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IF KENNEDY HAD HER choice, the last thing she’d want to see would be these two men drunk, but Willow kept on giggling and popping lids off their beer. Kennedy held her full can close to her body as if it might ward off leering eyes, reminding herself to raise it to her lips every few minutes so it looked like she was taking a drink. Willow, by contrast, was already on her second can and was acting even more boisterous than she’d been back in her former partying days.
The twelve-pack was gone by the time Willow put her hand on Buster’s shoulder and said, “You must be getting really tired. Think we should call it a night?” She glanced at Kennedy, who tried to guess what her roommate was thinking.
Trust me.
It wasn’t Willow’s voice she heard, even though she could sense that’s what her gaze was meant to convey.
Trust me.
Her heart was pounding. She’d never been the type who “heard God” like some Christians she knew. Dominic, the chaplain of the police department back in Boston, had been incredibly gifted like that. Sometimes he had called Kennedy to say something like, “Hey, I was praying about you and just felt like God was telling me to give you some encouragement.” Once, they’d been on their way to have dinner at Angelo’s Pizza, but Dominic had said, “You know, this is going to sound crazy, but I really feel like the Lord’s telling me we should go somewhere else tonight.” So they grabbed clam chowder served in sourdough bread rolls from a walk-up stand, only to find out several hours later there’d been a gunfight right across the street from Angelo’s.
Trust me.
Was that voice really God’s? How could Kennedy be sure?
Roger’s hand was on her shoulder. His breath stank and was hot on her neck. “You didn’t drink much.” He glanced at her beer, which Willow quickly grabbed.
“Let me take your empty can off your hands.” She set it on the counter and smiled at Buster. “So, what happens now?”
Kennedy didn’t understand why Willow was acting so friendly and eager, but she also couldn’t shake that voice she’d heard.
Trust me.
Buster groaned as he plopped onto the tree log and pulled Willow onto his lap with a slurred, “Come here, you.”
Willow giggled, but her serious eyes were fixed on Kennedy. What was she trying to say?
Trust me.
Kennedy took a deep breath. Tried not to shudder when Roger ran his hands up the back of her shirt and onto her bare skin. Kennedy was no actor. She wasn’t like Willow. She couldn’t pretend that any of this was right.
Willow was staring at her. What was she supposed to do?
Roger pressed his cheek against hers, the coarse hair from his beard bristling her skin and sending goosebumps up her spine.
She had to get him off. But how? Her entire body was frozen. She couldn’t find her voice.
If that had really been God telling her to trust him, why wasn’t he doing anything to stop Roger? Her body shivered.
“What’s wrong, baby?” he asked. “You cold?”
Kennedy tried to swallow past the shameful lump in her throat. She hated the paralysis she felt, hated the helplessness that held her captive.
She didn’t have to stand there like a statue and take this humiliation. She wouldn’t. If she could just snap her brain out of its stupor, she could get him to stop. She’d force him to stop. When his hand started traveling around toward her chest, reflexes kicked in. She made her hand into a fist and slammed it into his groin. He doubled over, then reached out and grabbed her by the hair.
Willow yelled something, but Kennedy couldn’t make out what was going on. It took all her focus to try to pry herself away from Roger’s clutches.
“Get over here,” he growled.
She lunged forward. He grabbed her by the waist. She brought her leg up, tried to kick, and missed. He was standing behind her now, taller than she was. Stronger, but she wasn’t about to give up. Not without the fight of her life.
He wrapped his arms around her from behind. She snapped her head back and crashed her skull against him as hard as she could. She didn’t know if she hit him in the chin or the cheek or the nose, but he swore and let go. She lunged toward the fire poker.
“I don’t think so,” he snarled.
There was no room to run. By the door, Willow was struggling with Buster. Even if Kennedy got herself free from Roger, there was nowhere to escape.
She thought about all that beer. Maybe they’d be too tired to fight for long. Maybe that had been Willow’s plan all along. Kennedy recalled that still, small voice from just a minute earlier.
Trust me.
Ok, God, she answered back, I’ll start trusting you the minute you get us out of here.
Roger grabbed her sweater and was trying to tear it off. Kennedy was using everything she could think of — fingernails, fists, feet. From somewhere behind her, Willow yelped in pain.
God, get us out of here.
