Fiftysix - Seven Rue Page 0,121
too fast, in case there was a noise and I had to step out quick.
After a few minutes, I wrapped myself in the black towel and dried off before putting on my new sweater.
It scratched my skin, but at least it was warm.
I was a light sleeper, so I left the door open just a crack in case the owner walked in, then hopped into bed and pulled the covers over my body.
I breathed in deeply, staring at the ceiling.
For now, I was safe.
And as long as no shotgun was held against my head, I’d be okay.
In the end, hunters shot animals, not young girls who needed shelter.
Right?
Chapter One
Echo
Days went by and I was still in that cabin.
No one has come up here, and I started to wonder if this cabin was only used during the winter time.
It was the middle of May, and soon I’d have to decide to either stay here a while longer, or keep walking through the woods and maybe find another cabin.
I knew there were some up for rent.
For families who liked to spend their summer breaks in the mountains.
But who knows how far apart those cabins were set?
And I wasn’t really into the idea of spending more days walking around without any shoes on.
There weren’t any around the cabin, and every day I had been spending in one of those large sweaters I found in the drawers.
I managed to wash my clothes in the shower, but without any detergent, they ended up smelling like nothing.
At least they were clean.
The cans in the cupboards were getting fewer each day, and I started to eat half a can in the morning, and the other half in the evening.
That way I could stay here a few more days.
I could’ve easily packed them into my backpack, taken the small pot with me and made a fire whenever I got hungry, but staying inside sounded like a better idea for now.
It was like staying in my home back in Juneau.
I would sit around for hours, read a book about a topic that didn’t interest me at all, and wait for my step-dad to come home so I could make dinner.
I even had a phone, and I would always listen to music and sometimes dance around the house without anyone ever catching me.
I brought my phone with me, but it wasn’t very helpful with no signal this deep in the woods.
The only thing I used it for in the past few days was to play games on it.
There were only three downloaded, and two of them were boring.
I had to find other things to do.
There were animals moving outside the cabin, and once I was sitting outside on the small steps, hoping for someone to show up, I saw a rabbit, then a few squirrels.
One night, I woke up to a loud noise, a scratching against the side of the cabin.
As I got up and shined my flashlight through the windows, I jumped at the sight of a bear standing on his back paws.
There was nothing he could’ve done to hurt me, so I waited until he moved back into the woods, then I slid back into bed.
Sure, I was lonely, but this was better than staying home, getting shouted at and beaten without ever being able to fight back.
Fighting back would’ve only worked with fists, but I couldn’t get myself to hit a man that had no self-worth.
I almost felt bad just thinking about hitting him, though my fists wouldn’t even do much to his large body.
He let himself go since Mom left, and let all his anger out on me.
Of course, it was all my fault that she ran away with a new man, and left him to care for me.
I didn’t take Mom leaving personally.
In fact, I was happy she found a way out, but maybe she could’ve taken me with her.
My anger didn’t show, instead, I held it inside of me long enough until it disappeared or I forgot about it.
Being mad about things didn’t help my situation, and now that I had found a way out, hope was all that was left inside of me.
Hope that someone would finally find me and take me some place safe.
*
Willem
There’s someone in our fucking cabin.
Not the first time it happened, but surprising them out of the blue never ended well.
They always had a gun ready, pointing them at us as if they owned this fucking place.
We learned it the hard way that often times random hikers who got