Hannah Alexander - A Killing Frost

“Wait a minute, which trailhead?”

“Well, okay, it’s not an official trailhead, but you know where the Katy Trail comes closest to the road without actually crossing it, about a hundred and fifty feet east of Andy’s swamp?”

“Sure. There’s an open field and a creek where we used to have bonfires.”

“It’s the best place for you to park.”

He thought about that for a moment, realized she was right and grunted. So now, not only was she a better tracker than him, she was also a better strategist.

“It’ll be dark soon,” she said.

“I brought plenty of flashlights.”

Jama turned around to study the contents of his backseat. He studied her.

Jama Keith had outgrown the awkward adolescent stage at about the age of thirteen, and from then on had grown more beautiful every year. Her hair, long and golden, her body with appealing curves, her face, oval with a firm-but-feminine chin. Her cheeks right now were flushed with excitement.

Tyrell’s parents had always warned their children-all of whom were considered attractive by their peers-that good looks could be the bane of a person’s life. Jama had struggled with that in high school. She had the attention of lots of guys, with her beauty and her free spirit. After her father’s death, the free spirit had become outright rebellion, and it had taken over her whole life for a while.

Tyrell still wondered if that rebel had been completely tamed. He thought he still caught glimpses of that facet of her personality from time to time, and he hoped that aspect of her wouldn’t completely go away.

She turned to him, nodding with approval. “Good backpack.” She patted one of her pockets. “I brought mace and I’m packing my piece.”

“Uh…”

“Brought my pistol. Don’t worry, I have a license to carry.”

He blinked as he turned onto Highway 94 and headed west. “You never mentioned it before.”

“I guess the subject never came up.”

“Really? You have a license to carry, and you never thought to mention it to me?”

“I’ve had it for a couple of years, so I guess I just tend to take it for granted.”

“You just up and decided to get a gun license one day?”

Jama sighed. “A fellow resident was raped in her apartment building one night. She needed moral support afterward, and I thought if she had a way to protect herself, she’d feel safer. So I taught her some moves, and while we were practicing we decided we couldn’t be too careful in the city. Monty had already taught me how to shoot. I taught her, and we got our licenses.”

“You didn’t tell any of us what you were doing?”

Jama looked at him. “Tyrell, my friend never reported the rape. She didn’t want anybody to know, and I promised her I’d keep her confidence. We didn’t deliberately conceal what we were doing, but we didn’t advertise it, either.”

“You didn’t report-”

“How about you? You’re carrying, aren’t you?”

“Of course.” He was still trying to wrap his mind around the life she had apparently lived, the experiences she’d had, without sharing it with the Mercer family. He felt a sense of loss. What else had she never told him?

“Have you been to target practice lately?” she asked.

He grimaced. “Maybe a few months ago.”

“Bull’s-eye every time?”

“No. You?”

“Not every time.”

He shot her a glance. She was serious.

“We’re going to do this,” Jama said. “For Doriann.”

“For Doriann.”

I am not lost. I’m not. Got to be going the right direction. And Deb isn’t a killer. She saved me from Clancy.

As Doriann thought about it, she remembered that something had pushed her in the rump when she was climbing out the back window of the truck. Deb? It had seemed accidental at the time, but maybe not.

And it was Deb who had thrown herself in front of Doriann when they ran off the road…to keep Doriann from flying through the windshield headfirst?

Okay, but what was up with this?

Doriann was tired of thinking about it. She was so tired she could barely stand. She’d run so fast and so hard to get away from Clancy, her clothes were wet with sweat. As the air temperature dropped, she could almost feel the wet clothing crackle with ice.

But that had to be her imagination. And besides, she had her cell phone now. She could call for help as soon as she was sure Clancy wouldn’t reach out from behind a tree and grab her.

With another glance behind her and into the deepening forest shadows, she squatted between the needle-heavy branches of a juniper tree and opened her cell phone.

It didn’t light up.

She pressed the power button. She remembered using it only once since charging it last. Nothing happened. She pressed again. It still wouldn’t come on. Nothing.

Clancy. He’d done it on purpose. He’d run down the battery on her phone because he was an evil, wicked man!

She’d been depending on this phone to get her out of here. But now? She was stuck here.

She was lost!

She’d never been afraid of the dark. She’d never actually been afraid of much of anything. Why should she be? Aunt Renee and Mom and Dad and her grandparents and uncles had always told her that Jesus would always take care of her. And she believed that. But as the light disappeared from the sky, she felt very afraid. She’d been afraid a lot of times today.

Closing her eyes, she inhaled deeply, trying to calm herself the way Aunt Renee had taught her.

It didn’t work. Instead, she thought about how the trees had grabbed the hobbits in The Lord of the Rings and dragged them beneath heavy roots.

Heart thumping, Doriann wriggled from the juniper’s clutches and stumbled over a root as she rushed away from the tree limbs. In the growing darkness, she couldn’t avoid the limbs so easily.

As she continued to wander in the forest alone, every movement, every rustle of a leaf, every echo from her own footsteps made her heart scramble around in her chest like a squirrel in a live trap.

She felt awful, suddenly, for telling those scary stories to her cousins. How could she have been so mean?

It seemed as if, all at once, God had decided she would pay for her actions. She saw now how it felt to be afraid, the way Ajay was afraid when she told him a story about the shadow monsters that paced the hallways at night, ready to pounce on him when he got up to go to the bathroom.

He’d wet the bed last week. Aunt Renee had been so mad. Doriann had been ashamed of herself, and she’d tried to be nicer to Ajay. After all, he was younger than she was. She should know better. Even if he did pull her hair and sneak food off her plate when Aunt Renee wasn’t looking.

Today, Doriann was finding out what happened when she lied and disobeyed her parents. She had even discovered why she shouldn’t drink coffee. As Aunt Renee had warned, it made Doriann hyper, which had made her more afraid with Clancy and Deb. It had also made her wet herself today-which would have made Ajay laugh.

If she ever saw Mom and Dad and Aunt Renee again, she would apologize. She’d never been very good at saying sorry. That was another thing she needed to work on. She would try to apologize for something every day for the rest of her life. Especially to God.

She looked up and saw a streak of deep purple and blue through the lacy-black branches of the trees. For a moment, she forgot everything else. Her mouth fell open. She caught her breath. Sunset. In the west.

It was beautiful, like a special gift, a reminder from God that He was still there. Doriann had always loved sunrises and sunsets, and when Mom and Dad were home she dragged them out onto the balcony of their apartment and made them watch the sun go down.