Page 4 of Bounty

He unlocks the door and pushes it open. Crates are stacked against the walls, almost covering them completely. They’re stacked in rows down the room, too. Jude squeezes my hand too hard, and I remember he’s still holding it. I try to lose him, but he only holds on tighter. He walks me to a crate and uses his pocket knife to pry it open.

Moving the packing fluff to the side, I see black, metallic guns. Large guns. The kind you see on the news and in the video games the boys used to play growing up.

I freeze, as all the pieces finally come together.

“Don’t you wish you never opened the door, thistle?” He whispers in my ear.

I wake up, startling myself. I’m not in a humid barn back on the farm. It was just another dream, or rather, a memory that haunts me.

I stretch, raising my hands over my head, past my pillow, and lengthen my legs. Flexing each foot, I take a few deep breaths. I feel stiff and cold. It’s a bone-chilling, ominous cold that goes beyond leaving the window open by mistake. My breath puffs infront of my face. As soon as I leave the comfort of my bed, I know I made a mistake. In just my sweat shirt and boyshorts, without my blankets, it’s glacial.

The alarm clock on my bedside table is blinking.No, fuck, no!I scurry over to the lightswitch, but it doesn’t turn on. When I get to the kitchen, the oven clock is too.

The power is out.

I thought I’d have more time to pay the bill before they shut it off. It wasn’t even two months late. But I guess when you’re chronically late, they give you less leeway. How am I supposed to survive the winter without heat?

My phone only has twenty three percent charge, and it’s already 7:45. I have forty-five minutes until I need to be at work. My boss is going to flip his lid if I’m late. Scouring the cupboard for breakfast gets me nowhere. The only food I have is half a stale loaf of bread, a protein bar that’s past its expiration date, and an apple with too many bruises. The sad part is that I’ve had worse options before.

I throw on a pencil skirt and a white blouse. Brushing through my curls, I try to tame them into a high bun. My heels pinch my feet, a size too small, but they’re all I have. They were Aunt Norma’s… A slice of agony splits my heart in two. One of the only things I have left of her are a good-for-nothing pair of scratched black heels. A tear trickles down my face as my breathing stutters.

Pull it together, Willa, you do not have time for this.

Imagining her telling me to pull my big girl panties up puts a small smile on my face, exactly what I need to keep moving through this awful day. Shoving the protein bar into my pocket, I brace myself at the front door for the snowstorm I’m about to walk into, without a coat. My old one ripped last season and I never got around to replacing it. And money isn’t even tight right now—it’s nonexistent.

When I go outside, the small semblance of perseverance I mustered dies. My front gutter isn’t attached to the house anymore…it’s on the ground. My landlord never returns my calls, unless it’s to pester me for my rent money, which I may not have in full this month. I doubt he’ll fix this until after I pay. Hell, he said it himself—he’s going to evict me unless I pay this month's rent, and the remainder of last month’s rent.

My anxiety feels like a thousand little spiders crawling up my back, taking me over before they devour me. I feel my control start to slip, until I see the package on the ground, next to the gutter. It’s a large, sealed bag, no address or name, just like the last four. I take it into the house.

Should I be worried that anonymous packages turn up on my doorstep in the morning? Probably. But my life has been such a shitshow this year that I don’t care. Between Aunt Norma getting sick, her swift decline and death, the bills piling up, and all the toxic stuff at work heaped on top, the packages are the only silver lining. I tear it open, and pull out a black, faux-fur lined peacoat, with matching gloves. It’s a good quality and whoever dropped it off must have spent a ton of money.

They must be watching me, to know I needed it. Instead of continuing my earlier panic attack, I smile. As stalkery and messed up as it is, it’s a solution to one of my problems. The one light in my dark, lonely life.

As I put the coat and gloves on, my mind wanders to another time in my life, when I wasn’t so lonely–when I had people to depend on and everything didn’t seem so impossibly hard–but I quickly rein it in. That time is over now.

And no matter how difficult things get, I know I’ll find a way to come out on the other side. I have to, because I’m the only person I can depend on.

Running through the woods in my bare feet. Picking wildflowers as I dance under the sun. Eating berries right off the bush. The wind blowing through my hair as I harvest the fall crops with my brothers and sisters. Snuggling at night with Bandit, my big black dog.

“Willa Jean!” Mr. Johnson shouts, breaking me from my daydreams five minutes before the end of my workday.

“Look alive, missy, I need you to make some copies for me. Thirty of each for the staff meeting tomorrow morning, then you can leave.”

Cringe.

My boss, Tim Johnson, is an absolute pig. Not like the cute little teacup pigs you see on social media, but the misogynistic kind that repeatedly makes unwanted advances towards his female employees, even when they plainly ask him to stop. I made it quite clear I’m not interested, and at this point it’s toxic.

His gaze zeroes in on my blouse, right at my breasts, as usual. I repeat my daily mantra in my head.

You only need to be here another year, then you’ll have enough experience on your resume to get a better paying administrative assistant position. By this time next Christmas, you’ll be gone.

“Yes, Mr. Johnson,” I reply, taking the papers from him on my way to the copier. His hand grazes my ass as I’m walking by, and my whole body stiffens.

“Please don’t touch me again,” I grit out, holding all my rage deep inside me.

I wish I could scream at him–smack him right in his red, puffy face. Or punch him in his bulbous nose. If I ever do, he’llhave me fired on the spot, no matter how badly he wants to bend me over the desk for an afternoon delight. I never went to college, and I’m not dumb enough to think I’d ever get a cushy desk job like this again without a degree.

I may hate my job, but I need it to survive, especially with my Aunt Norma’s passing. She was sick for a long time, and it’s nice to know she isn’t suffering anymore, but I still miss her everyday. After we left Harvest Farm, she was the only family I had.

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