Tied (All Torn Up 2)

I yank my cell phone out the back pocket of my jeans and dial 911 relieved that, by some miracle, I have a connection up here in the middle of the woods.

“Nine-one-one. What is your emergency?”

I need help, my brain screams. I found a girl. In a hole. In the woods.

“Hello? May I help you? Are you there?”

Just send someone. She’s a fucking mess.

“Are you hurt? If you’re there, please try to speak. I’m right here to help you, but I need to know where you are.”

“Try to speak,” she says. I almost laugh. I can’t even remember the last time words came out of my mouth. And now that I have to, I can’t seem to get the words to come down from my head and past my lips.

The girl with the tangled wild hair and her little dog continue to stare at me as I swallow hard and force my brain and mouth to get their shit together.

It’s like riding a bike, Ty. You don’t forget how to talk.

“A girl…in the woods,” I rasp. “A hole.” My voice is strained and unnatural, too loud or maybe too soft, much like the dog’s strangled bark.

“There’s a girl in the woods? Is that what you’re saying?”

“Yes.”

“Is she hurt?”

“Maybe.”

“Are you hurt?”

“No.”

“Are you with her?”

“Yes.”

“Are you in the hole with her?”

“No.”

“Do you know her name?”

“No.” I cough into the phone. My throat is dry and raw, and I’m already exhausted from this interrogation. How hard is it to just get help?

“What is your name, sir?”

“I’m going to get her.”

“Can you tell me your location?”

My throat catches again with the struggle to make more words. “Five miles off Rock Road. Old hiking trail. On the left. Not far from the river.”

Ending the call, I peer back down into the hole. It’s about four feet in diameter and maybe ten feet deep. I reach behind me and grab the eight-foot dog leash that’s hanging off my belt, wrap some of it around my wrist, and toss the other end into the hole.

I nod at her, hoping she’ll understand my plan, but she gives me a leery glare and moves backward like the leash is going to bite her.

Talk to her. “Grab it. I’ll pull you out.”

Her mouth parts slightly, and she pulls the dog tighter, protectively, against her chest, and I realize she’s afraid I expect her to leave the dog down there.

“Hold the dog. Grab the leash. I’ll pull you both out.”

She stands painstakingly slowly, picks up her tattered backpack, loops her arm through it, then shuffles hesitantly toward the dangling leash. Her feet are bare, poking out from a pair of threadbare sweatpants that look about four sizes too big for her. A very thin once-white T-shirt is barely visible beneath her tangled waist-length blond hair and the furry dog she’s got in a bear hug.

“It’s okay. I’m going to help you,” I say when her eyes dart from me to the leash then back to me again. Her teeth clamp down on her bottom lip as she grasps the leash.

“Hold on tight,” my voice growls. “Don’t let go. I can pull you up.”

Pulling her out of the hole is easy, and it’s not because I work out a lot. The truth is she weighs next to nothing. The words “starving,” “malnourished,” and “anorexic” spring to the forefront of my mind. I’d be surprised if she weighs ninety pounds including the dog and whatever she’s got in that backpack. With both hands, she hangs on to the leash with the dog against her chest, his paws over her shoulder as if he somehow knows he should be hanging on. Her body scrapes and bounces along the rough dirt side of the hole as I pull her up, but she doesn’t let go, not even when I pull her onto the ground next to me.

“It’s okay,” I repeat as softly as I can, but my voice isn’t very comforting with its fucked-up, hoarse, raspy tone that I can’t change.

She leans against me as I kneel next to her, one of her hands gripping my shirt, the other holding the dog at her side, her forehead pressed against my shoulder. I can actually feel her heartbeat, beating wildly in her chest like a hummingbird.

“Shhh… You’re going to be okay now. I promise.”

I can’t ignore what I see. Scars, some old and some new, mark her arms and the tops of her feet and, no doubt, places I can’t see. But when our eyes meet, the damage and torment I see there is far worse. Just like me. My heartbeat skips when she stares up at me, at my face, and she doesn’t recoil at what she sees. She looks right in my eyes, unwavering, and she sees me. She lets out a deep, shuddering breath that sounds like it’s been bottled up inside her for a very long time.