A rumbling. It started low and came from the ground, as if something buried far beneath the cabin floor was awakening for the first time.
Angry.
It was the distraction she needed. She grabbed the poker and when Roger lunged toward her, she swung it at his head. She hadn’t meant to hit so hard. Hadn’t meant to do any real damage. She just wanted him to leave her alone. He crumpled to the ground. Kennedy stared and realized the fight had made her completely dizzy. She could hardly support her weight, as if the ground itself were rocking back and forth.
And what was that loud noise?
“Earthquake!” Willow grabbed the metal bar out of Kennedy’s hands and whacked Buster in his massive gut. He doubled over, still conscious, and Willow grabbed Kennedy’s hand. “Let’s go.”
Buster was so large and the cabin so small Kennedy practically had to climb over him. Willow gave him one last hit in the back with the poker, enough to give the two girls the head start they’d need to escape.
Once outside, Kennedy stumbled in the snow. She looked up. Trees were swaying. Over the angry roar from the earth beneath her, she could hear tree trunks snapping as easily as if they were twigs.
“Watch out!” Willow dove at Kennedy and covered her body as a great spruce landed on the roof. Kennedy shrieked as the cabin folded in on itself like a house of collapsing cards.
“This way.”
Kennedy could hardly make out Willow’s words. She felt her pulse surging through her ears but could only hear the deafening roar. How long had it been going on already? The earth couldn’t sustain that kind of violence much longer. Every single tree would collapse before it was over.
Kennedy screamed again when the ground beneath her bulged up several feet, throwing her and Willow down. Kennedy landed with her stomach on a tree stump. Where was all the air? She couldn’t inhale. She was going to faint.
No, there it was. Her breath returned to her lungs in pitiful spasms. When would it end?
She’d been following Willow blindly but realized that they were running behind the cabin now. They were going the wrong way. She reached out to grab Willow’s hand, but the ground heaved and she fell again.
Willow yanked her to her feet. “Hurry.”
Kennedy looked over her shoulder. “The road’s back there.”
Willow shook her head and pointed. In the distance was another shed, even smaller than Roger’s. How had Willow known it was there, and why were they heading deeper into the woods?
A spruce tree that must have been twenty or thirty feet tall whipped down, its bare branches slapping her in the face. She tried to shield her eyes. They were almost to the shed. Willow surged ahead and threw the door open.
Kennedy recognized her immediately. The girl from the photos, the missing barista. What was she doing back here? How had Willow known? She was curled in the corner, shielding her face.
“Brandy, it’s ok. We’ve got to get you out of here.” Willow knelt down beside her.
“I can’t leave,” she answered in a panic. “He’ll find me.”
Willow was fumbling with something by her hands. Was Brandy cuffed to the wall?
“The man who trapped you is buried under his house. It collapsed on him. You don’t have any reason to be afraid anymore,” Willow said as the floor rolled like ocean waves during a storm.
“I can’t go. He’ll be too angry.”
“He’s dead,” Willow snapped. “Dead or close to it. And we will be too if we don’t find someplace safe. Now how do we get you free?”
With wide eyes, Brandy nodded toward the wall. Kennedy grabbed the key hanging by the door but had to try several times to get it into the lock.
The cuffs fell loose.
“We’ve got to get out of here,” Willow said. “This place will collapse any minute.”
“He’s going to find me,” Brandy protested.
“No, he’s not.”
The ground was still shaking, but the rolling heaves had stopped, and they could hear more than just the angry bellows of the earth. The cabin creaked and groaned.
“Come on.” Kennedy took Brandy by the hand, but she couldn’t pull her up.
“I can’t. I’m not ...”
When Kennedy bent down to slide her arm around her waist, she realized Brandy was pregnant. Very pregnant. She propped her up on one side, and Willow took the other.
“Can you walk?” Willow asked.
“I have to stay here,” Brandy insisted. “He’ll be angry.”
Willow and Kennedy led her toward the door. “Let’s go.”
Everything stopped in an instant. At first, Kennedy thought she might have blacked out. As fast as the noise came, it was now completely silent. She was dizzy from being tossed and heaved around like a bath toy in white water rapids, but now it was only her brain that thought she was still moving.
Still inside the cabin, she looked over at Willow. “Is it over?” she asked.
“Might be for now.” Willow led Brandy toward the door. “But we’re definitely not out of the woods yet.”