***

  She wakes with a start. For a moment the afterimage of the dream lingers in her vision and all she can see is an endless beach stretching under an angry violet sky.

  Gradually the apparition fades, replaced by the scene of a humble bedroom, and—importantly—no chains or cuffs.

  She’s not in a hospital.

  She sits upright, holding her breath, straining her ears. There’s movement, footsteps approaching the already-wide-open doorway.

  Her gut clenches as the light filtering through the doorway darkens. A figure walks in the room.

  It’s a woman, thick but not heavyset, with a stern, tanned face. She looks in her mid-forties. She’s not wearing a nurse’s outfit. She walks briskly to the bed, and raises her hand to hush Sasha. “Ma’am,” she says. “You need to lay down right now. I mean that. You’re in no condition to do anything right now, you’ve been out for a few days, and it’ll be at least a few more before I’ll even consider letting you out of my sight.”

  Sasha stares at the woman, the protest is half-formed in her mind before she reconsiders. She really isn’t in any condition to do anything, besides, it sure seems like this lady is trying to help her, judging by the IV in her arm and the fact that she’s not shackled to anything. She lies back on the bed and takes a deep breath. She turns back to the woman, her questions are answered before she can even open her mouth.

  “I’m Molly, you met my husband already, Roy. This is our house. Roy and Alex are at work” —she raises her hand again as Sasha starts to speak— “don’t worry, they aren’t gonna talk to anyone about this. They’re going about their days per the usual, no sudden suspicious changes to routine. We’re fairly isolated out here, no one to see Roy carrying you in like a sack of potatoes through the front door. No one else knows you’re here, and that’s how it’ll stay” —she looks toward Sasha’s bandaged hand— “so long as you answer a few questions to my satisfaction.”

  Sasha closes her eyes and sighs. She turns back to Molly, but the woman continues, “And I want the truth, girl. Roy’n Alex may believe your story, but I don’t. Maybe I believe some of it, sure, the part about someone trying to hurt you, about you runnin’ away, but the rest don’t add up. Especially not after we saw your hand, girl. When we got those tatters off your hand, Alex nearly puked hisself in my kitchen! I had’ta send him and Roy off to go back’n pickup his boat while I sewed you up.”

  Sasha looks at her hand again, noticing now the bandages are fresh, clean. Her arm ends in a soft white ball. She swallows. “Is…is my ha—“

  “No, no, you still got your damn hand,” Molly says. “Three-fifths of it anyway.” The sturdy woman turns and rummages through the case sitting on the folding table that’s been brought next to the bed. “Speaking of which, take these” —she hands Sasha two pills and a bottle of water— “it’ll help.”

  “Thank—thank you,” Sasha croaks out.

  “Oh thank me nothin’,” the woman says. “You need a hospital, girl. That’s a bad wound, and there’s only so much I can do for you here. I’m trying my best, but if infection sets in, my best might not be good enough. If you want to make sure you don’t lose that hand then we need to get you to a hospital.”

  “Please no, not here—“

  “Yeah, yeah, I heard the story, you can’t go to a hospital round these parts, nor the police for that matter.”

  This story has been stolen from Royal Road. If you read it on Amazon, please report it

  “Yes, that’s right.”

  “Why not, girl? Who the hell did that to you?”

  “I—I—I—“

  “Look,” the woman sighs, sitting in the chair bedside. “I want to help you, you’re hurtin’, I can tell. But you’re not just some woman on the run from her abusive cop boyfriend. Something else is going on, and I need to know that it’s not something that’s gonna put me and mine at risk” —she gives a hard stare— “do you understand.”

  Sasha doesn’t speak, she can only nod, tears welling in her eyes. The stern woman sits back, face suddenly softer. When she speaks again her voice is gentler, “Look, hun, you’re safe right now, and I’m going to keep you safe, okay? We’re gonna tend to that hand, and we’ll get you to a hospital where whoever is trying to find you won’t find you, okay?” —Sasha nods and sniffles— “and I don’t need to know everything, okay, hun? I don’t even need to know who all it is that you’re runnin’ from, okay? But I need you to gimmi some idea what you’re into, girl. This person, or these people, that’re after you, that you’re so hell bent on gettin’ away from” —she looks straight into Sasha’s eyes— “how much a threat are they to me and my Roy, to Alex? Are we in danger, girl?”

