Jessie Murphy is released from prison with the intention of escaping her past. Homeless and alone, her plans to dodge karma's spite seem more like wishful thoughts until a shot of Wild Turkey turns things around.
She ends up lost in the wilderness...
I awoke in a tangle of sleeping bag and discarded clothing. An already lucid Bard rustled the pack behind me, and I turned to find a granola bar held out. "We should get moving." Something didn't seem right about him– more tense and less warm than he'd been throughout the night.
"What's wrong?"
He offered me a grim smile. "Its going to be harder now that the storm came through."
"How so?" My chest tightened. I sat up straight and looked at him.
Bard started to say something, but paused. He scanned my face, sharp eyes searching, then turned back to the task of packing up. "It's nothing. Everything is fine." He grabbed the end of his sleeping bag and rolled it up. "Let's go."
I untangled myself from the second bedroll and got dressed as he packed it. We worked in silence, him setting us up to leave, and me slowly eating my breakfast with a sense of dread swimming through my chest. We weren't safe. I could tell by the way he was acting. But he wouldn't say it to me.
He wants me to feel safe, even if I'm not.
Bard grabbed his pack, then hoisted mine up and handed it to me.
I hesitated and searched his face.
He tilted his head and offered a smile that didn't quite reach his eyes. "You're safe, Jessie."
I nodded and took the bag from his hand. I wasn't. We weren't. But if he wanted to pretend we were, I didn't see what difference it would make.
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Rain is an amazing thing. Harsh storms even more so. The funny thing about rain is, when it mixes with dirt, you get mud. Where there is a lot of dirt, there will also be a lot of mud. Thick, sticky, foot plopping mud that continuously reaches its muddy hands out, and tries to steal the shoes right off your feet.
That was exactly what happened after the storm. Not only were tree limbs, debris, and all other forms of obstacles scattered within our path, but every so often I'd run into another patch of said mud and be forced to struggle through.
It helped that Bard didn't seem to be having any easier a time with it. Even the amazing wild man himself wasn't impervious to everything.
We travelled like that for hours before the rain started back up, and Bard's mood darkened more and more with each step.
He didn't speak. Irritation seemed to seep from his pores and deepened the lines on his face. His lips thinned, jaw tightened and flexed, and he searched. Constant. Eyes sharpened and shifted about as if the devil himself would pop out at any moment.
It unnerved the fuck out of me.
When Bard barked over his shoulder, and pushed me to move faster, I broke. "What the fuck is wrong!"
