Page 76 of Unforgiven

She screamed, looking for Chance. But he was in the house. She’d taken him on a long walk that morning, and he’d fallen asleep in front of the fireplace.

The grip around her middle was so tight that she could barely breathe. It prevented her from doing much more than giving a token struggle and kick.

“Stop,” he ordered.

The voice confirmed her suspicions. Leon had returned. The Tabitha of old would have frozen, too afraid to do anything to make her “punishment” worse. But that wasn’t who she was anymore. She might still be weaker than him, but she wasn’t afraid to try. Nothing she could do now would make her life any worse than it had been when he’d hurt her so badly that she’d ended up in the hospital.

Kicking a leg back again, she did her best to hit his shin with the heavy heel of her boot. He gasped and loosened his hold, and that was all she needed to pull away. Scrambling for balance, she ran around to the other side of the worktable.

Leon’s expression burned. “You are so foolish. Do you really think there’s anything you can do to harm me?”

She didn’t dare answer him. Fresh memories of all the times he’d been so cruel to her, making her say and do things that were wrong just because she was too afraid to do otherwise, came back to her. Instead, she eyed the large metal drum filled with hot water and cranberries on the table in front of her. Needing to slow him down, she grabbed the side of the container and pushed it toward him.

Hot, red water shot out. The majority of it hit the center of his chest, and the rest splashed into his face and eyes.

Leon cried out and raised his hands. That was the break she needed to run as fast as she could toward the woods.

Behind her, the worktable crashed over and a chair sounded like it broke in two. Fear rose inside of her and she attempted to increase her pace. She didn’t know how successful she was since she kept tripping on roots and branches.

“Stop, Tabitha!” Leon yelled. “You’re only making this worse for yourself.”

She used to believe every word he said. Now she knew better.

She forced everything from her mind except for her one goal: get away. Remembering the advice Deputy Ernst had shared, she repeated it over and over in her head. Her own personal mantra.

Run as fast as you can toward the road. There you’ll be in the open, allowing someone to see you and preventing Leon from his primary objective, to keep his return hidden.

Spying the road up ahead, she belatedly remembered the cell phone the sheriff had made her promise to always keep in her dress’s pocket. Her guard might have been let down, but not completely. Giving praise, Tabitha pulled it out. She was running too fast to dial a number, but she was able to finally dial 911.

Relief filled her. The phone would immediately ding both Sheriff Johnson and Deputy Ernst. They would be able to find her thanks to the tracking feature they’d installed on her phone.

Footsteps pounded behind her, and branches and twigs broke and popped as Leon followed.

Focusing intently, she knew Leon was breathing hard. From the sound of him, maybe even harder than she was. That shouldn’t be a surprise since they’d had two very different living experiences over the last several years. Her body had gotten stronger and healthier. She was used to physical exertion and pushing herself. Leon, on the other hand, was now out of shape.

Her phone dinged with a text. She didn’t dare slow down enough to see what it said. All she could do was hope and pray that law enforcement was on their way.

She soon reached the road, but there were no vehicles or people in sight. Her heart sank as despair threatened to overtake her. But then she remembered another piece of the deputy’s advice. She was to run to the nearest house and scream as loud as she could. Being quiet would only give Leon the ammunition he craved to pull her out of sight.

The nearest neighbors were the Lapps. Joseph lived there with his mother and grandmother. None of them had been sympathetic to her over the years. In fact, Rose Lapp had once even gone out of her way to say cutting things to Tabitha in the middle of the market. What would they do if she showed up screaming? Would they turn her away? Worse, would they try to help Leon?

Could they be so cruel?

She used to think that wasn’t possible, but experience with some people in the community had proved otherwise. Joseph and Rose were her only option, and she hoped and prayed they would help her. She couldn’t keep running.

She ran as quickly as she could toward the Lapps’ house. It was at the top of a steep hill, and her muscles strained on the incline. All she could hope was that Leon’s poor conditioning would slow him down.

When she heard his steps quicken, that hope began to fade.

“Do you really think Joseph or Rose is gonna help you, Tabitha? They hate you! They think you’re terrible because you divorced me.”

Maybe they did. However, she also had to believe there was still goodness in their hearts. Had to believe that Joseph, at the very least, would step in before Leon could hurt her.

Her heart and lungs burned as she continued up the hill. Her legs were starting to cramp. “Help!” she screamed as loud as she could. “Help me! I need help!” Tabitha wasn’t sure if she was crying for the Lapps to help her or for the Lord to intervene.

A window curtain moved but the door didn’t open.

She was now in the Lapps’ front yard. They had a big fence behind the house and some old lawn equipment in a rusty pile to one side. She had nowhere else to go.

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