***

  “Hey, ‘scuse me, you okay? Hey, are you oka—what the hell?! Alex, gimmi a hand here!”

  The gentle lapping of waves. The smell of beer and fish and gasoline. Dusk over the ocean. Hands lifting her, carrying her. A heavy fabric covering her. Her head lying back on a seat, such a comfortable seat.

  Nothing quite feels real at first. The world and its objects resolve slowly around her.

  “—ou okay? Ma’am? Ma’am? Are y—“

  Two figures over her, blurry.

  “—am? Can you hear me? You were jus—“

  The voices are deep, strange.

  “Ma’am? Are you—Jesus Christ, Alex, lookit her hand, it’s bleedin’.

  They are men’s voices.

  Her eyes bolt open, she jumps up, swinging, falling to the ground as she does. “Fuckyoufuckyoufuckyoufuckyou!”

  She scrambles back to her feet and connects with one of the men’s jaws, in her current state she hardly budges him. She falls to the deck, screaming. Curled into a helpless, bloody ball she keeps screaming, “Please please please please no! Please! Please don—“

  “Whoa whoa whoa there girl calm down calm down it’s all right!” one of the men says, the bigger one, the one she hit. “It’s alright now it’s alright, we’re gonna git you to a hospital, okay?” The big man turns to the other smaller-but-still-big man. “Alex, git one them waters from the cooler, I know we got some.”

  Their boat is a small one, like something from the cover of a Bass Pro Shop catalogue, Alex hardly has to leave his place in front of the throttle to reach the cooler.

  “Here, hun’, drink yourself some, ‘ll be good for you”

  He passes the bottle to the other man, who hands it toward her, and returns to the helm. She has stopped screaming but doesn’t move to take the offering, content to stay huddled in the corner, caging herself with her arms.

  The big man stares at her eying the bottle. Finally something like a lightbulb flash shows in his eyes. “Shoot, Alex, go git another, would you? Don’ open it though. We’ll just give it to her, let her open it.”

  “Oh hell, sorry, I wadn’t even thinkin’!” In no time at all he returns with another, he holds the bottle out toward her. When she doesn’t reach for it he again gives it to the big man, who sets it on the ground in front of her, like he’s trying to coax out a battered dog.

  Both men exchange a look. Finally the big man speaks, “Hun’, you ain’t gotta drink that you don’ wanna, but you should put them jackets back over you. It’s cold out and you was shiv’rin when we found you just now. Matter-a-fact you still shiv’rin” —Sasha hadn’t noticed til now, she pulls the jackets around herself— “we ain’t got no blankets or nothin’, so those two jackets have to do you til we get to shore” —the man looks down, pulling his cap off and wiping his brow despite the chill— “now, look, I ain’t here to judge you or nothin’ like that. I known mor’n a few people tried this before. Hell, I myself considered it once, long time ago when my little girl died” —he stares then off into the night, and something in his face tells her he’s actually staring beyond it, into that same place she sometimes did when she thought about her mom, no-doubt the same place she soon would when she remembered Allison— “but, girl, you gotta tell yourself, you gotta know, that somewhere out there is a reason for you to keep goin’. You may not see it now, but it’s there, you just gotta find it. You can call it god or a higher power or, shoot, even like a—a life force or whatever, but this—this whole business a killin’ yerself ain’t never the answer, girl. You just gotta keep—“

  Abruptly she bursts into laughter, cutting him off, it bleats out of her uncontrollably, the spasming in her sides actually paining her. Finally, she wipes the tears from her eyes to see the man’s bewildered expression.

  “No, no, I… I wasn’t trying to, uh, commit suicide. I was… uh, it’s just complicated, it’s really complicated.”

  The big man looks to his fellow. “Well,” he says, swallowing. “Them’s the first coherent words you said since we pulled you outta the water. So… uh… I guess you’re doin’ better” —he searches for his words a moment— “I, uh, I’m Leroy, you can call me Roy, and that there’s my friend Alex, you can call him Alex.”

  If you discover this tale on Amazon, be aware that it has been unlawfully taken from Royal Road. Please report it.

  “Hi, Leroy, hi, Alex, my name’s Sasha” —a sudden knot forms in her stomach— “where… where are we?”

  Roy wipes his brow again. “Well, we’re in the Outer Banks, close to it at least, ’bout ten miles off Alex an’ me’s secret fishi—“

  “Outer Banks? Outer Banks of what? Where—where am I, Roy? Like, what state?”

  The men exchange looks again and then Roy clarifies, “Uh, North Carolina, Miss Sasha, you’re in North Carolina.”

  He smiles, opening his hands palm up in a sort of placating gesture. Sasha finds the whole thing absurd, the massive man squatted down in front of her like a child a tenth the size. “Bes’ damn fishin’ spot you ever seen jus’ down yonder” —he chuckles a bit, then the smile drops from his face, he swallows— “Ma’am, do you, uh, do you not remember where you was last?”

  Sasha doesn’t respond.

  North Carolina? North Fucking Carolina?

  “Uh, Miss Sasha… you, uh… you ought let me lookit that hand a yours there. You’re bleedin’ quite a bit looks like.” Roy reaches toward Sasha, she reflexively pulls back again. The big man scratches his head and sighs. “Miss Sasha, look, I know you’s scared right now—“

  “Sasha.”

