are feral and small, and his nostrils are flared like the animal he reminds me of.
I look back at the house and see that Jessie is now completely surrounded. She’s striking out at them and in the dim light of the one bulb that’s still lit, I see them laughing at her. The one on the lawn stares me down defiantly, and I am frozen with fear.
And this is the part that I wish I could change. This is where I wish I could go back in time and do what I should have done.
But we know that there are no such second chances, right? What’s done is done, you can’t change the past—any cliché would fit right about here.
So every time, it’s the same as it was: when I finally react, it is with the greatest cowardice imaginable. I hit the gas and drive away, pretending I did not see, leaving Jessie to be plundered by the wolves.
I know what I should do—I know, I know—but I am shaking all over. I’m afraid to stop and get out of my car to look for my cell phone in the backseat where it fell when my bag overturned. Besides, if I call 911, they will wonder why I have permitted a friend to be dragged away by beasts without doing something. Screaming. Blowing the horn. Calling the police right then and there.
But my mouth is dust-dry and my brain seems unable to form coherent thoughts. My heart is pounding out of my chest and my skin has gone icy cold. I am sweating and crying as I drive around, wildly, looking for a pay phone—if I call from my cell, they’ll know, won’t they, that I left her, knowing what was about to happen to her? Finally, in desperation, I drive to a market that’s open all night and I find a phone, and with trembling hands, I dial 911. I whisper the words into the receiver anonymously and hang up and slink back to my car.
My face flushed with shame, I start off in the direction of my apartment.
They found her where those animals left her, after they’d done things to her that no one wants to even know about. For some reason known only to God, she was still alive. I went to see her in the hospital, but I never wanted to, never wanted to face her after what I’d done. But driven by guilt and shame, I had to, and I did. If I told you I didn’t have nightmares after that, I’d be lying. And if I told you that I did not see the accusation, the burning hatred in her eyes when I came into her room, I’d be lying about that, too.
So I did the only thing I could do. I leaned over and whispered in her ear.
“I’ll get them, Jessie. I swear to you on my life, I will get every one of them and I will make them pay.”
I know she heard me, but she never reacted. The look in her eyes told me that the very least I should do for her was to bring down the men who’d traumatized her to the extent that she lost her ability to speak.
I spent every week night and every weekend day at a firing range. I shot handguns of every caliber and every weight until I could hit a target dead center with every shot. And even then I practiced until I knew there was no way I’d miss once I aimed and fired. Finally, I felt ready.
It took me three weeks to discover the name of one of her assailants, but truthfully, one was all I really needed. And I found him in the damnedest place: in our small local paper, where he was identified as a person of interest in the robbery of a convenience store. Daniel Montoya, age twenty-four, had a history of arrests including assault with a deadly weapon and domestic violence. Up until now, his criminal activities had been confined to Shelton, the small factory town ten miles away. What had brought him into our town that night, I could only guess. In my darkest moments, I believed that he was put there to test me, a test I failed miserably. But studying his photograph, I knew his eyes were the ones that had taunted me that night. And just as surely, I knew it was my destiny to hunt him down.
Once I had his name, I had him. His neighborhood wasn’t hard to find—and it wasn’t anything like mine, that’s for damned sure. A few easy bucks on the street bought me everything I needed to know.
Daniel was a pool junkie, played every night at Tommy’s Pool and Suds on East Seventeenth Street in Shelton. The bar closed at two, and by two-fifteen he was on his way to his wheels in the parking lot. The last thing he expected was to find a woman leaning against his driver’s side door.
Did he think perhaps I was someone he knew, someone whose face was obscured in the dim light of the parking lot? Whatever, whoever he thought I might be, he was smiling as he walked toward me.
“Hello, Daniel,” I said in my sexiest voice.
“Hello, you,” he replied, never breaking stride as he walked toward me.
“Hey, Montoya,” one of his buddies called from across the lot, “Tomorrow, hey?”
“Right, man,” Daniel called back, never taking his eyes from mine. “Tomorrow.”
We stood staring at each other, listening as the other cars were started and driven from the lot.
“So, pretty lady, what’s happening?” he asked.
“You’re happening, Daniel.”
“Do I know you?”
“You know a friend of mine,” I said, my right arm folded across my waist, my hand hidden by the loose jacket I wore.
“Who’s your friend?” He stepped closer, sensing an easy score.
“Jessica Fielding.” My arm started its slow move from beneath the folds of the jacket.
“Doesn’t ring a…”
I could tell the exact moment that bell began to ring. His stare froze, his mouth half opened and his expression went from seductive to panic in the blink of an eye. “Don’t think I know her, sorry.”
In less than a heartbeat, my trusty little friend was pressed up against his temple.
“Should I describe her to you, Daniel? Should I remind you of the last time you saw her?” I had straightened up and now had him backed up against his front fender.
He was silent, trying frantically, I believe, to find a way out of this, a way to disarm me. He wanted to grab for the gun, I could see that in his eyes, but he wasn’t sure of my strength or my reflexes, so he, like a wolf, was gauging my movements, biding his time when he could move in for the kill. He opened his mouth to speak, thinking to distract me.
“Don’t say a word I don’t ask you to say,” I hissed, jamming the gun into the flesh on the side of his face. “I’m going to ask you a question, and you are going to answer it. No bullshit, understand? One question, one answer, or I will shoot you now, right now.”
Sweat beaded on his forehead, and I was certain he understood.
“The name of the others who were with you when Jessie Fielding was raped.”
“I don’t know…”
“You weren’t listening, Daniel. I will repeat this only one more time. I ask a question, you give me an answer, or I do you right now.” I was beginning to sweat a bit myself. I wanted this over with. “One last chance, Daniel. Who was with you when Jessie was raped?”
“Some of the guys, I didn’t know.”
“Then
