Free Left To Die by Lisa Jackson

bleating of a frightened sheep.
    Pathetic.
    But it was all she could do.
    Still pounding on the horn, she yelled again until her throat was raw, hoping her pathetic din and the fading headlights would draw some attention. But no sound of a car’s engine answered, no jumbled shouts of rescuers could be heard, no whop, whop, whop of a helicopter’s rotors sounded over the sigh of the wind.
    No…she was alone.
    In this godforsaken wilderness, with the freezing night slipping ever closer, she was totally and frighteningly alone.

Chapter Five
    “You suck!” Bianca grumbled under her breath as Jeremy lay on the couch watching MTV.
    “You suck!” he threw back and tossed another handful of some trail mix into his mouth.
    “Right now, I think you both suck,” Regan broke in from the kitchen. “And for the record, I hate that word. Can’t you come up with some other insult? Something a little more clever.”
    “Oh, Mom, don’t be such a nerd.” Bianca flopped into a side chair, red-blonde curls flouncing around her small face. A few freckles she tried desperately to hide with makeup bridged her nose and her big hazel eyes were rimmed with thick, dark lashes. Just like her damned father.
    Cisco hopped into Bianca’s lap. She usually adored and indulged the dog, but she was in one of her foul moods right now and, frowning, pushed Cisco onto the floor. He sat on the worn carpet and cocked his head from one side to the other, as if trying to understand the girl who had, before falling in love, lavished all her attention upon him.
    “Can’t help it, Bianca, I’m a nerd by nature. It’s genetic, and as such, you, too, have the nerd gene.” Regan plucked off a prematurely dying bloom from the Christmas cactus in the garden window.
    Bianca rolled her eyes as if her mother were the most stupid woman on the planet. “I just want to go over to Chris’s for a while. I don’t think it’s that big of a deal.”
    “It’s a blizzard outside, if you haven’t noticed. The only reason I’m going out is because I have to.” Regan was bundling up in enough outer gear to battle the elements. She grabbed her stocking cap and gloves off the table, where the mail had been stacked and unattended for days. “I don’t want either of you driving.”
    Again, Bianca rolled those huge Pescoli eyes.
    Which ticked Regan off.
    “And not only are you to have your homework done by the time I get home, I want the dishwasher unloaded and all the dishes in the sink washed.”
    Neither of her children responded.
    “Jer, I’m talkin’ to you, too,” she said a little louder. He was glued to the set, didn’t so much as look over his shoulder. “Jeremy!” She walked into the living room before realizing he was wearing earbuds buried deep in his ears so that he could blast his brain with music from his iPod while watching some reality show with what he called “hot whiny chicks.”
    “Jeremy!” she yelled, tapping him on the shoulder.
    “Wha—?” He looked up and, when he saw her stern expression, said again, “What?”
    She yanked out one of the earbuds. “You feed the dog and unload the dishwasher, then do the dishes. It’s your week.”
    “But Bianca—”
    “Did them last week. You’re on, bud.”
    “Yeah, right,” he groused, his gaze wandering back to the television.
    “I mean it. And this mess”—she motioned to the paper plates and glasses stacked on the coffee table within easy reach of his highness—“needs to be picked up.”
    “I’ll do ’em. Okay? Geez…”
    “Good. I’ve got a witness.”
    Bianca, too burned that she wasn’t being allowed to leave, didn’t even show any of her usual smugness or pleasure that Jeremy was being reamed. She was too busy texting what were probably notes of undying love to the man of her dreams, Chris, a lanky, dull-appearing boy who spoke in monosyllables and, unless Regan missed her guess, was a habitual marijuana smoker.
    Which scared her to death.
    Not that she