I look past him toward Kara who is stirring on the couch. As I hoped, he follows my gaze and looks at her. I take that opportunity to hide the paring knife inside my sleeve, hoping he doesn’t notice.
I realize the paring knife won’t do much damage to him if I use it on him, but it will cut the zip ties holding Kara’s hands together. I may be able to buy her enough time to get to our safe room.
The safe room.
We’ve never used it in all the time we’ve lived here. I thought it was a paranoid addition when Matt asked me to put one into my design for this house, but he insisted.
His reasoning was that he would be gone a lot on cattle drives and wanted to know I’d be safe here in case something happened. That was just an excuse. Matt knew my story. He’d known my story since the night before we got married. I wanted him to know who he was marrying and what my past was. I gave him time to reconsider, but he said he didn’t need time because he loved me and wanted nothing more than to be my husband, so he could love and protect me for the rest of his life.
The children were always told it was in case a natural disaster ocurred and it would keep us all safe until someone could rescue us. Even now, it was fully stocked with non-perishable food items, water and a cell phone. What the children didn’t know was that Matt was always afraid this day might come. He wanted to know his family had a safe place to run.
But the monster we were running from was already in our home, invited in by one of the children. How do you fight against someone so evil he uses a trusting young girl against her family?
“What are you thinking about?” he asks.
“How I knew this day would come,” I say. “I always knew you’d come for me.”
He raises one eyebrow and smirks.
“Then I guess you should have been better prepared.”
“We can go upstairs,” I say. “Kara doesn’t need to see this. She’s only sixteen.”
“Maybe I want her to watch,” he said. “I think I’d like that.”
My face must have blanched white, because it made him laugh.
“Let me just hug her and tell her I’ll be back downstairs soon.”
“Not too soon,” he said. “I’ve been waiting a long time for this.”
I pause and nod in acknowledgement. I walk over to Kara who is fully awake now and pull her to standing, hugging her awkwardly with her hands tied behind her back.
“Listen to me and listen carefully,” I whisper and feel her slight nod against my shoulder. “I’m cutting the ties holding your wrists. As soon as I release you, I want you to run as fast as you can to the safe room and lock the door.”
I can tell she’s about to protest, but I squeeze her tighter.
“Don’t argue with me and don’t look back, no matter what you hear. Just run and lock yourself in. Do you understand?”
Again, I can feel the slightest nod against my shoulder.
“I love you, my angel. Never forget that.”
“That’s enough,” Daniel says, and I can feel his presence about a foot away from me.
“Now!” I scream and push her away from me as I turn and thrust the paring knife into Daniel’s stomach. He raises his arm to point the gun toward Kara and I thrust all of my weight against him, knocking him off balance.
I manage to withdraw the knife and hit the wrist that’s holding the gun. Unfortunately, the only thing those two stab wounds do is making him angry. He picks me up like a ragdoll and throws me across the room as though I weigh little more than a feather.
I hit my head on the corner of the kitchen island and feel blood wetting my hair. The breath is knocked out of me and I can see him start to go after Kara.
“It’s no use,” I call after him and his footsteps slow. “You can’t get to her now. She’s made it to our safe room.”
“Safe room? You’re lying.”
I shake my head and manage a smile as a feel a trickle of blood go down the side of my face. “She can stay in there for weeks. You won’t be here that long.”
“She’ll come out if she knows you’re in danger.”
Again, I shake my head, making my head throb.
“No.” I smile through the pain. “She won’t.”
I have seen his fury before many years ago, but nothing compared to the rage I see in his face as he looks at me now, realizing his leverage over me is gone.
“I win,” I say. “You have no power over me now.”
Jake
“Does Uncle Matt know?” Alexis asks me as I struggle to stay upright. I know she’s genuinely concerned about my mother and Kara. She’s also very interested in finding out about this ex-husband who reappeared out of nowhere.
“He does,” I say. “It explains why he was so adamant we keep that safe room.”
“The safe room,” Aunt Ava whispers. “Your mother put up quite a fight about that room. Why on earth didn’t you use it?”
“He kind of took us all by surprise. We weren’t really expecting anyone since we were leaving, and Kara seemed to know him, which is why she let him in. She said she met him at the hotel in town when she was there for that birthday party.”
I look over at Alexis. “Do you remember anyone talking to Kara that afternoon?”
She sits down next to Anna who’s biting her nails.
After a few minutes, she stands up. “Yes!” she exclaims. “I remember him now! I was so jealous!”
“Jealous?” Aunt Ava asks. “Why?”
“Because, even though he was old, like your age old, he was really, really handsome. Like movie star handsome. He looked like the handsome version of Brad Pitt, not the scruffy version. I even said something to Kara about him later that evening and she said he was some kind of undercover security guard who was going to let her know if her lost gloves showed up.”
“What else do you remember?”
“Nothing much. I think he told Kara he was a security officer for the hotel and if she gave him her contact information, he’d make sure to let her know if her gloves were turned in. She put her name, phone number and address in his phone and then left with Aunt Faith.”
I clench my hands in the folds of the blanket.
“How many times did Dad drill into us never to give our information to strangers?” I say aloud.
“A million,” Graham croaks. “Don’t blame Kara. She didn’t realize.”
Graham made a move to sit up but couldn’t and fell back against the pillows. “The safe room does make sense now though.”
I nod.
“Remember that time mom wanted to change it into a craft room and dad said he’d build her an addition to the house if she wanted one, but the safe room was staying?”
“I never even knew you had one,” Alexis shakes her head. “I mean, who needs a safe room out here in the middle of nowhere? That’s what guns are for. Can I see it sometime?”
“I guess Dad felt safer knowing it was there just in case.”
“Too bad you couldn’t use it,” Anna says. “Maybe the two of you wouldn’t have nearly frozen to death.”
Alexis walks over and hands me another mug of soup.
“If they manage to somehow get to the safe room, how long can they last in there?”
“About three weeks,” I say. “There’s food and water in there for at least three weeks.”
“The snow should be ending soon,” Aunt Ava sits next to Graham and drapes her arm across his shoulders. “We can figure some way to help your mom and Kara.”
“If they’re still alive,” I hear Graham say and his voice catches.
“They’re still alive,” I say. “We’ve got to believe that. If we made it out alive, we’ve got to believe that Mom and Kara will make it through this alive too.”