Page 12 of Mountain Hero

What is his name? I can’t answer his questions if I’m wondering what his name is.

“Officer…”

“Quillian,” he offers with a tiny smile. “I know. It’s not the easiest to remember. Especially in a stressful situation like this.”

I nod at him, sniffling back tears. “I’m sorry. Usually I’m good with names. It’s just…”

“It’s fine,” Officer Nelson interjects. “We understand. You have a concussion, and you’re in pain. Take your time with this. If you need a break, that’s okay, too.”

A fleeting thought races through my head—I wish Enzo was here to hold my hand—but I shove it away.

I’m on my own for this.

So I take a deep breath and exhale it shakily. “It all started five months ago.”

From there, I tell them everything. About meeting Thomas when I hired him to fix a leak in the roof, and how he came back to ask me out a week later. How he seemed nice at first. Thoughtful. He was always offering to fix things at my house—the leaky sink in the bathroom upstairs, the wobbly porch railing, the clogged dryer vent he insisted was dangerous.

It wasn’t until the second month of dating that I started to have second thoughts about him.

“Thomas always wanted me to cook dinner,” I recall, “even if I was working late on a deadline. He’d insinuate that I had the time since I worked from home.”

In hindsight, I wish I could go back and slap myself silly.

“Then he asked me to move in with him. I told him no—we weren’t that serious yet—but he kept trying to convince me. He’d say things about how I was a beautiful woman and it wasn’t safe for me to live on my own.”

“By then, I think I knew we weren’t a good match. But… I thought maybe I was being too picky, like my friend always said. I convinced myself to give it a little more time.”

My throat gets tight and my nose prickles. “I should have ended things sooner,” I tell Officer Nelson. “I know I should have. It was so stupid.”

“No, it wasn’t.” Her lips press into a thin line, and a line etches into her forehead. “Trust me. I hear that more times than I’d like. But it’s not your fault. I promise.”

I’m not sure I agree, but I just give her a tight nod and force myself to continue.

I tell them about Thomas hitting me after he accused me of flirting with one of his friends. How I broke up with him immediately and told him never to contact me again.

“What happened then?” Officer Quillian asks, his eyes narrowing as he looks at the finger-shaped bruises on my arm again.

“At first, he tried to get me back. Apologetic calls and texts. Flowers. But I told him there was no chance, and it seemed like he got the message. And for a few weeks, it was okay. He left me alone. I thought Thomas had moved on.”

The memories come rushing back, so heavy and suffocating it’s hard to breathe.

It was a cheery spring day, one of those days when everything just seems brighter. Happier. More hopeful.

I’d gone to Rossi’s Outfitters and bought a few things to go hiking that weekend. My mind was full of plans and the conversation I’d had with Enzo was still lingering. I was making progress on my house, and I had a lead on a new contractor.

That evening, I’d been debating whether to bring some cookies over to Enzo to thank him for all his advice, wondering if it was too forward or if he’d appreciate it.

And then everything fell apart.

I have to grit my teeth to get through this part without sobbing.

Reliving the awful moment when I woke up in the middle of the night with a masked man standing over my bed. Being pinned down, a sweaty hand covering my mouth, and a needle stabbing into my arm. The terror. Everything going fuzzy before the blackness closed over me.

And then waking up in a small room with Thomas looming over me. His teeth bared in a rictus of a grin; he took great pleasure in telling me how things were going to be from now on. That I’d clean and cook and do whatever he wanted. That I wasn’t leaving, and if I tried, I’d regret it.

Officer Nelson looks furious as I recall the first awful days when I searched in vain for a way to escape, and how Thomas would hit me every time he caught me doing something he didn’t approve of. “Stopping to use the bathroom, sitting down, looking out a window… he hit me if I did any of those things.”

“And you couldn’t escape?” asks Officer Quillian, frowning. “A window? A key left in a drawer somewhere? Or call for help? Signal to a neighbor?”

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