it to me, one way or another. You're not going to shoot me. You're a good girl. Good girls don't play with guns." He straightened up to his full height, which was well over six feet.

"Sit down," I told him. I meant for it to sound like an order, but it came out like a request. It didn't matter how it sounded, because he didn't sit down.

What I wanted to do was to lock him in the room and go for help. If he reached me, if he grabbed me, he'd overpower me. I took another big step toward the door. Unfortunately, there was no way I could get out the door, close it, and lock it unless he sat down.

Of course, he knew that, too. Even if I left the room and shut the door, as soon as I got busy with the lock, he'd come crashing through. I doubted I could even get *that* far.

He took a short, slow, easy step toward me. "You can't fire that gun anyway," he told me. "The safety's on. Look at the side."

I ignored what he said. I knew he wanted to confuse me so I'd take the gun off him for a moment. By now, the situation was perfectly clear: he wasn't going to cooperate and he wasn't going to let me leave the room. I didn't want to do it, but I had no choice. I planted my two feet square on the floor, and tightened my grip on the gun.

"Another step, and I shoot," I told him. I was pretty sure I was going to have to shoot. He, on the other hand, was pretty sure I wouldn't, so he smiled and took another step. Can't say I didn't warn him!

Before I had a chance for second thoughts, I stiffened my arms, aimed for his left foot, and pulled the trigger.

The shot sounded like a huge explosion, and the recoil made me dance back and bang into the wall behind me. But the important thing was done: he fell down, and I kept my death grip on the gun. Before he could move again, I was out the door, pushing it shut behind me, and with trembling hands, I locked it. I pulled the key from the lock, but couldn't hang on to it. It fell to the floor with a loud clatter.

Then my nerves kicked in, freaking me out, making my body spazz and jerk.

My arms were shaking like mad. I knelt down to try to pick up the key. My right hand was locked around the gun, and I couldn't let go. My hand was shaking already, but I shook it even more, hoping the gun would fall, but it was stuck there. With the heel of my left hand I pried my fingers off the gun, and finally it clattered to the floor. It took both hands to pick up the key. My arms were jerking out of control, and my fingers wouldn't open or close. I started to cry with the effort of shoving the key into the small pocket on my skirt. I couldn't do it, so, still crying, I swept it down the stairs with the side of my hand, and got a splinter in the process.

Once that was done, I managed to pick up the gun by pressing it between my palms. My fingers had quit working entirely, and my elbows had minds of their own. I started running, and clumsily fell flat on the stairs, face down. The gun fell away below, I didn't see where, and I bumped down a few steps. I couldn't tell whether I'd hurt myself.

Moaning, I brought up my hands, but they still weren't working. They were like two catcher's mitts at the ends of my arms, and my legs weren't much use, either. If I could only get out of the cabin, I was sure I'd be better. At a loss, I turned on my side and slowly slid headfirst the rest of the way down the stairs. Once at the bottom, with the help of the banister, I managed to work my way to my feet.

My stomach twisted at the sight of the two brothers, and this time, my insides didn't stop churning until I vomited behind an overturned table. I think I was crying... I remember that my face was soaking wet.

Partly because I had so much trouble standing, and partly so I wouldn't have to look at the blood, I pressed my face against the wall and slid my way around the perimeter of the room until I reached the front door. Just as the smell of the blood was beginning to register and set off alarm bells in my stomach, I stumbled outside.

I could barely walk, my legs were shaking so hard. The air was cold, very cold. The humidity must have been two or three hundred percent, because the cold soaked deep into my bones. My knees were literally knocking. In the background I could hear Honororia's brother bellowing and cursing, but the sound seemed to come from ten thousand miles away.

There was the van, and a smaller car. I got my purse from the van, and decided I'd go with the car. Unfortunately, it had three pedals, and I couldn't figure out which pedal did what, and I couldn't get it to start. Each time I turned the key, the car shuddered, choked, and died. The motor would only make one jerky turn, then stop.

So I got in the van and took a deep breath. "You can do it," I told myself out loud. Then I looked at the dashboard. It was a complicated mess of dials and switches that made absolutely no sense at all. I wasn't even sure how to turn on the radio. Plus, it stank of old oil and dirt and God knows what. Still, it had only two pedals, so there was less to think about. The main thing is to stay calm, a little voice inside told me, but I wasn't calm. I was a thousand miles away from calm.

I wished I had my cell phone, but that was still upstairs, with my prisoner. I gripped the steering wheel, and realized that my fingers were working again. I took some deep breaths. Then I took some slow breaths. "You can do this," I said out loud. "You can. You know you can. You have to."

