“Sammy. Sammy, get up. We’ve got to go.”
Someone was jostling her shoulder violently, trying to pull her from the fog of sleep. Samantha grumbled and made to shake them off, burying her face deeper in a rough cotton pillow.
“Sammy, people are here for you. Get your bag.”
The panicked whisper sliced through her sleep muddled brain, words tumbling over each other until their meaning settled in. Samantha’s eyes snapped open as she scrambled to get to her feet, tripping over her own bedspread. Large, weathered hands caught and steadied her. Her father looked down at her, his leathery face unnaturally pale. Samantha swallowed.
“Meet me out the back door in five minutes,” he instructed, pressing a loop of keys firmly into her hands. “If I’m not there, you take the truck and you run. You go to Jim’s old cabin, and you lock everything down, y’hear?”
“I’m not leaving without you, dad—“ Her voice came out in a strangled rasp. Already she could feel her vocal cords shifting as panic surged through her blood. Not now, not now.
“You damn well better,” he snapped, and gently pushed her towards her things. “Five minutes, Sammy. Go.”
Nodding mutely, Samantha Bray rushed through haphazard piles of clothes, searching for—there. Grabbing the large, camping bag, she fumbled with the latches. She could hear her father moving down the stairs, through the house, beginning to unlock a safe. That gentle sound, found by impossibly sharp ears, made her blood run cold. If her father was going for a gun—she couldn’t think about that.
Four minutes and twelve seconds later, Sammy was buckling the bag tight, slinging the strap over a shoulder. She’d pulled a hoodie and jeans on over her pajamas and knotted her sneakers on bare feet. Pausing at the top of the stairs, she willed herself to be still, focusing on extending her hearing.
Sounds leapt at her in a rush—water in the pipes, the house settling, birds in the trees, cattle in the barn rousing for the day, heart beats—heartbeats on the patio—her father’s voice, gruff—I’ll ask you to kindly take your trailer off my property and not come back—the distinct click of a rifle being gestured—
Fifteen seconds until she had to be out the back door. She pressed the keys to her chest, heart hammering as she began to creep down the stairs. Eight seconds at the base of the stairwell. The back to her right, the front to her left, pulse screaming in her ears, voices—
Sammy went left.
She could see her father’s back through the screen door, rifle held but, mercifully, not pointed directly at the intruding heartbeats. Samantha couldn’t do anything without hurting her father, even if she had known how, but she couldn’t do nothing.
“Dad?” She called, walking through the foyer, drawing to a halt at the screen door. He twisted, looking at her with furious, terrified eyes. Samantha spoke quickly, her voice peaking just a little too high, “Is everything alright?”
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