Page 41 of York

He looked ready to snap when I got to being deliberately crashed into. With Denali in the car with me.

“Tell me that’s it,” he demanded, voice a harsh whisper.

“I wish.”

“But.”

“But… then there was Montana.”

I’d been trying to head back toward what little family I had left, hoping there might be safety to be found there. Hoping not to need to rehash all the hard feelings that had me leaving town when I was eighteen with nothing but a tent, a bag of clothes, and the cash I had from working all summer.

But I’d needed to stop in Montana, where I found an incredibly cheap motel, to be able to work for a few days before I continued on.

It was such a small, quaint, friendly little town that I felt my defenses slipping a little. I’d almost convinced myself that it was a place I could maybe settle down, put down roots.

I’d been walking back to the motel with Denali in a foldable cart that I used to cart not only her but supplies when it was too close to drive, but too far for her little legs.

As I was passing an alley between the last two buildings in town—one abandoned, one closed because it was Sunday—hands reached out. One grabbed me around the waist. The other closed around my throat.

It was shocking how quickly my lungs burned from lack of oxygen, how hard my heart hammered, how everything went blurry around the edges. Everything except my daughter’s face—wide-eyed and uncomprehending.

All I could think was that there were always two men. If only one was choking me, where was the other one? Were they going to grab my daughter? Hurt her?

I clawed at the hand around my neck, wiggled, squirmed, struck out with my elbows, and slammed my foot down on the top of his.

To no avail.

My brain went fuzzy.

The pain in my chest intensified.

Not sure what else to do, I grabbed the hand around my neck, took two fingers between them, and yanked them as hard as I could in the wrong direction.

I heard the snap just a second before his roar of pain.

The hand loosened.

And I don’t know how, it was all so fast, such a blur, but I got away.

Gasping for air, I stumbled forward and snatched my daughter out of the cart.

I opened my mouth but couldn’t scream, could barely make any sound. So I did all I could do. I ran back to town as fast as my legs could carry me.

“I burst into the local general store. It was kind of a hub for the local men to hang out. I couldn’t talk to them, but they could read my face. And when I pointed to my throat, they all seemed to get the point and rushed out into the streets, pulling their guns from their holsters. But the guy was already gone.”

“Did they catch him on any cameras?”

“This was a really small town. They didn’t do cameras. The police took a report, but there was nothing to go on. I didn’t even stick around long enough to see a doctor. I had an escort of townspeople to take me back to my room so I could pack our stuff… then just hightailed it out of town.”

It had been a rough week or so after that. My throat was a constant source of pain. Each swallow felt like razor blades. I could barely rasp out words to my very afraid daughter, who was suddenly racked with nightmares.

“Christ, Runa…”

“Yeah.”

“Have you ever gotten a good look at them?”

“I’ve gotten decent looks. But they’re just so painfully… average. Forgettable. No tattoos, scars, or birthmarks that might help the police identify them.”