Suddenly Misty faded into the passenger seat. She looked all excited and giggly, and completely oblivious to my shattered state of mind. She actually laughed and said, "Hey! Looking for this?" and held up my cell phone.

"Oh, thank God!" I cried. "Misty, you're a life saver!"

"Wow!" she gushed. "What a day! This is intense! This is GREAT! It's like a MOVIE! Oh, my God! More stuff has happened today than in all the years I've been dead!"

"Good," I said, "I'm glad you're having a good time."

In spite of all that had happened, she almost made me want to laugh. Almost. "Oh, Misty," I sighed. "Thanks. I'd be dead now, too, if I wasn't for you!"

She grinned happily and made some goofy faces at me, dancing in her seat and drumming with her feet. What a nut!

I dialed 911 again and put them on speaker so I wouldn't have to hold the phone. The same operator answered. She told me that the police were on their way and said, "Please stay on the line."

"This time I can," I replied, and at her prompting, I told her the whole story. As I talked, I took the keys from the van and the car and started walking down the road, away from the cabin. If the police were coming, I wanted to meet them sooner than later, and I thought that walking might warm me up. Misty disappeared somewhere along the way, and after about ten minutes, a police car came bouncing toward me. Two others followed, and soon the bad cop was handcuffed inside an ambulance. The small space in front of the cabin was full of police vehicles and flashing lights.

I sat down on a tree stump, away from the action. My cell phone battery was dead, and I still hadn't called my parents. And I was cold. Really cold. So cold that I wasn't trembling anymore. My energy was utterly depleted, and my mind was empty.

A police detective approached me, a woman, and she asked, "Is anybody helping you? Are you okay?"

In a tired voice I said, "Apart from freezing, stinking like a horse, and wearing an outfit that I hate, I'm fine. Is there any way I could get out of here?"

She grinned and said, "Come with me. I've got a car with heated seats. AND nobody's blocking me. Let's get the hell on out of here, girl!" She talked into a walkie-talkie as she led me away. Once we drove off, I was going to ask if I could borrow her phone, but without meaning to, I fell sound asleep and didn't wake up until she stopped at the end of my street.

"Holy crap!" I whispered. Even from where we were I could see the lights and cameras of the news crews. A bright light illuminated a tall woman with blonde hair who posed in front of my house and spoke into a microphone.

"Is there any way we can get in through the back?" the detective asked. It turned out that there was. She parked on the street behind mine, and we snuck through my backyard to the kitchen door.
 

After the hugs and tears and questions, I turned to my mother and said, "Mom, I need to take a long, hot shower now, but first, I have to ask you to do something for me. Something really important. You have to swear that you'll do it."

Frowning, she asked, "What do you want me to do?"

"Burn these clothes," I said. "I never want to see them, ever again."

Mom was stunned and began to reply. I cut her off.

"I've never been more serious." I told her. "I want you to burn them tonight, in the back yard. The shoes, the coat — everything."

I wasn't sure that I'd convinced Mom, but Theresa, the detective, laughed and said (with a wink at me) that she needed to take it all as evidence.

"That would be great, as long as I never get them back," I told her. "Promise me I'll never get them back."

I dropped my coat into a big plastic bag. I emptied my purse and threw that in, too. It had grease and dirt on it from the floors of the vans.

Once in the bathroom, I stripped out of those horrible, funky clothes and shoved them into the bag. They felt so scummy and disgusting that I could hardly bear to touch them. I put my shoes in a smaller bag, and threw it on top of the other clothes. It was too bad — it was a pair I really liked, the first pair of shoes that bought with Ida, but there was no way that any of those clothes would ever touch my body again.

I opened the bathroom door a crack, and handed the bag to my mother.

"Seriously, Mom," I said. "Make sure Theresa takes it all. Far far away."
 

A shower never felt so good. The heat, the steam, the clean water... it was exactly what I needed. As I stood there, finally relaxing, my mind went to Maisie, my next big problem. Soon I'd have to deal with what Maisie knew about me, but at the moment it didn't seem important or even that difficult. I was alive. That's what mattered. And I was clean. Best of all, I wasn't a ghost in a BYHS uniform, glued to a ratty shack in the woods.
 

I kind of expected Misty to show up, but I guess she respected my privacy in the bathroom. At least I hoped so.

No, even that didn't matter. She could pop up anywhere and everywhere. I owed her my life. I owed her everything.

© 2007 Kaleigh Way