  “Pardon?”

  “Sasha. Just call me Sasha, Roy.”

  “Uh, yes ma’am, my apologies, Sasha it is,” Roy clears his throat. “Now, Sasha, I know you’s scared right now but it’s okay, you’re safe now. Me’n Alex here gonna git you to a hospital and” —he turns over to Alex who has already started up the motors— “hey, Alex, you got the guard on the horn yet?”

  “No, I was all preoccupied with… well, with allathis here,” Alex says as he opens up the throttle. “I’ll hail em’ in a sec.”

  “Wait, wait, wait,” Sasha bolts up. “What are you talking about? What guard?”

  “Well, uh, the, uh, coast guard, ma’am,” Alex says as he grabs the radio next to him. “We gonna do our best to git you back safe, but if we’re lucky, one a them puddle pirates might be close by and can get you professional medical atten—“ In a flash, Sasha has bounded up and slapped the radio from his hand.

  “Nononononono!” she screams as the man flinches back. “Nononono you can’t! You can’t call anyone!”

  Roy is behind her an instant later, belying his size and rotund build. He grabs her as she crumples down in trembling sobs. “Whoa there! Easy now, easy.” He gently lowers her to the deck and kneels beside her. “It’s okay, they’re gonna help us. No one is in trouble here, we’re just tryna git you help’s all, okay?”

  “Please,” she begs through watery eyes. “Please don’t. They might be with them, I can’t… I can’t trust… can’t trust...” She breaks into unrestrained sobbing.

  Roy opens his mouth to speak, the words don’t come. He looks to Alex, who has retrieved the radio, the men both look to the pathetic, weeping thing before them and then back to each other. A head cock from Roy and Alex sets the radio aside, hands returned to the helm.

  “Sasha?” Roy’s voice is quiet, an almost comical juxtaposition against his natural bass tone. “Sasha?” He repeats. “Can you tell me why we oughtn’t call the coast guard? Can you tell me why you’re afraid they’s gonna hurt you?”

  Gee, I don’t know, maybe because the last time I was around people I didn’t know I blacked out and woke up shackled to a carnivorous fucking tree monster on a beach in a fucking galaxy far far away and some cult of old rich people with the human sacrifice fetish running the whole operation have influence and connections that run who knows how deep!

  “Miss Sasha,” Roy continues. “If someone done hurt you, we need to notify the authorities, the police. The coasties are good guys, they can help.”

  “I—I—I—“ Sasha blurts out between sobs. “I can’t let them… let them…” For a moment she weighs her options: give a recap of the truth, a partial fabrication, or a complete one. The choice is obvious, she doesn’t want to end up cuffed to a gurney in a psych ward awaiting some after hours abduction by shadowy, well-dressed figures, so the truth is a non-starter. And with how bizarre even a partial recap would be, she might as well go all in on the lies.

  She can’t tell if the men are skeptical or not when she spins her yarn, and she quickly decides that she is far too exhausted to trust any internal gauge she might have had anyway, so she opts for the same strategy of frenzied, panicked recounting, sparse details, and copious tears, that had gotten her out of a least two dozen speeding tickets.

  All she had to do was substitute certain details for those more contextually relevant. It’s not that time of the month and she’s not in a hurry to get to the bathroom before she bleeds all over her seats, she’s not in a hurry to get to her elderly grandmother in the nursing home, she’s didn’t just get cheated on by her boyfriend of six years; she’s on the run, her boyfriend is a cop in Raleigh—the only city in North Carolina she’d ever heard of—a mean one too, she’d just managed to get away while they were out at the beach—she forgets which one—he would beat her half to death or worse if he ever found her, and he was no doubt looking. No, she couldn’t go to any of the hospitals nearby, please, not in the state. Somewhere else. Atlanta? Where’s that again? Georgia, you say, nearly eight hours by car? Yes, that’s perfect, matter of fact she’s got family there. Where? Can’t remember exactly but somewhere in the city. Soon as they’re on the way she’ll call them. No, no, the hand is fine, just a little cut is all, nothing serious, no need to look at it.

  And then she’s in the passenger seat of Roy’s rusted 1980 Bronco, Alex at the wheel and Roy on the phone. They’ll drive her to Atlanta, but they need to stop by Roy’s place first, his missus is coming along—Molly, she had been a combat medic in the Gulf War, and before she’d gotten even a third of the story from Roy over the phone, she’d had a bag packed and ready.

  “You’ll be in good hands with my Molly,” Roy assures her. “Hell, she saved my life. Toughest woman I ever met too, anyone so much as looks at you the wrong way, Miss Sasha, and she’ll take their head off.”

  Sasha hardly hears a word he says, her world keeps fading to black. She doesn’t quite feel like she’s really here, as though in a dream.

  The sun set over an hour ago. It’s completely dark as they drive the cratered and pocked road leading to Roy’s house, and the old truck’s springs threaten to jostle and bounce and toss Sasha to sleep.

  Her eyelids are heavy, and the hard metal of a car door has never felt so comfortable. She looks up at the stars overhead, so clearly they shine in the blackness overhead.

  Scanning the constellations, her eyes land on a familiar pattern: the Big Dipper. The Big Fucking Dipper.

  She smiles as her eyes close.

  ***