Free Wolver's Rescue by Jacqueline Rhoades

from the tub, she’d had to
turn away. She was so afraid he would see in her face what she’d
felt inside.
    If the hallucination of the wolf on the wall
didn’t prove she’d finally lost what little sanity she had, that
shower certainly did. She’d known him for what? Seven or eight
hours? That wasn’t long enough for Stockholm syndrome. Was it? Her
doctors would probably call it a form of transference.
    Whatever it was, Tommie knew it wasn’t real.
It couldn’t be. Like the inner voice, the dreams, and the shadow on
the wall, she knew this feeling she had was just another symptom of
her growing mental illness and she had to get away before her
humiliation was complete.
    The thing inside her growled. It always
objected to rational thought as if it viewed those thoughts as
dangerous. It was happiest when she was at her craziest, that time
in her younger days when she partied hardy, ran wild, and threw
caution to the wind. Now, it mostly showed anger and disappointment
as a reflection of her failure as a human being.
    The woman on the TV screen was telling her
that she could clean up the messiness of her life in an instant
with the purchase of her super-duper dust mop. All she had to do
was send in nineteen –ninety-five plus shipping and handling and
her world would be a happier place.
    “ Shut up!” Tommie told both
voice and TV woman. She threw herself back in
frustration.
    The headboard wobbled and banged against the
wall. When Tommie pushed back a little more, the headboard bent
back with her. The headboard wasn’t secured to the wall, but to the
bed frame and not too securely at that. Tommie leaned over the bed
for a closer inspection.
    Bull had fastened the handcuff to the
bedframe. With the headboard removed, she might be able to slide
the cuff off the end of the frame. Only two bolts stood in her
way.
    The bed wasn’t secured to the wall, but the
nightstand was. Working in such a cramped space with her left hand
cuffed to the rail, made things difficult. Her right hand kept
cramping up from the awkward angle, and her fingers kept slipping
off the nut.
    She was on her knees with her head under the
bed. It was the most comfortable position to work. Wads of dust
bunnies dangled from the ancient and exposed box spring and every
time the bed moved a sprinkling of dust would fall. It made her
sneeze, and the sneeze would make her head hit the springs, shaking
loose more dirt. Her nose was running, her eyes watering. Her
shoulders were aching. Still, she was making progress. One bolt was
removed and the second was on its way.
    Headlights shined through the flimsy curtains
drawn across the front windows. The light didn’t pass like a car
turning through the parking lot and Tommie knew her plan had failed
again. But all was not lost. She left the nut and bolt where they
lay to look like they’d worked themselves loose and withdrew from
under the bed. A short hop would put her back on top where she’d
look like she spent the whole time.
    It was another good plan that failed. She
couldn’t move without ripping the hair from her head. The tangles
that Bull’s flimsy comb couldn’t remove were now tangled further in
the springs of the bed.
    The door to the room opened and there she
was; head down and ass up. She’d never been suicidal, but the
thought now crossed her mind.
    “ Just shoot me,” she
muttered to the dust bunny under her nose.
    “ You sure don’t make it easy
on yourself, do you, spitfire? What in hell are you doing
now?”
    “ I’m stuck under the bed,”
she said, stating what she considered the obvious. She heard him
chuckle.
    “ You can’t be. You’re not
big enough to get stuck under a bed.”
    Tommie could hear him moving and paper
rattling as he settled bags on the desk, and the smell. The aroma
of hot food filled the room.
    “ Shows how much you know,”
she grumbled. “Are you going to help me?” She tried to turn her
head to see where he was. She hissed at the yank to