circulation.
The air was cold. Rebecca tried to look but she was being marched quickly toward a small cabin. They were surrounded by trees. Rebecca thought she caught a quick glimpse of mountains beyond.
Rebecca struggled to get her bearings. She had to fight, somehow. And right now all she could use was her mind.
It was fall in Iowa, so she had to be at a higher elevation for it to be this cold, unless the Midwest was experiencing some kind of dramatic cold snap, which she doubted. No, Rebecca figured they had gone west from Iowa, maybe to Colorado, Wyoming or Utah. Maybe even Montana.
Rebecca knew that there were some anti-government people out in the West, although she vaguely recalled them being more in Idaho than anywhere else, but she wasn’t sure if that was the case.
So she was probably in one of the Western states where the Rockies were. No matter where it was, she thought, it was a long way from Iowa.
The hand in the back pushed her forward again, and she kept walking straight through the front door of the cabin. The woman reached around her, opened the door, and pushed Rebecca inside.
There was a nearly overwhelming smell of disinfectant that scared the hell out of her.
What had happened here?
Her eyes were just beginning to adjust to the darkness of the cabin’s interior when a sharp pain hit her upper arm and she saw that a needle had been jabbed into the meat of her arm.
She struggled, but the woman held her in place, quite easily, Rebecca realized, and everything quickly began to feel thick. Her face, her tongue, her feet.
The cabin went out of focus and she heard a strange wooshing sound in her ears.
And then she felt nothing at all.
SALE OF THE DAY
25
Colorado
O n pick -up and delivery days like this, Butterfly often thought she could smell the flames of her home as it burned and her family lay dying. Of course, she couldn’t really be sure of what she remembered. She had only been a few years old at the time. Most of what she knew about the horror had been told to her.
Yet none of that knowledge changed the smoldering scent of death that seemed to penetrate her consciousness.
Now, in the cabin, she put the new target on the bed and firmly fastened the restraints.
Butterfly felt nothing inside. Her mind moved in jagged bursts, jerking from one task to the next while her body moved with an unnatural grace. She had always been like this. After her family had died, she had been sent to a home with other children like her.
It was where she had met the only person in the world she loved. He had helped her when no one else could, or would.
For as long as she could remember, she had always been the fastest on the playground and not just among the girls. She could outrun, out jump, and later, out punch any boy she met. Because there had been fights. Violence had proven to be something that she felt comfortable with. It wasn’t long before she sought it out with increasing frequency.
They had all feared her. Everyone at the orphanage. The students. And the adults.
But that was all in the past, something she rarely thought about. Only on delivery days.
Now, she knew what she had to do. The lingering scents of death and darkness were always pushed away by his familiar words, the image of his face and the subconscious emotion that he was her only tenuous connection to life itself.
Butterfly shut and locked the cabin and crossed the small compound to the other cabin.
When she opened the door, her eyes took in the carnage before her. She had seen worse.
She bundled the body in a specially made body bag, put it on an ambulance stretcher, and wheeled it out to the truck. She went to the caretaker’s cottage, and brought in the cleaning supplies, disinfectant, and bleach.
It took her several hours to restore the cabin to its original state.
When she was finished, Butterfly put the cleaning supplies back in the caretaker’s cottage, and then she performed the most important task of the
The air was cold. Rebecca tried to look but she was being marched quickly toward a small cabin. They were surrounded by trees. Rebecca thought she caught a quick glimpse of mountains beyond.
Rebecca struggled to get her bearings. She had to fight, somehow. And right now all she could use was her mind.
It was fall in Iowa, so she had to be at a higher elevation for it to be this cold, unless the Midwest was experiencing some kind of dramatic cold snap, which she doubted. No, Rebecca figured they had gone west from Iowa, maybe to Colorado, Wyoming or Utah. Maybe even Montana.
Rebecca knew that there were some anti-government people out in the West, although she vaguely recalled them being more in Idaho than anywhere else, but she wasn’t sure if that was the case.
So she was probably in one of the Western states where the Rockies were. No matter where it was, she thought, it was a long way from Iowa.
The hand in the back pushed her forward again, and she kept walking straight through the front door of the cabin. The woman reached around her, opened the door, and pushed Rebecca inside.
There was a nearly overwhelming smell of disinfectant that scared the hell out of her.
What had happened here?
Her eyes were just beginning to adjust to the darkness of the cabin’s interior when a sharp pain hit her upper arm and she saw that a needle had been jabbed into the meat of her arm.
She struggled, but the woman held her in place, quite easily, Rebecca realized, and everything quickly began to feel thick. Her face, her tongue, her feet.
The cabin went out of focus and she heard a strange wooshing sound in her ears.
And then she felt nothing at all.
SALE OF THE DAY
25
Colorado
O n pick -up and delivery days like this, Butterfly often thought she could smell the flames of her home as it burned and her family lay dying. Of course, she couldn’t really be sure of what she remembered. She had only been a few years old at the time. Most of what she knew about the horror had been told to her.
Yet none of that knowledge changed the smoldering scent of death that seemed to penetrate her consciousness.
Now, in the cabin, she put the new target on the bed and firmly fastened the restraints.
Butterfly felt nothing inside. Her mind moved in jagged bursts, jerking from one task to the next while her body moved with an unnatural grace. She had always been like this. After her family had died, she had been sent to a home with other children like her.
It was where she had met the only person in the world she loved. He had helped her when no one else could, or would.
For as long as she could remember, she had always been the fastest on the playground and not just among the girls. She could outrun, out jump, and later, out punch any boy she met. Because there had been fights. Violence had proven to be something that she felt comfortable with. It wasn’t long before she sought it out with increasing frequency.
They had all feared her. Everyone at the orphanage. The students. And the adults.
But that was all in the past, something she rarely thought about. Only on delivery days.
Now, she knew what she had to do. The lingering scents of death and darkness were always pushed away by his familiar words, the image of his face and the subconscious emotion that he was her only tenuous connection to life itself.
Butterfly shut and locked the cabin and crossed the small compound to the other cabin.
When she opened the door, her eyes took in the carnage before her. She had seen worse.
She bundled the body in a specially made body bag, put it on an ambulance stretcher, and wheeled it out to the truck. She went to the caretaker’s cottage, and brought in the cleaning supplies, disinfectant, and bleach.
It took her several hours to restore the cabin to its original state.
When she was finished, Butterfly put the cleaning supplies back in the caretaker’s cottage, and then she performed the most important task of the
Similar Books
