“Good girl,” I call out. I squat down and reach my arm out to her in a beckoning gesture.
Without warning, she flinches, her eyes trained on a spot behind me and to my right. There’s a movement there, too, which I catch from the corner of my eye. And then a sudden whooshing sound in the dark.
A second later the top of my head explodes in pain.
27
Have I been struck by lightning? The pain’s white-hot, like a wildfire’s radiating from my skull through every inch of me. My legs give out and I pitch forward onto the wet ground, facedown. I try to grab a breath but manage only short, desperate gasps.
Help me, I think.Someone, please.
A dog barks in the darkness. Desperate yaps.Bella.I try to call to her, but nothing escapes my lips. I succeed in moving my hand and fumble for the flashlight but realize it’s rolled to a spot I can’t see. Something’s in my left hand, though. I’m still holding the leash.
Other sounds now. The squeak of a shoe on grass, a swish of fabric. There’s someone behind me.
And then I feel hands on my bare calves. They’re pawing at the fabric of my capris. The person grabs hold with both hands and pulls. Fear shoots through my body, fighting for space with the pain.
I summon whatever energy I can find and heave my bodyin a half turn to the right. And then the rest of the way. I’m facing upward now, woozy.
I sense the other person stumbling backward, maybe in surprise, and then, a few seconds later, rushing forward again. Feebly, I kick out with one leg, trying to halt the approach.
Even in the dark and rain, I finally see who it is. Because of the hair, the white-blond shock of it.
Wendy.
She’s looming above me, her face twisted as she stares.
“Wendy,” I say, more a moan than a word. “Wha—?”
I don’t understand what’s happening. And my head’s pounding even harder now, the pain practically erasing all thought. Has she come looking for me? But there’s a horrible sneer on her face.
“Help me,” I manage. “Please.”
She’s gripping something—a hammer. But no, not a hammer, another kind of tool, whose head I can make out in outline. My heart lurches. That’s what struck me, I realize. She raises it high now, ready to drive it down on my skull again. I force my left arm up and away from my body, and flick the leash like a whip at her. I barely make contact, but she yelps in surprise and staggers backward.
She comes at me again, the tool raised.
She’s going to crush my skull.
I gasp for air and roll my body again, hurling myself into the shrub next to me. The blow misses my head but nails my shoulder, piercing skin through my shirt. I grunt in pain.
I force myself up onto my hands and knees, trying to fight my way through the shrub. Blood from my head woundruns into my eyes and my mouth, mixing with rain and tasting like metal. In the dense and prickly branches, I cover almost zero ground, and I let out a cry of despair, still trying to crawl. There seems to be no escape.
I see the light then. A flashlight beam, coming from behind and erratically slicing the darkness ahead of me. And a man calling out above the rain.
“Wendy, what the hell’s going on?” I’ve never been so relieved to hear my husband.
“Gabe,” I scream. As I twist around to see him, my head fills with swooshing sounds. “She... she’s trying to kill me.”
I sense him jerking back in surprise, halting in his steps.
Please, don’t let her hurt him.
“Get away from her, Wendy,” Gabe shouts.
“You have no idea what’s going on,” Wendy screams.
“I said, get the fuck away from her.”
