Free Heart of a Dove by Abbie Williams

Lorie, run!
    Chest heaving, I sidestepped him and turned to flee. Sam stumbled, but his grab connected with the back of my hair, which he held solidly, yanking my head. He kept his hand fisted there, twisting me around to face him again and I cried out.
    Fight him, Lorie, you can fight! Don’t be such a girl.
    I can’t fight, Dalty, I thought, dread closing its fist over me, even as Sam’s fingers spread out along my throat.
    “You can’t escape me, Lila,” he said, softly, almost tenderly.
    “Sam, for Christ’s sake,” said a new voice, approaching us from behind, and Sam’s upper lip curled even as he set me from him with a hard shove. I stumbled backwards and nearly fell, as another man emerged from the shadows, a man I recognized. It was the small, wiry, former soldier that everyone called Union Jack. He frequented Ginny’s, but I couldn’t remain here to wonder at their connection. Even if Sam fired shots from his pistol into my back as I ran, I would take that chance; better to die from a gunshot wound than at his hands. I lifted my skirts and fled.
    Within minutes I was breathless at Hossiter’s back door, leaning against the side of the building a split second before I realized he may have been in pursuit. But he was not; I was alone in the fully-dark night. With trembling fingers I eased open the door, even my fears of being confronted by Ginny paling in comparison to Sam Rainey. I needn’t have feared as it was; the hall and stairs were empty, both. The rollicking piano music became slightly less muffled as I climbed the stairs with the lightest of steps; two from the top, I paused to listen for telltale footsteps coming down the hall. When I heard no one, I flew to my room and closed the door behind me, then collapsed atop my bed.
    Deirdre came creeping in at dawn’s light, finding me asleep. I woke at her gentle touch, still fully clothed and wearing my boots; I’d not the energy to remove them last night. I blinked and regarded her through a haze in my mind, before saying, “I have it.”
    Her shoulders sank with relief and she kissed my forehead.
    “It’s here,” I whispered, unbuttoning my dress and extracting the bag. “She gave me instructions, and Deirdre…you may never conceive again, she told me.”
    Her eyes held mine, dark as ebony.
    “No matter,” she said. “Lorie, I can never thank you enough.”
    “Hold me,” I whispered, needing her arms about me. My limbs ached from shaking. I had finally dozed, if fitfully, less than an hour ago.
    She nodded, setting the small bag aside and curling around me. Her warmth comforted me, and she stroked my hair until at last my eyes drifted closed and I was able to claim another few hours of sleep.

- 5 -
    “When will you use it?” I asked Deirdre later that morning, in the kitchen. We were alone, though still whispered.
    “Today, though I’ll have to feign illness. Ginny won’t question it, I’ve never taken sick, and Eva claims a headache every so often,” she mused. And then, “I opened it. It smells vile. I don’t know how—oh!”
    I had lifted one arm to run my fingers along my scalp, inadvertently displaying my upper arm, as the slippery sleeve of my dressing gown slid to my shoulder. Deirdre leaned forward and studied me with horror in her eyes; I lowered my arm and hugged myself, defensively.
    “What in the hell?” she demanded in a low voice. “What in the hell?”
    Closing my eyes, seeing his face on the backs of my eyelids, I whispered, “He grabbed me on the way back last night. It was Sam. He grabbed my arms.”
    Deirdre reached and lifted my sleeves gently, though with determination, and then she gasped. I needn’t be looking to know what she saw: the ugly blue-black bruising exactly resembling fingers on my flesh.
    “How did he…he hasn’t been in here in months!”
    “He must have seen me, followed me, I don’t know, I don’t know,” I whispered, tears gushing, streaking through my lowered eyelashes.