  The wave of guilt racks her suddenly, she is instantly nauseous. For a moment, all she can see is Allison’s face, all she can hear are Allison’s pleas and screams and the wet gurgling sounds from something that used to be a person. And in that moment it is clear to her: Sasha has brought evil upon these people. In her attempt to flea, in trying to run, she risks not only the lives of this woman before her, this woman’s husband, her husband’s friend; but any unlucky soul she happens across in her flight.

  Her mouth quivers as the tears stream down her face, eyes overflowing. “I don’t know…” she says, barely more than a whisper.

  Her eyes search Molly’s. What can she say, what can she possibly say?

  And then she is in hysterics. “I don’t know! I—I—I don’t know! I’m sorry, I’m so, so sorry!”

  Molly watches her a moment, maybe appraising sincerity, and then she is at her side, holding her.

  “There, there, there,” she says. “It’s okay, hun, it’s okay. There, there.”

  Sasha rocks in woman’s arms as she bawls and bawls. Finally, numb and horse, she wipes her face with the tissues held out by the strong woman.

  After a time, Molly speaks, “Hun.” Her tone, still firm, has now a sense of resolve, and she takes Sasha’s hands. “I seen enough evil in my days to know when someone been touched by it. Maybe you don’t rightly know what it is, is after you. But whatever it is, the only way it’s gettin’ to you is through me.”

  Sasha spends another week and a half convalescing. Her hand hurts, bad, but it isn’t gangrenous. Molly had made it clear that if serious infection does set in, if she started showing signs of sepsis or anything of that sort, she’d take her to the hospital—the nearest one—at once. But so long as her condition kept improving, Molly would continue to treat her at the house until they ferried her to Piedmont ER.

  “They’s gonna ask what happened to the hand,” Roy had said. “They’s gonna know it aint no fresh injury.”

  “We’ll worry about that when we get to that point,” Molly told him. “Whatever story Sasha here decides she needs to tell them, fine. The docs there got a problem with me keepin’ this girl outta harm’s way, well, then they can bring it up with me, same with the police.”

  “Yes, ma’am, didn’t mean anything else by it, just that she gonna wanna think about what she gonna tell’em. Either way, me’n Alex behind her one hundred percent.”

  “One hundred percent,” Alex said.

  Molly had been surprised how resilient Sasha had been, and she’d said as much. Told her she was One Tough Bitch just like herself. At times she’d had to all but order her to take the morphine. She’d brought meals, helped Sasha to the bathroom, and tended to the hand throughout the day—though Sasha had found early on that she wasn’t tough enough to watch that. She suspected it would be quite some time before she adjusted to the look and feel of her new “claw” as she’d taken to calling it.

  Sasha had noticed that the woman was seemingly always on the lookout. Not so much fidgety or jumpy—like her own mother had been—but possessed of a sort of continuous vigilance, a keen alertness never dulled. She also noticed that the woman carried a gun, she’d seen it protruding from her waist just under her appendix one day as Molly had dusted the blades of the fan overhead. Molly had seen her staring.

  “You ever used a gun, girl?”

  “No, never,” Sasha had said.

  Molly had drawn the weapon and sat on the bed beside her.

  “Well, I reckon you oughta learn,” she’d said, dropping the magazine and racking the slide. Sasha had watched the cartridge arc through the air, Molly caught it without even deigning to look.

  “Sit up now, girl,” she’d said, foisting the gun at her, butt-first. “Now it’s likely going to feel might awkward in your left hand, but consid’rin the state of your right, I don’t think you got any other choice at the momen—“

  “I’m a lefty.” Sasha had said with a smile.

  ***