Jack took a key from his pocket. He undid the shackle around her ankle without a word. She felt immediate relief. The skin around the ankle had bled and scabbed over a dozen times, and in a sick way, she had become used to the feel of the heavy, cold steel pressed against her flesh.
“Go help him,” Jack said. “He’s been shot.”
“What happened?” she asked.
“I told you, he’s been shot,” Jack said impatiently. “Go help him, Goddammit!”
He pushed her roughly. She stumbled, stepped on the long hem of her dress, and almost fell, but managed to stay upright somehow. She didn’t wear the dress, it clung to her, covered in dirt and sweat. She had slept in it for the past five days. It was torn around the edges and badly frayed all over, its floral pattern faded. She was afraid it would fall apart any day now, exposing her to the brothers.
She hurried over to John and Fred. It didn’t pay to move slowly around the brothers, especially John. How many times had he hit her for being too slow? She had stopped counting.
Fred’s wound was big and wide, and it looked like the kind she saw on the animals the brothers brought home after each hunt. She had seen post-mortem wounds on cadavers at school, but nothing fresh like this. Her stomach turned, and she instantly remembered Tony.
Sweet Tony, lying dead on the road, lifeless eyes staring back at her…
She looked at Fred now, twisting in pain, soaked in his own blood, and wondered if it was Fred who shot Tony. She was too afraid to ask. It was probably John, since he did most of the killings.
Fred was eighteen, but he looked much younger despite the hand-me-down clothes and facial hair. He didn’t have the stomach for most of the things his two older brothers did. Of the three, he was always the kindest to her. Even when he chained her up, she could see his discomfort, and once he even apologized.
She always had to remind herself of who they were. Not just John and Jack, but Fred, too, because he went along with them. He was just as culpable as the others. The Sundays killed anyone who had the misfortune of running across their highway ambush. The lucky ones managed to get around the roadblock when the brothers weren’t watching from their perch in the woods. The unlucky ones, like her, or the two girls that came after her…
John was staring at her, his face twisted into that demonic expression that warned her something bad was about to happen. “Stop just standing there and stop his bleeding.”
She moved closer to get a better look at the wound. This was why John kept her alive, long after he had gotten tired of her, long after they had realized her cooking wasn’t anything they couldn’t do themselves — and better. When he learned she studied medicine, it was as close to happy as she had seen him.
“Well?” John grunted. “Can you fix him up or not?”
“I don’t know,” she said. It was an honest answer, but it was the wrong one. She hadn’t even finished speaking when John hit her across the face with the back of his hand.
She reeled back and fell to the hard cabin floor, a place she was familiar with.
He loomed over her, his massive bulk blocking her view. Spittle hit her face as he grunted out, “You fucking save him or I’m going to cut your tits off one by one. Get to fucking work!”
She nodded through the throbbing pain, relieved he hadn’t knocked loose one of her teeth. She remembered the two girls they brought back that night, how one of them had a mouthful of blood and gaping holes where her teeth used to be…
Stop it! Concentrate on the moment!
John lumbered across the room to Jack, who was looking on from a distance, as if afraid to get too close and become infected by Fred’s injury. She could see it in Jack’s face. He was scared. Not just of John — he was always scared of John — but of what had happened out there.
She turned back to Fred. He had a soft, almost cherubic face, but right now he looked old and tired, grimacing through the pain, staring up at her with tears welling in his eyes. He didn’t make a sound except for the occasional wheezing that slipped through his lips. He was putting on a brave face.
“You’ll be all right,” she said.
He smiled at her, though she couldn’t be sure if that was because he believed her or saw right through her lie.
John stomped back to them. Lara quickly began unbuttoning Fred’s shirt to reveal the hole in his belly. It was huge and pumping blood, and she almost fainted at the sight. She blinked through the horror and concentrated on his pale, sweat-covered face instead.
“Well?” John said behind her.
“He’s bleeding badly. I need supplies…”
He was already thinking ahead of her and thrust a dust-covered first-aid box into her hands. John walked around the table and stared down at the hole in Fred’s stomach. Jack had come over, too, and was standing behind her. She could hear him breathing, raggedly, as if he were the one lying there bleeding to death instead of Fred.
“Hurry up and stop the bleeding,” John said.
She opened the box and took out the roll of gauze tape. She looked at Fred, saw the desperate sadness in his eyes, pleading with her to keep him alive.
Please, God, let him live, so I can live one more day…
Fred was alive, but she didn’t think he would last very long. She would be surprised if he survived the night. She hadn’t done much, except clean his wound and cover it with gauze to stop the bleeding. The bullet had gone clean through, entering his stomach and out his back. It was a miracle the bullet hadn’t severed his spine, though it had come close.
She hoped that saving him for now would mean something to John. If not, he would punish her again…
She wanted to live. She hadn’t been sure that first night in the cabin, but she was sure now.
She wanted to live.
They left Fred on the table, unconscious. She had given him enough morphine to tranq a horse, partly to keep him under, but also because he looked like he needed it. John had brought the sticks of morphine and a syringe out of his bedroom. She didn’t know where he had gotten them, and didn’t ask.
In the past few hours, Jack had become a part of the window, staring out through the burglar bars at the woods beyond, his rifle clutched tightly in his hands. There were only two windows left in the entire cabin, and both had black bars fastened tightly over them. Two other windows in the back had been sealed up before she arrived at the cabin. The door was protected by a security gate.
It was safe in here, in the cabin. She had to admit that much. Partly it was the isolated location, but the Sundays were smart about surviving. In the two weeks she’d been there, the creatures never attacked the place. At night, the Sundays turned off the lights and generators and slept in total darkness. The first night they left her outside in the living room chained to the floor, she was certain the creatures were out there, moving around, waiting.
It was a nightmare situation. It was safe inside the cabin, but she was at the mercy of three men she would murder in their sleep if given the chance.
John came back from his bedroom with two handguns stuffed in his front waistband. He hadn’t bothered to change, and dried blood clung to his shirt and faded jeans. The same with Jack.
She kept an eye on the brothers without making it too obvious. It was a skill she had developed. John handed a handgun to Jack, who looked at it oddly before taking it and tucking it into his waistband.