Chapter 10 - Blood in the Brambles
I slammed on the brakes, the Ram skidding to a halt on the gravel shoulder, dust billowing around the red taillights. I threw the truck into park, ripped my heavy flashlight from the door pocket, and vaulted out into the cold night air.
"Leo! Maya!" I screamed, using the names David had given me over the phone.
The beam of my flashlight sliced through the thick mountain brush. The air smelled of wet pine needles and crushed leaves. Ten feet into the undergrowth, sitting huddled together beneath the hollow root system of an overturned oak tree, were two tiny figures.
The older boy, Leo, was clutching his four-year-old sister tightly against his chest. He was shivering violently, his small face streaked with dirt and dried tears, wearing only a thin superhero T-shirt and shorts. Maya was fast asleep—or unconscious from exhaustion—curled into a tight ball against his ribs.
When the beam of my flashlight hit them, Leo raised a tiny, trembling arm to shield his eyes, letting out a terrified whimper.
"Don't hurt us!" the boy sobbed, his voice raw. "Grandma said someone was coming! She said wait by the big tree!"
Tears, hot and furious, stung the corners of my eyes. In that instant, twelve years of buried agony roared back to the surface. I saw myself at nineteen, shivering in a thin jacket behind a flea market shed, wondering why the woman who gave me life didn't care if I froze to death.
And here were her grandchildren. Three and four years old. Left in the dirt like stray kittens because they were inconvenient.
I immediately dropped the flashlight to the ground, fell to my knees in the wet leaves, and stripped off my heavy fleece jacket.
"Leo," I said, my voice dropping into the gentlest, softest tone I could muster. "Hey, buddy. Look at me. I’m your Aunt Avery. I’m your daddy’s friend. You're safe now. Nobody is going to hurt you."
Leo blinked through his tears, looking at my face. "Aunt Avery? The one with the big house?"
"Yeah, baby," I whispered, wrapping my warm fleece around both of them and scooping them up into my arms. Leo weighed almost nothing. Maya stirred, letting out a weak, raspy cough, burying her cold little nose into the crook of my neck. "The one with the big house. And you're coming home with me right now."
I carried them toward my truck just as Marcus’s headlights appeared around the bend, followed closely by the flashing red-and-blues of Deputy Miller’s cruiser.
Marcus jumped out, took one look at the toddlers bundled in my arms, and let out a string of curses that would have stripped paint off a barn. Deputy Miller ran up beside us, his radio already keyed to his lapel.
"Dispatch, cancel the search," Miller spoke into his radio, his voice shaking with suppressed fury. "We have the juveniles. Mile marker 14. Requesting EMS transport for hypothermia evaluation."
"No hospital," I said firmly, looking Miller dead in the eye while holding the children tightly against my chest. "They are cold, but they're conscious. I have a pediatric nurse who lives two doors down from my estate, and their father is three hours away on the interstate. I am taking them to my house, Miller. You bring the EMTs up my driveway, and you put out a felony warrant for Evelyn and Mallory Claire."
Deputy Miller looked at the two shivering babies, then at me.
May you like
"Felony child abandonment and endangerment," Miller said with stone-cold finality. "They won't make it past Staunton. I'm putting the BOLO out right now."
***
